Take A Look At This Knotty New Mama

I’ve been realizing that the reason why writing has recently been such a heavy lift, and why it’s led to so many afternoons of sitting and staring that look terrifyingly like doing nothing, is for this very reason: I’ve been paralyzed by the internalized fear of writing about being a mother. Without fully acknowledging why to myself, I’ve desperately scrambled for something else I could write about — and please, believe me, no one wishes more than I do that I could write about how I spent the last two years having an affair with a young cobbler I met on a nude beach in Ibiza. But that was not my last two years. What I’ve learned is that there’s a reason motherhood as a story is so frequently untold.

- “I’ll Show Myself Out” Written by Jessi Klein

Ever since I can remember…

I’ve always wanted to be a mother…

As a child, I’d choose baby dolls over Barbie Dolls any day. When looking back on a memory of a ghost's past, I can see an ever so prominent picture etched in my mind of a 7-year-old me begging my mother not to sell “my real live baby bassinet.”

Springtime in Cincinnati was yard sale season and that meant quick cash for humdrum housewives and monotonous mothers alike. Oh, how badly I wanted to return home from school that day, play house, and put my baby dolls to sleep in such a charming little number.

We were just given the baby bed from a close family friend who no longer needed it and would be vacationing with family for the weekend. Knowing this, I thought to myself we’d surely be able to keep it. We were doing Lily a favor by taking it off of her hands and honestly, with her Fortune500 husband, she could have cared less about compensation. I remember counting down the hours until I could return home from school that day and put my baby dolls to sleep in such a charming little number.

The bassinet was white wicker, woven to perfection. Cozy and comfortable with billowing white bedding and just enough ruffles and bows. It came with a draped canopy that flowed effortlessly from the halo frame. The wheels could be flipped up to rock the bassinet like a cradle and had a floor-length skirt that concealed the stand. Real top-notch shit, the whole kit, and caboodle.

To this day, I can still feel how strongly I longed for that beautiful bassinet to be there when I got back. Although, as adamant as I was when pleading with my mother not to sell my beloved new basket on wheels, something told me it wouldn’t be there when I’d walk through the door. home. Later that afternoon, I discovered I was right and was sullen for days.

Please take heed…

This isn’t a story of frilly, nilly, things.

This is the truth. Real, raw, and brutally honest.

I entered the wonderful world of Motherhood a little over 6 months ago, and this my dear is not what I expected. I feel knotty. Totally out of place. Is this what they meant when they said you can never be fully prepared? Where was the sweet 7-year-old me, full of sunshine and glee, ecstatically filled with excitement and the covetousness craving of being a mother?

As a child, I prayed every single day for a little baby sister. I remember the feeling of pure bliss when God finally answered my prayer. There I was, in the delivery room standing bedside my mother, crying tears of joy. . . Thank God! Finally! I’d been the only child for 10 years. Needless to say, I was on cloud 9.

Fast forward to the tender age of 19, while shopping at Old Navy, I stumbled upon the cutest pair of tortes shell sunglasses. In the kid's section. They were mini movie star sunglasses, but for a 2-year-old. For a moment, I thought to myself “OMG Yes! If only I had a daughter. . .”

Knowing damn well I wanted to wait a good 10 years before that ever happened, I bought the sunglasses anyway. I had to. If anything, they’d look fabulous on my niece for sure! Funny story… more than 15 years later my daughter now wears them. So again, I’d like to know, just where is that feeling? That feeling of unaltered elation, utter exultation, and sheer ecstasy.

More than 15 years later, my daughter now wears the infamous “Mini Movie Star Sunglasses”

After all the waiting, wanting, loathing and longing…

I now have everything I’ve ever dreamed of

Meh.

Where’s my nirvana?

It seriously disturbs my innermost being.

I suppose this isn’t the first time I’ve made acquaintance with unmet expectations. However, the excruciating pain that trails behind when it comes to matters of the heart has yet again thrown me through a loop. This is not how I expected to feel.

Pressured, perplexed, unsure, guilty, and honestly, I don’t know why or for what. Mostly, I’m upset I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses.

Hello World!

I grant you a view at this knotty new mama.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Let’s squint a bit to note the spelling of the word. Knotty, not naughty. Oh, Dear God, sweet baby Jesus, how I wish it were the latter… but sadly no. I’m talking knotty in the way it’s defined in any dictionary.

knot•ty | ‘nädè | adjective

Complex, complicated, intricate, torturous, taxing, awkward, tricky, perplexing, baffling, mystifying, obscure.

A fitting title to express the frivolous feeling of self I’ve been experiencing. Six months later, though it seems like 6 seconds, it feels like I’m just now coming out of the woods. Taking the time to actually write this has brought me, somewhat, a sense of relief. I adore my baby girl, I do. She’s everything I knew she would be. It started with a vision I had while searching for boy names one afternoon.

In the vision, she was about two years old, with long bronzy blonde hair wearing a pink & purple striped outfit. We were outside, somewhere lush with gorgeous green grass, sitting at a picnic table. She was smiling at someone in the distance. Ultimately, it was a confirmation that I was having a girl. To this day, she looks exactly like she did in my vision.

But enough of my premonitions, delving back into my frustration. It baffles me that it’s taken 6 months to put something so mystique into words so simple. After enough introspection, just now being able to better articulate the indifference I feel inside makes me want to scream. But don’t worry, I’m not dumping my daughter in some grungy garbage can anytime soon. This is — simply — a confession to cleanse the soul.

To be clear it’s not the factual everyday embodiment of motherhood I’m frustrated with. It’s the ever-so-present feeling of melancholy that lingers. Alanis Morissette's “Your Uninvited” plays in the background. The DJ of life is a taunting little dick. That’s when it hits you… as you remember all those faceless strangers, your uncle Tommy, and childhood best friend when they’d said:

“You’ll never really be ready.”

In retrospect it’s probably the wisest thing I’ve heard in life; thus far. When trying to prepare yourself for motherhood, somehow, someway, you're always met with this proverb in its purest form. At the time, you simply smile and nod to the mystery of Master Po, all the while internally rolling your eyes. But you, young grasshopper, are at that very moment given golden bits of wisdom. Though you won’t come to realize this until whatever time/space later. That is the very essence, at its core, the epitome of the feeling. The entire process. The adjustment. No matter your age, emotional maturity level, or secured financial status, it doesn’t matter. Those 4 words win against them all.

You’ll never really be ready.

In my previous article On The Cusp Of Becoming, I talk about this. When you're pregnant, every other mother you meet seems to only glorify the amount of love you’ll feel in all its intensity, and that indeed you do. But they never warn you about the loss of identity. The sadness you’ll feel when parting with freedom. You don’t just give life to a newborn baby; you give life to a whole new you. No one explains how awkward you feel in the process of settling into your new motherly self. No one explains how awkward it is to talk about the way you really feel. If you yourself can even put it into words.

You’ll find yourself examining an overpowering personality as if it's some kind of untamed ferocity perpetually at war with the new accepted order of things. How it gives the desire to create instantly rather than to observe patiently.

It is exactly this thing to be “at war with the accepted order of things” that characterizes this current sense of self. Dazed and confused, searching for solace, I came across an ancient philosophy that ultimately helped me with the acceptance of “the new order of things’’.

Wabi Sabi & The Lesson Within

There’s a tradition in kintsugi, that an accidentally smashed cup or bowl shouldn’t be thrown away in embarrassment as its fragments can be carefully collected and reassembled with glue inflected with gold. The traces of fixing are made obvious. The lesson here is that there isn’t a need to give up on ourselves or be ashamed of our fractured parts. That one day we’ll be pieced back together, though it’s likely we’ll have gained significant scars.

The basic principle of excepting oneself is accepting your imperfections and making the most of life.

This sweet piece of philosophy persuades you to focus on the blessings inside your everyday life and celebrate the way things are, rather than crave how they could be. It’s a way of appreciating and accepting life’s little complexities.

Dually Noted