There are a few reasons for my recent lack of chatter, not the least of which is how annoying I usually find my own chatter...
Seriously, I grow overwhelmingly weary of listening to my own voice endlessly carrying on, muttering out my own inconsequential opinions. I ask myself, "WHO cares ANYWAY?" If even I don't care what I think is there any shred of hope anyone else will? Um, doubtful.
Then, there were the things I should have documented but couldn't bring myself to acknowledge. Like the way my sweet, edible, little luvbug of a precious baby girl lost not one but two teeth and learned to ride a bicycle in the same week, both breaking her mama's heart and filling it with exuberant delight all at the same time. Or, how my eldest gift of a child, the one who gently, beautifully ushered me into motherhood and has been making short work of capsizing my heart, turning it all topsy turvy with mingling elation and sorrow ever since, turned twelve. Twelve. I can hardly cope. I'm just not ready. I did not sign off on this.
I was sure my role was to allow and prohibit behavior, managing her conduct since we entered this union together. I will be your mommy and you will be my baby and you will do as I say and everything will be okay, got it sweetie pie? I did not say time could take ceaseless hold of her, propelling her forward into young womanhood at warp speed. I did not say there could be only six short years until her eighteenth birthday. Six years! At my age it is as six days. There is so much to do still! So much to experience together. Such a vast array of childhood left to enjoy. Is six years enough time? Have I made the most of what we've had? Do I squander what I should savor, taking for granted what I ought to treasure? My soul has entered an inescapable partnership of weeping and rejoicing since the moment I first met that beautiful girl.
She is getting braces today. Giddy with excitement, she is. She has always wanted them. Happy for her, I am. There is not a thing I don't want her to have.
It's the constant tension of motherhood I find myself in - torn between two worlds - one filled with pleasure at their progress and the other filled with pain at their progress.
Meadow is getting along famously. I can hardly believe the forward momentum we have made since I last wrote about her. This girl is an overcommer if ever one lived. She has taught me more with her life than perhaps any other human I have come in contact with. Sometimes, even after all we have been through, I have to pinch myself that she is now a child of mine. What an exquisite soul that young lady possesses. I love her, I love her, I love her. It took time, but I love her. I love her. Happy tears of hearts being woven together through gratifying labor wet my face.
If you haven't yet seen it and care to take a look, something I wrote is a finalist in a writing contest that has an actual cash prize! My entry is here. I was honest to goodness shocked to be considered. Short on time the week of the deadline, just before going to Kansas for my highschool reunion, I literally sat for an hour at my computer while my kids were at VBS and responded to the prompt. Then, I hated what I had written. But I drained myself mentally and emotionally pouring my thoughts into it, so I pushed enter and went on with life, working to forget about it. I wouldn't let Bob (or anyone else!) read it because I thought it was so sub par. I didn't look at it again until the day it was posted when I finally summoned the courage to reread it and found it a little less terrible than I initially believed. Anyway, I am grateful to be part. And we all know, stay at home ladies who haven't worked *real jobs* in more than a dozen years can always find a way to spend a little cash...:)
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