Redefining Happiness

Ask any mom if they were happy before they had children and I'll bet they say yes.  They had freedom, energy, creativity, and their youth was on their side.  A few days before my daughter turned four, my mother said to me, "How is it possible that just four years ago you had no children?"  That was a lifetime ago I thought.  Four years, two kids ago I considered myself to be happy.  I was a newly-wed, coping with being a cash poor home owner.

I was happy at the time.  But from the moment my first child was born, I decided that happiness was a moving target and in fact, I didn't know just what my capacity for happiness was until I looked into the eyes of this tiny person that I had created.  It's safe to say that I had no idea just what I was capable of until I had children.

I never knew just how much I could love another person.  Despite losing my dad at a painfully young age, I didn't know until I became a mom just how much I stood to lose in this world.  It is that ever painful reminder, that gaping hole that losing a parent creates in ones life, that reminds me nearly every second just what can be lost, without warning and without any regard for what I consider fair.  It's the grindstone my emotions are constantly sharpened against.  It's the reality we all know but seldom acknowledge, filtering in with painful clarity when a little blurriness is actually necessary to get through the every day routine of life.

When I was in high school, friends would ask me why I was single.  That was the high school equivalent of being unhappy.  The truth was that I never really cared to be in a relationship.  I actually prefered to watch the high school melodrama unfold from the sidelines instead being caught in the web of adolescent romance whose rules and affections moved and changed with a swift breeze.  Then in college, while wallowing in homesickness I did something I had never done before.  I gave my number and a chance to a boy I had never seen before and didn't know at all.  I don't think I could have imagined at 19 that he would be it - my whole notion of love and trust and the model relationship I never saw growing up.

Falling in love with my husband was to that point in my life, the single scariest thing I had ever experienced.  It forced me to let go, be out of control, give someone this power over my happiness that I had somehow imagined to be the gesture of a weak person who didn't really think that they alone were all they needed to be happy.  Falling in love turned out to be the mirror that I always wished I had.  My husband allowed me to see in myself the person I always wished I was, the person I had been all along.

Tonight while driving home, I looked at my kids faces in the rear view mirror and I thought about how everything I believed about happiness now centers around them.  They made me realize that I will do whatever it takes to spend as much time with them as I can because they define happiness for me now.  The fact that Hannah and Jayden love me, depend on me, and because at this moment in time I can safely say that their happiness depends on me, I have defined happiness as being worthy of them.  I owe it to them to pursue my dreams with passion because I have spent too much of my life thinking I didn't deserve to have all my dreams come true.  I think that despite all my fears that my imperfections as a mother will somehow change them in a negative way, I know that I am one of the only people on this Earth that gets to make them smile and be the mirror that they need in order to see the amazing people that they are.

Being a mom has made it pretty clear to me, this one amazing truth, that happiness is not something I have the luxury of hoping will happen.  I must make it happen.

No Spotlight In Love

Ok, so I really have no idea why, but the series finale of Medium really had a surprising impact on me.  For those of you that don't watch the show, it's about a Medium who can see and talk to dead people and she helps solve murder cases for the District Attorney's office.  While the show centers pretty clearly on the main character and her supernatural abilities, it's also about Allison's family; her husband and three daughters.  So if you watch the show and haven't seen the series finale, read no further.  The way they ended the show was that her husband Joe dies in a plane crash and Allison so clearly can't deal with it that she invents an entire dream where he amazingly survived the crash and is living in Mexico with amnesia and can't remember who he is or where he's from.  Then Joe's spirit comes to her and sadly informs her that it was just a dream and in fact he didn't survive the crash.  The show fast forwards to her as an old lady passing away in a nursing home and seeing Joe again and they are young and in love and will now be together for eternity.

I really don't know why, but I was so saddened by her loss and because it's TV they really got to skip over the bulk of the grief, but it made me think of my own marriage.  Blame the estrogen if you want, blame sentimentality or blame love itself if you want, but in the moments after the show I wondered how I would pick up the pieces of my life if something were to happen to my husband.  There would be no fast forward to move me in time past the crater forged through the center of my life.  There would be a sharing of the secret pain of the fatherless club, my children would be forced to join.  How could I deal with any of that?  Though I'm only 30, I have spent 12 years of my life loving one person.  I look at him and he is at one moment the boy I fell in love with, spotting him across campus in his ball cap and baggy jeans and feeling my heart race, and also the husband and father I have watched him become. 

When I had my surgery last year, I tried my best to muster forth my "if should something should happen to me" speech while my husband and I pulled up the hospital drive.  I had a knot in my throat the size of a golf ball as I let myself for a minute imagine for my family a life without me, but my husband predictably waved the scenario away as a matter of fact.  It was not necessary.  I knew it probably wasn't as well, but I also know the pain of hearing unexpected news, recounting final conversations, knowing there will never be reply or answers ever again.  What is harder, in my opinion, is being the one left behind to pick up the pieces, to carry on when all you want to do is pull the remainder of your life over your head, hide and perhaps fast forward to a better point in time.  Pretty much what the show conveyed.

So here's what I'll take from this show.  Despite the fact that we are the main characters in our own lives, we can't forget that we cannot live in the spotlight if we are to share our lives with someone.  I hope my children will one day understand this.  Children live in the spotlight for a long long time, through adolescence and into their young adult lives.  But one day, love will find them as it did for me.  Ready or not, it will move in and change their lives as they knew them.  I think people say they fall in love because it's passive.  Nobody ever says they jumped into love, because frankly love is so powerful and scary that nobody would willingly jump into that void.  Ironically enough, I think it's amazing that so many of us of take the leap into parenthood.  We know it will be scary, we know it will be hard, but I think we also know that the love is more certain.  Loving our children is innate, like a switch that gets turned on involuntarily.  For me, it's like the pregnancy test was the switch, loving my child was that easy.  Pee on a stick and instant love for another human being.  Don't we wish all love was that easy?

Is it really the THOUGHT that counts?

Here's what I remember about the first Christmas I learned what LOVE really meant.  I can't remember exactly how old I was, maybe 7 or 8, and per usual I was at my grandma's house for Christmas Eve.  Since my parents separated when I was 5, spending Christmas Eve with him at my grandma's house and Christmas at home with my mom was the norm.

We were all opening gifts.  Aunts, Uncles, grandma, dad, and us kids were sitting around the tree.  The kids were fists of fury; paper flying everywhere.  I noticed that my cousin had gotten this singing teddy bear that I thought was just SO cool from my grandma and I remember thinking, "WOW" she must really love him very much.  It was no doubt true, but I put the thought aside for a moment and opened a gift from my dad.  It was a Rainbow Bright doll.  Unfortunately for my dad, I wasn't really into Rainbow Bright at the time.  I immediately thought, "he doesn't love me very much if he doesn't even know what I like."

Poor, poor divorced parents.  The ones without custody are like onlookers on the other side of the glass.  They know their children, but they sometimes miss the details just for lack of being with their kids everyday.  It must be a heartbreaking thing, to only see your child on weekends and holidays.  I cannot imagine what that must be like.  Even though I joke that I would gladly take a day off from my children, I'm not sure I could stitch together enough pieces of me to make myself a whole person with the holes they would leave without their laughter, crazy dancing on the carpet, splashing in the tub, and yes the chaos of wrestling, shoving, and doing it themselves without any help from mommy.

So I do what all small children do when they are completely disappointed, I throw myself full tilt into a melt down; tears, storming out of the room and the icing on the cake of all tantrums I will not explain what has me so upset.  So I'm sitting in my grandmother's basement trying to piece together the connective strings I have learned in my short time on Earth.  Love equals things.  Better things equal more love.  So less things or lesser quality things must equal less love, right?  So that means that my dad doesn't love me nearly as much as my grandma loves my cousin because she gave him a way cool singing teddy bear and my dad gives me a Rainbow Bright doll that I didn't even want.

I want to cry at my childhood innocence and stupidity.  Blame our consumer culture if you want, but these are the sad lessons we as children learn through the actions of the adults in our lives.  My dad comes down and asks me what is wrong and I don't remember what I said.  Though I was saddened by his "lack of love" for me, I still didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him the way I really felt.  Eventually, I confess that I'm not a big Rainbow Bright fan.  He seems a bit hurt, but instead of being angry with me he assures me I have other presents to unwrap and I might find something else I like.

After a little while of talking, he convinces me to go back upstairs and finish opening my presents. One of the very next presents I unwrap is Rainbow Bright's horse.  It had a big star on its forehead, which I thought was pretty cool at the time.  Now I'm happy.  Now she has a pet and this makes her better than what she was alone.  So I assure my dad that I'm happy with his presents.  I'll never know if he believed me or not or how badly I hurt his feelings by throwing a fit and almost ruining what I didn't know then would be one of too few holidays in our painfully short time together on this Earth.  But I learned something, despite my age; it didn't matter so much what he had gotten me.  He loved me and had wanted to make me happy with a gift and I used that gift to measure something for which there is no Earthly measure - the love a parent has for their child.

Despite my regret during this poorly timed growing experience, I'm eternally grateful that I learned that love can't be measured by anything, least of all a gift you can buy at the store.  Some people still walk this Earth, trying to measure it this way.  I think it's because it makes them uncomfortable - the enormity and the responsibility of love.  We try to break it down into smaller bite sizes pieces we can analyze and hold, and study with a microscope.  It makes us feel that much safer to put it into our pockets then to know it spans the entirety of every breath we take, every moment our heart beats, and the limitless sky we sleep beneath.  So on this Christmas day, when I myself have become the parent, I think of my Dad and I try to breathe without him.  I pray that he can hear my heart beat, because he helped design its rhythm.  I will sleep under the sky- the majestic, infinite sky that he watches me from and I know, without hesitation, just how much he loved me.

The Keeper of Childhood

Many things come to mind when I think about my childhood, but there is one person that actually holds all these memories in the pockets of her gardening frock - my grandmother.  While searching through my old writing samples from college one thing became evident to me - my granmother and her house hold the key to my childhood.  Perhaps because it was the only lock that never EVER changed.

I remember nearly all the details of my grandmother's house, including the secret hiding spot in the yard.  My grandmother's face, her thick German accent, her ever present love is what created "childhood" for me.  Her life was hard, but she was soft and kind.  She survived World War II in Germany with no food, no permanent home and a toddler and an infant and she did it alone.  I cannot imagine surviving in the face of these daunting obstacles.  Her strenghth is astounding to me.

Last week, I came face to face with the end of my childhood.  I flew down to South Carolina to say goodbye to my dying grandmother.  It's hard to look at what life has left her with, stripped of her autonomy, mobility, and her health, but then I looked closer.  When she was awake, she was alert and funny and brave.  She was not lost; childhood was not lost.  I spoke to her yesterday and she seems to be rallying.  Her voice sounded full of life again.  She tells me not to be sad or fearful of death because there is just no sense in getting upset about the natural progression of life.  I truly don't think she has a single regret about her life.  It's really not hard to admire someone like that.

The person who gave me the freedom to love and hope, dream and also fail - that is my grandmother.  That is my childhood wrapped in that warm and somewhat shy smile.  I'm not sure at any moment whether there will be a next time to say goodbye, but now I will try to hold onto her wisdom when the time comes.  I will not lose her just as my childhood cannot be lost because it existed.   I am the person I am because of her.  I will always be hiding in the fort in the front yard, watching her weed her garden, drinking deep the smells of her kitchen.  I will always remain a version of my past the same way I, as her granddaughter, will live as the continuation of her life.  I am damn priviledged to carry her blood in my veins.

So here's to grandparents, who hold childhood in constant freeze frame and remind us that while life keeps ushering us forward, it is truly a gift to remember where we all started. 

The Baby Bump

I can only credit one person for the creation of the "baby bump" - my wonderful husband. Before your mind takes a turn for the dirty - no I"m not talking about the term developed by tabloid magazines to "out" a pregnant star. I'm talking about a special non-verbal "I love you" that our children have learned since infancy.

I couldn't tell you exactly when he came up with it or why, but it has grown into a full fledged tradition, beginning with my daughter Hannah who is now 3 and continued with my son Jayden who is nearly 10 months old. My husband leans his head forward toward toward my children's foreheads and then I guess thanks to "monkey see monkey do" they lean in and together they bump foreheads.

It was like any tradition to sweep quietly into the heart of a family. It has been understood from the moment of creation that it means "I love you." So in a sense my children and I have been "saying" I love you since they developed neck control. My mom and step-dad quickly adopted it as well. My son takes it to a sometimes painful level of enthusiasm - giving multiple bumps to the point of potential concussion. Like his parents he's an all or nothing kind of kid.

Thanks to the creation of the "baby bump" I have learned that sometimes it's what you DON'T say that becomes the most special expression of love. Anyone can say the words "I love you." But the "baby bump" that's all ours. Do you have a special non-verbal tradition with your kids? Feel free to share. That's what we teach our kids right? Use your words and share. Certainly those are the lessons I'd like to instill in my kids - and many adults for that matter.

Triage On The Parenthood Battle Field

If you have more than one child you have now entered the fun triage zone of the parenthood battle field. There comes a day usually early after you bring home baby number two when suddenly both kids are crying at the same time, and here comes the instant triage scenario: You do a mental checklist, trying to come up with an assessment of which child needs you most urgently at that moment. Is one child hurt and the other simply lonely? Is one child hungry and one is tired and cranky?

The mental checklist is long and we mothers go through it at a supremely fast rate. To outsiders it may look like we are playing favorites when we quickly rush to one child's side over another, but what outsiders don't know is that we fight the war of guilt that consumes us all the time. It's all because we had the audacity to have and love more than one child, all the while knowing that we are simply one person with the limitations of being one single person who can not possibly do all things for all children all the time. Then we find ourselves begging our children to wait, be patient, hurry up, quiet down, behave, the list goes on and on. All because once your family goes from "one child" to "one more child" we have inadvertantly given our children the upper hand. Now we are out numbered.

When one child is sick the choice may seem easy. You go to the child who is sick first. But life and motherhood are not so simple. Just because one child may need you a lot more, you still must tend to the other or others. My heart goes out to women who face impossible choices every day, who carry guilt that they can not untangle from their love and devotion.

I guess all we can do is remind them, remind ourselves, to look up from our medical kits and our bandages and our checklists to see that there are other nurses and doctors in this triage tent of ours. That love can come from more places than we can possibly imagine and though the feeling of responsibility seems so overwhelmingly ours alone, it simply is not. Our children get love and guidance from our close and extended family, friends, friends of family, co-workers and neighbors.

I think that because mothers are responsible for our children from the moment of conception a part of us never lets go of the ENORMITY of that responsiblity, but sometimes, just sometimes it's ok to allow ourselves to step back and let someone else take over. It's ENORMOUSLY important for us to relinquish the responsibilty to our spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, friend or anyone who loves us enough to take some of the responsibility off our plate. We, as mothers, can not afford to look up from our checklists one day to see that it is no longer our children on the triage cot, but ourselves.