Make Me A Bird

I see these two pink orbs of energy waving at me from the back of my nanny's car, which is driving in front of me. The car turns right away from me as I go left. For an instant, my mind seizes into alarm - there's been an impossible error - I'm tethered to my daughters irrevocably. They are my heart; how can I be separated from my life force? My momentary amnesia fades as I drive away, but I feel uneasy nonetheless.

I've heard women speak of the connection to their children like an amaranthine umbilical cord. An invisible bond between mother and child that transcends proximity and circumstance. Mothers of children that have gone missing know inexplicably if their child is dead or alive. Even my own mother and I will have the same dream on the same night, or feel similar aches and pains, despite living over a thousand miles from each other.

We spend our childhood being prepared for independence. We spend our teen years yearning for the day the leash is unclipped. We spend our early adult years proving (or perhaps disproving) to our parents that we can do it on our own. And then the tables are turned. When given the reins, just like the rest of life, some of us fail miserably, some of us overachieve, but most of us fall in the middle.

Once again, I'm transported to a new awareness by taking on one simple title: mom.

"Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far - far, far away..."
-Jenny, Forrest Gump

P.S. Thanks Mimi

A New Year

This year, my girls will turn three. Three... The old adage that 'time flies' is never so profound as it is after having children. Now my life is measured by my children - it's almost like starting life over again. As if the day they were born truly was the first day of the rest of my life. My new life, that has transformed me into a mother, and my husband and I into a family. Our home into a playhouse, my car into a storage unit and my body into a jungle gym.

I've been trying to determine what this blog represents for me. Not only am I indulging my need to write, and chronicling the emotions and realizations through my path out of depression and into motherhood, but most of all, I am putting into words these epiphanies that now blindside me on a regular basis.

I feel as though I'm re-living my childhood through the eyes of my parents and all the people that had a hand in raising me and molded me into the person I am today. It overwhelms me with gratitude because I can now begin to comprehend the time and energy that goes into just one child. I arrived into adulthood a self-confident, balanced, rational woman with a realistic perception of the world around me and I am just now discovering the value of those traits; they don't come without devoted parents and other influential people that invested their time and energy into me.

Perhaps it is my own version of therapy. If I'm starting my life over, then what better reason to scour my brain clean? I owe it to my children to clear out the cobwebs and organize the fragments of memories into useful parental tools.

Initiation

I feel as though I've been initiated into another segment of the mommy sisterhood, and inadvertently, another level of the fraternity that is life as a parent. What other experience would evoke the same emotions as lying next to your sweet, ill child while she reaches for you each time she is forced by her body to dry heave?

How to explain to toddlers that our bodies are nearly perfect, but aren't impervious to the occasional "frog in your throat" (from an episode of Little Bear that has been the catalyst to their perception of having to go home so mommy can take care of you)?

While caring for my sick daughters, I told a friend that I felt overwhelmed and triumphant at the same time. We can either strive to live a life void of unpleasant experiences, or we can dive into the muck and come out dirty, yet cleansed.

At the risk of sounding cliché, the negative experiences in my life only serve to make me stronger.

Tristyn in healthier times