Making meaning of it all
Motherhood is an exercise in grief.
There’s a puffy spider sticker on the wall of my shower that has been there for something like six years now. Chubby little toddler fingers stuck it there, and when I first noticed it, I thought it was sweet. I left it there for a little while, thinking I would eventually take it down, but I didn’t. And now I cannot remove the little witch-hatted Halloween spider. It has become a fixture of the shower.
Unlike many out-of-place things that just blend into the scenery in an ADHD household, I see the spider every single time I shower. And every single time, it is a reminder of the light-speed growth of my child — the little dimpled hand that slapped that sticker haphazardly onto the shower wall became a little boy’s hand and is now turning into the big-kid hand of a child with his own opinions about the world and his own life that is independent of mine.
He and I used to be so intertwined that where I stopped and where he began was indistinguishable. That little spider sticker is a reminder of all of this — the passage of time, the changes I cannot stop, the childhood innocence that is dwindling day by day. Motherhood is an exercise in grief.
I’m sitting in the living room, the spider in the shower, the boy who put it there eating cold oatmeal on the couch while making faces at his baby brother — a baby I never thought I’d have — who is cutting teeth and chewing on his fingers while kicking away in a bouncer seat. Despite current events, it’s still just Wednesday.
I can’t claim to be a political expert, and, truly, I don’t have anything new to add to the discussion surrounding the election. I’m tired. I am not articulate when it comes to politics, nor am I a wealth of knowledge. I stood in a short line to vote, did my best to darken each bubble with a bum thumb from being 40 and nursing a baby, then slid the papers through the machine and went back home to nurse said baby more, damage my thumb further and mop the floor.
Things are not normal, but they are. We can wallow, it’s allowed, but things are still business as usual, and maybe that’s the trouble with this world. Maybe that’s just how it is. The sun keeps rising and setting. The world keeps turning, yada, yada. It feels like too many people fail to care about women’s rights, immigrants, people fighting just to survive the day, and the fact that we just have to keep going, running on fumes in hopes that, one day, we might elect someone who has the power to affect change.
I do not have the power. I am not under some grand illusion that my voice will be heard above all the money and the racket. I can’t pretend I feel heard. I’d hazard a guess that many of us don’t feel heard, never mind the position we’ve taken.
It’s the same thing every time. Make the vote, post about it on social media, wear the sticker, be so proud, be sure everyone knows how responsible you are and how great it is that you have the right to vote, blah, blah, blah. Are we really touching the people in charge?
I don’t mean to sound bleak: I don’t feel bleak. The younger generations (that phrase really makes me feel old) are different; death doesn’t wait forever — even if you are hugely healthy and wealthy — and I’ll continue to vote and pour my energy into raising my kids.
My kids. That phrase still feels foreign six months in. Number 2’s arrival was so different than my first’s. Nearly eight years later, less than half the hours of labor, and pure joy without the severe postpartum depression and anxiety this time. Things can be different.
And yet.
With everything Baby 2 does, I remember Baby 1. There is no way to avoid comparison, but I don’t believe it is thieving any joy. It reminds me of how much has changed. How much will change. And how much is still the same.
I hope I am the mother my children need to keep them sweet, kind, loving, and honest. I hope for a political leader they’ll remember and can look up to, but I won’t hold my breath. We’re going to have to find our role models elsewhere. If we can’t separate the art from the artist, we certainly can’t free the felonies from the fugleman.
Wars rage, people need loans for groceries, dirty diapers are stacked on top of the full diaper trash bucket in my bedroom, and I’m happier than I think I have ever been.
That spider sticks to the shower wall, and I am thankful every time I see it. I can’t spend the precious little time I have with these small people thinking about who is going to prison today or should go to prison and won’t, or who is in prison and still controlling politics. It’s all happening whether I invest my passion into it or not, and I don’t have it in me.
I’m continuing to try and educate myself, stay informed, make smart choices about the votes I cast, but I’m putting my confidence in the spider sticker.
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