Perhaps my diagnoses are not the same as my mom's were - pretty sure they're not. But motherhood uploads a certain degree of neurosis that no therapist or self-help book can uninstall. And you don't know that you're voluntarily enrolling when you're thrilled to see the plus sign on the pee stick.
We all bring our own special nutty-ness into the equation; after all, "normal" is just a setting on the dryer. But once the maternal hormones start flowing, we become a whole new kind of nuts. These are familiar emotions - fear, joy, love - but it's like they're on crack or anabolic steroids.
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FEAR.
When I was eleven, my parents sent me to Camp Montvale for two weeks of summer camp, and I was against the whole notion. I'd been a regular at Webb Day Camp since I was a wee little lass, but other than the occasional sleepover at a friend's house, I'd never been away from home overnight for any extended period of time. And I knew my parents were headed for divorce (they were already separated); like most kids at that age, I thought I could perhaps influence their decision or remediate the cause of it.
But they packed me up and off I went, full of anxiety about all the "activities" in the brochure. Archery? There are pointy arrows, for pete's sake. Canoeing? We could turn over and the piranhas will get me. Hiking? Bugs and sweat. Riflery? DUH. I was a hot mess by the time we pulled into the front gates.
Actually, I ended up having a great time for the first few days, but one day there was a tubing disaster on the river - a boy flipped and drowned. A bunch of us were in tubes several hundred yards behind him, shooting down the rapids, yelling and laughing and clueless about the tragedy ahead. As we got closer, one of the camp counselors grabbed my tube and swung me over to a large rock upstream, on the far bank of the fast-moving water. She yelled at me to "wait here" - so I did.
Sitting on that rock, clutching my tube and shivering wet, I saw a snake twisting in the submerged roots of a nearby tree and I thought I would pass out. I am sure the fear I felt paled in comparison to whatever went through that boy in his last moments, but this was the most frightening moment of my life.
until...
On February 19th, 1999 at 3:12 p.m., Dr. Jim Hays extracted another human being from my nether regions. Sure, I was afraid of giving birth, but kudos to the inventor of the epidural and endless gratitude for Dr. Hays' bedside manner. The event of my son's birth was magnificent (well, except for all the farting). The truly scary moment - the one nobody could have prepared me for - came a few days later.
The prenatal classes at Fort Sanders' Teddy Bear University had been hilarious and enlightening. All the prep work on postnatal care, breastfeeding, diapering, etc. - we felt we were ready to do this thing. We'd been instructed to bring a car seat to the hospital on discharge day, so we would be prepared to transport this new little person to his crib with the Pooh motif.
Only... when the moment arrived, when he was swaddled up and strapped into his car seat and we prepared to exit the safety of the parking garage... I felt a panic, a paralyzing terror that I'd never experienced. YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE! I wanted to scream back at the smiling orderly who probably did this several times a day. If perchance we happened to make it all the way home without being crushed under the weight of an 18-wheeler on I-40/75, this poor child was doomed to a lifetime of fending for himself, foraging for food and affection, because I was a selfish cow who couldn't sustain a goldfish for more than a couple of months.
Yet, here we are, fifteen years later. This boy is evidently well-fed and certainly loved beyond description. I have felt new and suffocating fears as life's circumstances happen to him, and they don't bother to ask for my maternal permission or prepare me beforehand.
Two and 1/2 years after his arrival, we decided to give it another go and this time we were handed a little girl. She has presented me with an entirely different set of fears. But she too made it home safely from the hospital and into a reasonably healthy life.
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JOY.
To say that my children bring me joy is the understatement of the universe. At the moment, they are fighting over who ate the last Pop-tart. I thought briefly about telling them that I AM TRYING TO WRITE A %^&KING BLOG POST ABOUT HOW HAPPY YOU MAKE ME.
And it's true - if I can pull back the camera a bit, even the kitchen squabbling makes smile inside. Frustrating? Yes. Irritating? Absolutely. But the joy of being their mother is worth the minutiae of sibling discord. I know that one day - someday - they will be glad they have each other.
I had numerous experiences in life before motherhood that I would've described as joyous. My parents' pride over good grades, the thrill of a phone call from my teenage crush, my first substantial paycheck, Tennessee's 1981 win over Alabama after a ten-year losing streak ... these are among the many moments that gave me a warmth in my soul that I called joy.
The occasion of my marriage to their daddy was certainly the most joyous occasion of my life up until that point - it was the first time in 34 years that I'd felt wholly accepted, loved and completely happy. Walking back down the aisle as the Missus, I had laughter on my face that would've lit up a city. And I've got pictures to prove it.
But nothing compares to the joy of mothering these two rascals. I have laughed more in the last fifteen years than I did in the entirety of the thirty-five before. My kids are the brightest, funniest people I've ever known and it thrills me to know that they got most of it from the unique recipe of ingredients contributed by their dad and me.
They make me happier than I'd ever imagined possible. I pray that they will one day tell their respective therapists that their mom did all she could to make them happy, too.
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LOVE.
And now I shall attempt to articulate how much I love my children. As if it's even possible.
My parents loved me, each in their own way. I never doubted whether I was loved, but my experience of it was not the greatest. She clung to me and nearly suffocated me, and even though I knew he loved me, he had to leave me behind.
I chased love through decades and time zones and bars and churches; through friendships and Junior League and a bad marriage and writing and cleverness and through bad and good behavior. If I could just __(fill in the blank)__, then I would have love. I would love and be loved because I'd figured out how to catch it and keep it. But every time I thought I'd caught it, somehow it would still get away.
Like I said before, my marriage to the father of my children on April 18, 1998 was the most joyous moment of my life up to that point. That joy was rooted in a sense of reciprocal love I'd never ever experienced before.
And then we had kids. Apart from the aforementioned terror, the overwhelming tidal wave of maternal love when they handed me my son for the first time.. well, it's almost impossible to describe. It's visceral - it's like it comes up from way, way inside your guts, from a pool of something you didn't even know you had until that very moment. Yes, it's joyous as well...but it's a feeling like no other.
I still feel that way now, and sometimes it sneaks up on me and suffuses my heart, bubbling over again. Just a bear hug here, a silly giggle there, a boo-boo to be kissed or a teacher's conference to endure. I love them more than words can say.
Much of my fear since then stems from being afraid of either somehow losing or harming or failing to protect these little people I love. Even though one of them towers over me now, and the other is quickly catching up, they will always be my babies and I will love them unconditionally until the grave and I believe far beyond.
I know now that my own childhood experiences of parental love equipped me with a good field guide of what to do and what not to do - I will never leave them and I absolutely will shove them out of the nest when it's time to do so. And, just as my own parents did for me, I will love them when they are happy and when they are in trouble and when they make me madder than a wet hen. As Theodore Geisel might've said: I will love them here, I will love them there, I will love them everywhere.
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Happy Mother's Day weekend, y'all.
Gotta run now - gotta go get some more Pop-tarts.
