lost in plain sight
There are no clear guides for the Mother Path.
I’m talking about the signposts and the bright solid and broken lines of where to cross and where to just stay still. Breast milk or bottle? Encouragement or caution- for the scary things- like trying out for 7th grade softball or, strange men who follow, or moms with cancer. I’m talking about a GPS system and the actual guide- pointing out the ditches of boyfriends who don’t look up to say hi and the smooth pavement of noticing my daughters’ kindness, the dry humor, the beautiful laughter watching New Girl on winter nights. It’s that actual, real-time guide that I most need. I know there are books and websites to research every new turn. But it’s in the sudden moment of being a mom, THE Mom, that I really wish I had the map for.
I am aware- that Dr. Spock said I am the one who knows best what my babies need. And I believe him, actually. Which is why I also believe that it’s a failure on my part that I am unclear about how late is the curfew for a 17 year old, or whether a lie from an 8 year old is asking for a punishment or a conversation- banishment or connection? (And, while we are here, is connection a sign of affirmation? Also, IF there happens to be a global pandemic during my 19 year old’s first year of college and the dorms are closed- do we both pretend it’s totally fine that she’s still in her same bedroom at home, or do we continue filling out soul-sucking rental applications and sifting through fake scam apartments on craigslist?)
There are other Territories Unknown for which I am missing crucial navigational information. Is it better to earn very little money while being available and home more? What if I have cancer- is it more ok then? Or, am I teaching them to be lazy and unprepared for how expensive life is? And back to the cancer thing, is therapy automatically mandatory for daughters whose mom is stage IV? Or, is the endless pandemic summer spent by the lake with socially not-distant-at-all friends what’s really needed for the 18 year old soul? What if those friends disappear for a while? What then? Because suddenly I am remembering how valuable a guide would be through The Mystery Backroads of how depressed is normal and which kinds of unhappiness are leading to suicide? This is where the guide would be useful.
I have been their only participating parent for over 4 years now. Maybe their dad broke under the pressure of human life. Who knows? He’s not completely gone; they still text. And I do want his road to be a good and solid one…In any case, here I am - on the Mother Path with the most lovely companions in my care… not because a court said so and not because I gave birth to them. They are in my care because my heart makes it so.
It’s completely unfair how complicated we have made the business of being human- to the point that the Mother Path is overgrown and hard to follow. Heart-melting pride and profound grief are inches from each other the whole way. The abundance of hugs turns to one or two every few miles, then days… ( but what if your child doesn’t hug, or can’t?) My path isn’t even through that world, isn’t the world of having brown skin, or a different first language, an undefinable gender… or countless worlds of countless other obstacles strewn everywhere.
So, I applaud you, and all of us mothers, fathers and grandparents, fosters, and often teachers- all of us who are sticking it out on the Mother Path- showing up without a map in an old beater, moving forward the best we can.
