i remember when my daughter was about 4 months old, sleeping peacefully in her swing. i had just come out of the shower, and her father is sitting near her, watching her.
“she’s so perfect.”
surely, we both know perfection isn’t ‘real’. but when you have a kid, you realize that perfection has now taken the form of that kid — and don’t call me shirley.
having a kid made me realize fairytales are true. i remember thinking about how i could lock her in a tower with everything she could ever want to do. keep her safe from the world out there.
“you want to become the bad guy from tangled?”
jeez, you’re right.
we’ve all been raised on these movies depicting the various negative side effects of being an overbearing parent. and, as the child of overbearing parents: i got whacked in the face by the hammer of reality in college and feel like i’m still suffering through the aftermath. i’m still trying to find myself. and now i’m supposed to raise a human?
but she is already perfection. i feel as though i cannot go wrong, then i feel as though i am wrong in thinking that. “no one’s ever ready,” my mom says one day, as i release my ocean of emotion upon her. that doesn’t make me feel better, though. if no one is ever ready, than why are people saying ‘we are ready to have a baby?’ what are the standards they have checked off that makes them so sure? at this point, i have raised 5 puppies, many kittens, chickens, and even one horse, and not a SINGLE experience from that has me any more prepared for the EMOTIONAL toll this is taking on me.
this is a Being with my mitochondrial DNA. my ATP is powering this Machine. and i’ll be honest, some days, that terrifies me. i think of how i am and how i could be different. and in many ways, i think i could be so much worse.
“you shouldn’t have had a child if you weren’t ready for it” my mom says another day, when i’ve lost my cool a little bit too much (over the fact my baby daddy doesn’t want to debate the intricacies of science and religion — i’m not proud) and call her for help to defuse our fight. again, this doesn’t make me feel better, and this time, it effectively makes me feel worse. i realize, being a mom will still be hard even when my kid is 25 and has her own kid and calls me for advice. i’d like to pretend like i could come up with something existentially satisfying to tell her, as opposed to reminding her that she can’t go back in time and change her life.
then, maybe that’s what i needed to hear. maybe we all need a reminder, that there are many things we cannot change. perhaps, parenthood punishes puny personal philosophers.
at some point, we have to just ride the ride.
i just wish i could remember how to feel ______ (insert adjective here.) every good thought, every good feeling, is trapped in a maze. i’m becoming my own minotaur. i want her to keep needing me, and i want to keep giving her what she needs. but i know from my experience with my own parents, and from pixar, and from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes: i will not always be able to give her what she needs. and my body knows this and my body cannot shake this and my body is choosing to live in that painful moment when i’ll have to watch her fall out of the nest. if i even get that chance, some parents don’t. jeez, i hate this rabbit hole.
i wish i didn’t know that ignorance truly is bliss.
(thanks for reading my wordvom)
