I go through doubts of who I think I am. I mean I think I know who I am but sometimes situations arise and I begin to wonder if I am being misguided by my own thoughts! Have I deluded myself into thinking I am a good wife? Do I feel like I try hard to be Mrs. Cleaver?
Do I try to look nice, cook and clean with joie de vivre? I have been married for almost 34 years this summer and I like to think that at least 75% of the time I do. I haven't gone out in sweatpants to the grocery store yet and those lousy dinners that happen....well we just try not to repeat that recipe. Cleaning? Yes, I do change the sheets and towels every week but that is more for me because my Love doesn't seem to really mind if I just happen to not do it on day seven. I make the bed every day but once again I appreciate it more than he does. However....in recent years he has made the bed when I have had to be gone and he does a rather fine job if I do say so.
I love the man. I know I may not long cling to him every second (oh I did in those heated days!) he is in my sight and there have been days (oh yes!) when I realize we have not hugged! Me saying not hug? Oh, the lady who closes notes and offers hugs freely not hugging her man? Of course we could throw it back to him and mention "Did you remember to hug your wife today?". Heavens, have we been married so long that we need to remember to hug? Have our days become so routine?
Then my thoughts of my mothering. Have I been a good mother? Did I expect too much? Not enough? Did I teach them what they need to know about being on their own. Well, I don't think I would be good at teaching them to be on their own seeing as how I was only on my own before marriage for about a year and I was living in sin a good hunk of that year.
Did I love unconditionally always? I was not a perfect mom but I tried. I had no one to guide me those long days with first one child and then their were three in a blink of five years. I read that stupid Dr. Spock like he was the official Mom authority. He was a man! Why would I think he knew diddly squat? Those early years there was no "mother's groups". I was on my own. My mom was not the one to use or set an example of so I would not ask her for advice. My mother by marriage was often babysitting her other grandchildren so I didn't ask her for help. What I did learn was that I was learning to be a mom. I had it within me, I just needed to believe in me. That saying "Parenting is not for the faint of heart" is very true. By the time I was pregnant with my second child I realized that I didn't need to follow stupid Dr. Spock. I found other resources of natural parenting, having a midwife versus the traditional male OBGYN. I wasn't fully trusting my heart to have the birth at home but I was not going to have this child the way her sister came into the world.
Pregnancy, childbirth pass quickly. Rearing children is a lifetime. Being prepared to do this and at the same time be a wife and friend is like being the head of the world! So much to do constantly. I did carve out time when my youngest daughter was three and my Love and I bought a horse for me to take care of. I was out of the house and into the barn. Cleaning, bathing, tending (just like at home) but it was bliss. The horse did not cry. The horse may throw me to the ground and step on my foot but the horse did not cry or bargain. The horse did create challenges but the horse was calming for me.
Having R. so many years later brought me to a place that was 100% + my heart's desire. To have him was more bliss than I ever could have dreamed. My Love and I, patiently waiting to find out that I was pregnant after several years, to waiting patiently for his birth, to the impatient time while giving birth and our wanting to hold our son in our arms. I new me then. I new that I was a good mother.
I would watch him sleep, watch the flutter of his eyes and long eyelashes, his small puckering lips that suckled in his Land of Nod. Breastfeeding him and not wanting it to end, only for the pleasure of holding him so close in my arms. Staying awake in the night to rise and feed him, to change his wet diapers, kept me from thinking that I should long to crawl under the covers back in bed. To see each phase of his growth first was joy at his accomplishment and then sorrow over knowing he was our last baby.
But who am I? Outside of being a mom and wife..... who am I? My soul purpose in life is not to just please others. I should be happy because within me I am a happy person. That my being a happy person allows me to spread my happy feelings to others. So if I am not fully happy, or no how to be fully happy, to let go strife or worry, how does this resolve in me? Such confusion in my head!
My children...my dear children...I want to see fully happy and fulfilled in their lives. The mother in me longs to fix any negatives in their lives. I want them to be happy and if I sense that they may not be I go into full mommy mode. My needs are not as important as my love ones! Is this just me? Do all mothers feel this?
Then my Love....I want him happy. I want him to do and go places he dreams of. I want us to live our lives to the fullest for as long as we are able to walk out our door on two feet and if not on two feet then we will do it with whatever transportation we can. In seeing loved ones in recent years lose that ability it has made me desire it all the more! Why is it that when we are at our healthiest, most vibrant part of ours lives we can't afford or can't take the time to do just that? I think I want too much. We can make choices of what we want and my Love and I chose family and home versus only travel. Still, even if we had chosen travel we still would have had to work to afford the travel. It really does work out when I look at it more closely. I would never, ever, have chosen travel over mothering. To me that was the single most amazing journey in my life! To have been blessed with the four most beautiful children that have given me every range of emotion, who I have watched and listened to, who have continued to teach me every day that I live...no I could never say no to that precious part of being a woman. I was born to mother.
I guess I am still learning who I am. The letting go of who I was since I know longer am needed to rock and hold a baby. I have a teen to mother still and will ride this phase of his life with all the waves it can throw at us. I am a wife to a man who as been with me for 40 years. He knew me as a teen. He saw in me the woman, the wife and possible mother to our kids before I had thought about such thoughts. I only saw him and how deeply I loved him. How I felt safe and important with him. He allowed me to grow up and stuck with me. I don't know how he has put up with me sometimes. I certainly have had baggage trailing behind me for years. One by one the bags are falling away. Maybe when those bags are fully gone I will know who I am! I must be getting close to them being gone....perhaps down to the carry on and makeup bag....I hope so....
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