I promised myself I would not let wishful thinking get the best of me. I demanded of myself to let go of whimsical ideas and coulda woulda shoulda temperamental moments. But. I just can't help myself! I've been considering long and hard about what, if ever, I find something worth writing about would it be. It seems like I would be missing a big opportunity to share a lesson learned if I don't write about the joys, frustrations, and completely terrifying experience that is Young Parenting.
I seem to know a lot of mothers (young mothers) who have all come to terms with their new life path and have resolved, fairly so, to just say- Let it Go. Let the past be the past, and move on. They're much stronger willed than I. Or maybe it's the opposite, I'm not too sure. It seems all fine and good to be able to come into unexpected parenthood and be able to say, well I can't change it so I won't waste time thinking about what might have been...
Then why can't I do the same? I have been systematically and emphatically attempting to avoid this question, let alone train wreck of thought. It keeps pulling me back. It seems unresolved. It seems unfair. It seems like I'm always complaining! Although I will admit that no one in my daily life would ever guess I was feeling this way with the exception of a very small circle of friend and husband with whom I have shared my, woe-is-me; please play your tiny violin song and pacify my cries with an Its Gonna Be Alright tune. I am only human. I must showcase my weaknesses now and then to remind myself of this.
Inherently as a woman I naturally try to take on way too much without enough help. Add motherhood to that role and you have a person who is stretched so thin you can see through her. I'm not sure where I am headed with this. I am not sure where I am headed tomorrow. I do know that there are days that I lie in bed before the bustle of the day can commence and picture for just a few brief moments what a day in the life of a 20 something year old is like sans- children...
I would wake up, make myself some breakfast and linger over a book until I was good and ready to put it down. I would spend enough time in the shower to get all pruny (this is said with a very clear conscience in respects to conserving water on my planet, as motherhood has reduced my bathing habits to using up less than half of the water I previously wasted on myself.)I would go to work and maybe make plans to go out afterwards...or not! Or I would go home to my own apartment or maybe just my own bedroom and SLEEP! If you are not a parent, you can not begin to imagine the kind of personal time and sleep you forfeit in order to care for someone else. I would get goosebumps considering what parenthood would do to my social life when I was just 17. I did not know that just two years later my reality would be altered as such.
Becoming a parent is amazing. It is a new kind of love that lifts you up and never lets you down again. It is wonderful and produces all kinds of happy memories. At the right time in life. Otherwise it steals something very precious to all of us that are young and care free--being young and care free. I have to remind myself that it is not selfish to admit this. It does not make me love my kids any less. It does however do a hell of a job wreaking havoc on how I feel about myself. I am just starting to learn how much I have traded in terms of my own life and memories to make space to create a life and memories for my children. Maybe if I had had a few decades of solitude in adulthood before stepping into this all encompassing role I wouldn't have such a hard time accepting the trade off. But I literally stepped out of High school graduation into the doctors office for a sonogram. OK not literally, but still. Even more amazing are those mothers who became mothers before they got to the end of their high school careers(all the more power to you, stars of MTV's 16 & Pregnant!) Theirs is a plight I know even less about than my own. I used a very brief portion of my childhood before I gave it away, that at least I can say.I do not know what kind of grief I would have experienced if I became a mother before then.
Because that's what you do when you become a parent young. You grieve. You must let go of a lifestyle and welcome a change that is not easy for even older adults to accept. Maybe, and in the beginning and I know I did this, I tried to live life like I wasn't different than any of my other newly 21 year old friends. But it is a fleeting experience for those of you who have been there know. Eventually people get sick of taking care of your kid till all hours of the night on weekends. And frankly you get sick of yourself for doing it.
Today I am more than gladly giving up my social life for parent life. But definitely NOT in my own strength. God has been the one to strengthen my resolve and allowed me to flourish in parenting. Without his strength, I would be a very different kind of person and parent. I guess writing this in itself has had some cathartic value! I feel a little more refreshed and renewed in my journey as a mom. Eventually I will get to a point where I am no longer just a young mom. People will no longer ask me if I am the big sister or babysitter in the playgroups and school yards. When my children are no longer in this phase of needing me 24 hours a day, maybe I will be surrounded by new parents who are and are feeling the way I am now. I will have my day in the sun, and I won't always be lathering sun block on my kids noses while I'm there. OK maybe I will always be trying to remind them to put the sunblock on themselvs, but I'll do it gladly. I will have been after all, a mother for the majority of my life. That's not such a bad badge to wear.
