Living the Choices

It's 8:30 and already I'm so tired I crave bed and warmth and pillows. But Grey isn't down yet and this is my only time for (re)connecting with Gordon. And so it goes that I never get to bed before 11, rise at least once to feed Grey, and am up with Henry by 7. But I cherish these first months with the baby which will be gone before I even blink. But I've promised myself to write each night so I'll delve in and see where I go from here.

To continue from my last post, in the looking around my house and recognizing all these odd assortments of furniture and stones and prints that together make up My Things and wondering how it all happened. And most of all in realizing that this is just what I have and where I am, it is the same with Me. With Who I am. Somewhere, in the last 32 years, I've become what I am. Not so obviously as picking up accidental objects from the streets of San Francisco, but who I am has, in one way or another, just happened on some level. I find myself here, as who I am, and not that I can't change or become, but this person that I see the world through when I open my eyes in the morning, that person is just me. It is the me that I see in the mirror and wonder over; the person that struggles with some things that have plagued me my whole life, and other things which have come up only recently. But no matter what, I am 32 years into this life of mine--the only one I'll ever get--and those 32 years of events and moments and loves and wishes and regrets are irrevocable. They are past. I think this is a difficult thing to come to terms with . Past. Past tense. Memory. Things that cannot be changed.

I remember, walking back from Falleti's pushing Henry in the Stroller, seeing those young people in San Francisco. Hipsters and twenty-somethings with not a care in the world and enormous pulsing potential. And I was envious. Or nostalgic. Or perhaps only whimsically remembering that total utter freedom. That selfishness. Being able to do whatever I wanted. Because with security, with responsibility, with the absolute joy of motherhood comes permanency. And this also brings great, earth-shaking love. Last night, after he had made a little cry, I went to check on Henry and seeing him asleep, I kissed that part of his neck right where it meets his shoulder. And this boy, I realized, this curly haired angel, was mine. He was something I created, something that belonged to me for now. Something that was mine to kiss and snuggle and touch. And that soon, sooner than I will want, the territory of his body will become his own and will be off limits to me. And that he will become his own person with secrets and resentments and issues. He will no longer be mine. But for now, for that magical moment by the yellow hush of the nightlight, he was my most tender, sweetest love. And that, moments like that, make the hipsters life seem empty.

I've gotten off track here. I didn't mean to wax poetic over what I miss, over what I've lost. I meant instead to talk of how interesting it is that I am who I am. That I'm an adult. And this person that I am is the person that Henry and Greyson will remember as their mom. I am their idea of a grown up. And that means that who I am is already complete. That sounds odd--it's not that I won't be growing and changing for my whole life, but that most of my major choices have already been made. And I know this is just part of growing up. I think of my parents, who have lived such a wonderful life, and I yearn for the security they have in looking back over a life well-lived. I hope I will be able to do that as well. But this shift just happened for me. The shift between wondering what my life will be and having the freedom to make it however I choose, and having made my choices already and living them well. The looking back comes later--that's the next stage. This isn't news to me, I knew conceptually that it would come. My mom told me when I was only a child about how disillusioned she'd been to discover that there was no plateau of adulthood, no point at which she would ever feel grown up. I think the biggest let down is that there is certainly no plateau of self-sufficiency, self-understanding or self-confidence. There is only who you are at each different stage of life wondering how to make the best of who you are and of each day.

Today was a good day. Full of connections with old friends through email and new friends in person. I managed to clean the house, all but the dishes, and run my errands. But mostly, thanks to the space I've created in this blog, it was a day in which I had room for contemplation. For feeling the inner workings of my mind as it began to chug slowly back to life. Chug--chug--ch--ch--chug. Like the watch I just got from my mom that needs to be wound each day, I need the daily act of mental exercise to work correctly. I've laid dormant and to suddenly begin again there is the joy of movement and the surprise of work that writing gives me. I am thankful for this. That I'm writing, that I wrote yesterday and the day before, it is all seeping into my life, coloring it and exciting me and making me think harder and longer. No poetry during diaper changes yet, but words are beginning to form in my mind and thoughts are rising slowly like bread. I am encouraged. I am finding the Me in the Mom.