The privilege of grumbling

When I was a little girl, I couldn’t decide between being a teacher or a nurse or a ballerina when I grew up. But I knew that no matter what, I wanted to be a mother.

Being a ballerina was out pretty quickly, as I never actually took ballet. (Apparently having beautiful ballerina pillow cases doesn’t realize a dream). And while I have taught at the university, I’m not actually a teacher. And nursing was out because of the shift work…because it didn’t fit for the kind of mother I wanted to be.

Becoming a mother was fraught with trickiness for me…I’m grateful that I am, and I soooo don’t take it for granted. Multiple high risk procedures made it possible…and even then, it was only because of an extended hospital stay both before and after the youngest was born.

I am not one to take my Junior Tribe Members for granted. Achieving Motherhood was precarious for me…it then has had a preciousness to me that I’ve been mindful of these last years.

But that hasn’t stopped me from wanting to pull my hair out at various points.

One of the JTM’s was a highly sensitive child which meant that clothing tags, smells, the sight of food he didn’t like, having to choose only one of two good things would send him into a full on meltdown.  This, combined with a speech delay which meant I often had little clue about what was upsetting him until his fourth year.  Tantrums weren’t just daily…often they were hourly…those can wear a mama down.

Motherhood for me, as it does for all mothers, meant there were times when I was foggy with sleep deprivation and I muddled through the day with the only thought of making it until I might collapse into bed. There were times I was absolutely convinced I would never, ever, in my entire lifetime (and quite possibly the next) ever eat while the food was still hot.

One year, there were long dark nights staying at a friend’s cottage where I sought to keep the little one quiet so as not to wake up our hosts, with “imaginary reading”. I’d read  “Molly moves to Sesame Street” and others so many times I could quote it word for word to the little one in the dark. The others were sleeping–and needed to sleep–and I was awake trying to keep JTM quiet…even though it felt I needed sleep more than anyone else.

I forgot sometimes how much I wanted motherhood, and how I had earlier anguished there would be days that it wouldn’t happen. Sometimes I even wondered to myself, “Seriously?  This is what I longed for? What was I thinking?”

As the JTM’s got older, I did begin to eat a meal while it was still hot.

I slept through the night and woke up with a clear mind (and I wandered around marvelling: “Does everybody feel this good when they are awake after they’ve slept through? How come they don’t appreciate it as a wondrous wonder?”)

But now, they left a trail of crumbs as they got their own snacks, they left their socks lying on the floor wherever they had taken them off (which was anywhere…and everywhere), they had to be reminded to get ready on time for birthday parties and sports practices which they LOVED (but were still never ready on time for).

Loud and rambunctious, running full on through the house, grabbing hold of walls with dirty hands as they turned with breakneck speed.  It was loud…and the smudges left traces of JTM’s everywhere.

Sometimes it felt like I had only one nerve left, and they were busy trying to fray that one!

One JTM is leaving the tribe.

Oh, he’ll still belong to us…but he’s moving to a dorm across the country in just a coupla weeks. I didn’t think it would end so soon. I didn’t know it would feel so fast that the time would come.

Last evening, I sat down to watch a show last night, and had to move a couple dirty socks before I sat. I walked by the washer, and there was dirty socks and Tshirts littered over the floor…right beside the hamper. Seriously?

“Laundry thrown carelessly on the floor right next to the hamper is something I won’t miss”

..was what I thought I would think…but it wasn’t.

I will miss it.  Terribly.

In an odd space between the almost but not quite, I’m regretting all the times he won’t be in the next room playing his music too loud, or leaving his dishes on the counter, or his flip-flops in the middle of the entry way so I can’t even close the back door. I’m gonna miss how he looks suddenly guilty when I ask if he has done the chore I asked him to do yesterday.

Pretty soon he won’t be leaving socks around the house anywhere for me to decide if I should clean up myself, or call him over to learn to take responsibility.

No more socks all over the place.

And in an odd twist that is surprising me, I’m already missing the messiness.

In a world where an unarmed black son gets killed while standing in the street, terrorists end lives and celebrate with arms raised in videos, and a famous comedian who made the world laugh and loves his family can’t see a way out of the pain…I realize how blessed I have been to complain about socks and tantrums, and crumbs, and dishes on the counter. 

And how very much I will long for the days when eye rolling and harumphs of frustration could be part of my daily existence…because those frustrations said my JTM was likely in the next room.  It meant that he would burst through the door soon wanting to tell me something funny that he saw on YouTube.  It meant that we would soon go to a smelly gym where two teams would give their body’s best to become a team…it meant this good little boy was on his way to becoming a fine, young man–and I had a front row seat.

Let’s celebrate the privilege of grumbling!

…grumbling because our loved ones are around messing up with crumbs and crusts and crying, being inconsiderate, tripping over their foibles as they make their way through life.

Let’s celebrate that grumbling over our loved ones means they are around for us to grumble about.

I know that I’m gonna miss grumbling about him.