A Mother of a Day

November 2010

I am a mom.  I am "MAMA!"  I am the mother of Luka Alejandro Valentino.  I have been a mother for exactly 910 days.  And it has changed me.

I know now that my tolerance for some things (like people being mean) is lower. I notice that I cry way too easily these days, particularly if there is a storyline fact or fiction involving a young boy.  I find that I am less concerned with certain professional achievements and focused more on getting to spend time at home playing.  I feel bursting joy, absolute terror, tiny heartbreaks, overwhelming pride and a thousand other colors every single day.  I worry about the many dangers (to small people with limited verbal skills) present in regular life encounters and environments.  I am willing to endure repeated physical discomfort in order for my son's sheer pleasure - in particular sitting on my shoulders for prolonged walks to preschool.  I now spend money on things I never would have dreamed of, including dozens of trains, fish sticks, numerous books about pooping on the potty.  I focus on things like school options, developmental milestones, immunizations, babysitter schedules, sticker charts, and making sure  there are about a thousand toddler giggles produced a day.  I am distracted by online shopping, and not for myself.  I am cautious about strangers and traffic and ocean waves and hot stoves and uncut grapes. I am thrilled at new concepts grasped, new sentences constructed, revelations coming to light and I carefully document them in journals and social media channels, while I watch my own IQ to continue to dwindle in direct proportion.  I allow a certain level of animal abuse to take place in my own home (because it seems my cats' tolerance for some things - like small people being accidentally mean - is actually getting higher). I am certain of the fact that there are truly not enough hours in the day. I am frustrated by the observation that (despite being one hell of a multi-tasker) I simply can not be good at all things at the same time.  I am (more and more) accepting of real limitations on my ability to "have it all," at least simultaneously. I am hypersensitive to the messages we are sending to kids (especially young boys), and hyper aware of the choices I make and their potential impact.  I am desperately holding on to the feeling of each small-voiced "I love you," and the memory of each made up toddler song ("the itsy bitsy poopy went up the poopy spout"), and each fantastic miscommunication  ("Would you like meatballs in your soup?" "No, I put my balls in the soup but it was too hot.").

And I feel a love on a visceral level that is inexplicable, indescribable, unimaginable, terrifying, and fulfilling in a way that can make me cry just reflecting on its depths.

I have been a mother for 910 days. Each day more mind-blowing, hilarious, and filled with love than the last. It sounds impossible but true. This Mother's Day, if I were to have a moment of quiet solitude to think about what this means to me, how I feel, how my life has changed, and who this small person is becoming, I might just spend the whole day weeping with joy.  So instead I am going to brunch.

Reflections on Hunger and Satisfaction

I've been thinking a lot recently about the concepts of desire and satisfaction, happiness and contentment, chaos and calm and the complexities that make us these unique creatures, capable of crafting our own individual paths.  The decisions we make and the right or left turns we take come together to leave a trail [largely] of our own making - and I've been curious about the differences in how we make those choices.

When I think of myself and the possibilities over a lifetime - the arcs of joy and sadness, of heart and mind - the branches of this tree span so wide I can't see where they could possibly end. Any one of them could lead to a path that may soar in a thousand different directions. To unimaginable heights or (and?) unfathomable lows.

At the same time, I see a certain impermanence in most things and feel that very few decisions are unchangeable or irreversible.  It is why I am not afraid to change jobs or move between countries and coasts and how I generally choose action over inaction in many cases.  Don't like (or absolutely love) something? Do something about it. This trait that has so often served as a strength for me can also be a flaw, and my challenge lies in understanding when to follow my hunger and when to be satisfied, when to seek more and embrace the unknown and when to quietly enjoy to what is I already have (a job that is less than rewarding in substance but provides extraordinary flexibility for my personal life, for example).

Some people have this amazing ability (I tend to think of it as something innate - programmed into their DNA) that allows them to commit to a life course and follow it steadfastly.  These incredible people see things through to the end - that job they've already invested a decade in but may no longer enjoy or that relationship that was so full of love but has since lost its passion - somehow they have a long-term vision and in that vision a plan that allows them to see the end game, which is worth all the trouble.  They are satisfied knowing they will collect a strong pension at retirement or have a partner when they are aging, but they also have a wisdom about the peaks and valleys that riddle almost everything - and it is in those valleys that they don't give up.  These marvels of follow-through and dedication have my admiration, and I spend a lot of time asking friends how they do it, where they get the fortitude, and what does that kind of commitment require.

At the far ends of a nonlinear spectrum of good needs or bad wants there are people who act on mad impulse, on the creepiest of desires.  This past week the news revealed monstrous acts by real people (again) and distracted me with images of those who hunger for things that are hurtful, dangerous, and destructive - operating at levels that are outside the realm of any version of okay and without regard for the consequences to others.  These people are perhaps also programmed this way through some frankenstein-like combination of nature and nurture, to do damage in ways that even they may not understand in their quest to feel some sort of twisted personalized version of satisfaction.

Putting aside these gruesome anomalies, I find myself back at the unanswerable question of how it is that we choose one path over another, and how we know what path is right - when to follow our hunger and when to stay put and take stock of the bigger picture.  And the mystery of how some people are better at decisive action and others are better at follow through.  Not understanding any of this, I do know one thing - our decisions matter, our choices matter from the smallest decision to the grandest (as sometimes the distinction isn't clear until after the fact - a lesson learned thanks to the shining example of heroic bystander Charles Ramsey).

And sometimes turning left and satisfying a hunger will lead to great happiness and new adventures.  Sometimes it won't.  Sometimes turning right and letting hunger pass in favor of satisfaction of a different kind will lead to great happiness.  And sometimes it won't.  And the kicker is, we don't get to know the answers until after the fact...until that branch of the tree has led to another branch and perhaps another branch and we look down at where we started to see how far we've come.  Or look up in yet another direction and just enjoy the view.