The End is the Beginning is the End...
These early years of parenting are basically a perpetual transition, which (as it turns out) is not exactly my favorite thing. Every time it seems like we have found a rhythm, something shifts, and each of these shifts is generally accompanied by varying degrees of both joy and grief. As the kids become more capable and resilient and strong we can go on bigger adventures, we can be more flexible with schedules, and we can enjoy some of the things that were either impossible or miserable when they were babies...but we also have to let go of the sweetness of infant snuggles and the tiny ounce of nap time solitude and the relative peace that existed before they learned how much they enjoy irritating each other. Their cute little squawks of protest have become blood-curdling screams of anger, and they both now have SO. MANY WORDS. As Lydia so (inadvertently) accurately stated in the bath the other night, "Dad, I'm FRUSTRATING." They are becoming such tiny little people, which is the most fascinating and heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring thing to behold.
This particular season of Micah starting school has brought so many emotions along for the ride. It is amazing watching him learn and grow and thrive in a new environment, and it is so challenging figuring out how to navigate the ways his big emotions spill out all over the place when he returns to the safety and familiarity of our home. It brings me such joy having the freedom to enjoy spontaneous one-on-one adventures with Lydia for the first time ever in her short little life, and it is increasingly lonely to realize that my kids are becoming my primary companions as schedules and schools and commitments and availability are also separating me from many of the friendships that have literally saved my life over the last four years since I entered into motherhood. All of this is inevitable, and none of it is inherently bad, but I am increasingly aware that I am someone who feels all of the feelings in all of the places at all of the times. I can't feel the intense, fierce, life-altering love I have for my children without simultaneously feeling the complex, raw, frustrating lack of connection with my self outside of motherhood. I'm not sure exactly how to disentangle these things, or even if I should.
I don't say this to garner sympathy or seek advice, I just say it because it feels important to say. This morning after dropping Micah off at school Lydia and I ended up at a park and it was the most delicious feeling when she said, "Mama I wanna hike!" and I could say "Yes! Let's hike!" without a second thought because we had time and we had space and I had no one else's needs or desires to consider but ours. I relished the feeling of her still-tiny fingers wrapped around my pinky as we walked down the BIG HILL and she roared like a dinosaur and stepped over roots and told me all about her strong muscles. I let her choose where to turn and when to stop and pick up sticks, and I began to dream of the times she and I will have together this year in these in-between spaces. I wanted to gobble up the sound of her voice, chattering away about this and that and everything else because she didn't have to compete with her brother for my attention. There is so much loveliness in being her mother, and I desperately want to find the breathing room to savor her little personality as it grows and blossoms because she is already such a complex and beautiful soul. All of her sass and all of her opinions and all of her stubbornness and all of her sweetness. I suppose I should long to savor those same things in myself as well. I wonder what it could look like to believe that the things I have to say deserve space to be heard and that the path I want to take is one that others want to travel with me, regardless of how many times I circle back around to the same place.
After our adventure, we headed back to Micah's school for a "Teddy Bear Picnic" with his classmates and their favorite stuffed animals. It also happened to be the day they celebrated Micah's birthday, and as he walked around the corner towards the playground in his paper birthday crown I watched his eyes immediately scan the horizon for mine. I saw a hint of anxiety in those brief moments before he spotted me, just as I do every day at pickup, and then the brightest of lights in his beautiful smile as he realized that he had been remembered. He is my spitting image, not necessarily in physical appearance, but in the makeup of his heart, and I know that this experience of spreading out his wings is both the best and the worst thing that has happened to his little life so far. He never fails to remind me when I have forgotten to ask him about his "happy/sad/silly" from the day on our drive home from school, and he bursts with pride when he shows me the pictures he has drawn and tells me the things that he learned. "Mom, look at this!" is a phrase I hear over and over and over and over again throughout our days as he radiates delight in his cleanly wiped butt or his snail magnet sculpture or his impeccable letter "H", and each one of those moments is balanced with an adamant exclamation that, "THIS (insert object here) IS BROKENNNNNNNN!" or an "THE TOWER KEEPS FALLING!" through exasperated tears and palpable frustration. The last few days he has begun telling me stories about an imaginary friend named Oliver, sharing with such genuine and heartfelt concern that Oliver is feeling sad because he misses his mama when she goes to meetings or when he goes to school. So we talk about how we could help Oliver navigate his sad feelings, and I see a little window into the heart of my amazingly tender boy and desperately try to learn how to steward his precious heart. I'm watching him wade into an awareness of himself and the world around him, and part of that awareness is the complexity of these transitional seasons. He is thrilled and excited and proud. He is scared and anxious and overwhelmed. He is remarkably aware of how he feels, and he is also completely caught off-guard by the magnitude of those feelings. He is me, in miniature. While I have (sometimes) learned to reign in my tantrums, I do not feel too distant from his stomping around the living room in the wake of one of sister's destructive rampages shouting, "I! AM! ANGRYYYYY!" And while I am (mostly) too insecure to share my creative side with others (hence the year-long gap since my last blog post), there are few things as valuable to me as knowing that the people I love really see me and hear me and value my contributions to the world. There are days when I wish I could channel my son's naked awareness, because I see the way he moves into and through those big feelings with remarkable grace for someone who has only four years of experience being a human. I don't necessarily wish to shed all of his tears or scream all of his screams, but I do hope and pray that he and I can grow together into this space, and that we can learn to give ourselves permission to be our truest selves in both joy and sorrow. I want to foster his creativity and remember the elaborate stories he tells about Bear and Moo and Octopus (his personified stuffed animals). I want to comfort him when he crashes hard on his bike, and I want to remind him to get back up and keep trying because I know that in just a few minutes he will be squealing with delight again. I want him to keep bringing me the beautiful things he has made, and I want to keep bringing the world the beautiful things that I've made...even if they aren't quite as tangible as a Lego tower or a magnetic pump track.
Every ending, it seems, is a beginning. Whether we invite and embrace it or whether we fight it with everything we have, the transition will come. The leaves will change and fall. The gray and rain will descend upon our little town, and some days the sadness will feel too big and some days the joy will feel too strong and every one of those days we will, Lord willing, continue to step into the truth of who we are in the midst of everything. When the thing we worked so hard to build gets smashed to bits, as I tell Micah, we have some choices to make. Do we start over again? Do we come up with something new to create? Do we return to what we once envisioned, or to we decide to look for some new possibility in the midst of the rubble? Do we kick and scream and shout for a little while because that's all that makes sense? Do we find a few pieces that we can still recognize and let them speak to us about what they would like to become? I think it's a little bit of all of this, really. It's knowing what was and trusting what is and believing that something - anything - could still be. It's all the possibilities of a floor littered with magnet blocks, including the knowledge that we will probably step on one and the pain will be excruciating. But somewhere, in the midst of what was once a ferris wheel and a stop sign and a hammer and a rocket ship, there is a snail.
The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning.
This particular season of Micah starting school has brought so many emotions along for the ride. It is amazing watching him learn and grow and thrive in a new environment, and it is so challenging figuring out how to navigate the ways his big emotions spill out all over the place when he returns to the safety and familiarity of our home. It brings me such joy having the freedom to enjoy spontaneous one-on-one adventures with Lydia for the first time ever in her short little life, and it is increasingly lonely to realize that my kids are becoming my primary companions as schedules and schools and commitments and availability are also separating me from many of the friendships that have literally saved my life over the last four years since I entered into motherhood. All of this is inevitable, and none of it is inherently bad, but I am increasingly aware that I am someone who feels all of the feelings in all of the places at all of the times. I can't feel the intense, fierce, life-altering love I have for my children without simultaneously feeling the complex, raw, frustrating lack of connection with my self outside of motherhood. I'm not sure exactly how to disentangle these things, or even if I should.
I don't say this to garner sympathy or seek advice, I just say it because it feels important to say. This morning after dropping Micah off at school Lydia and I ended up at a park and it was the most delicious feeling when she said, "Mama I wanna hike!" and I could say "Yes! Let's hike!" without a second thought because we had time and we had space and I had no one else's needs or desires to consider but ours. I relished the feeling of her still-tiny fingers wrapped around my pinky as we walked down the BIG HILL and she roared like a dinosaur and stepped over roots and told me all about her strong muscles. I let her choose where to turn and when to stop and pick up sticks, and I began to dream of the times she and I will have together this year in these in-between spaces. I wanted to gobble up the sound of her voice, chattering away about this and that and everything else because she didn't have to compete with her brother for my attention. There is so much loveliness in being her mother, and I desperately want to find the breathing room to savor her little personality as it grows and blossoms because she is already such a complex and beautiful soul. All of her sass and all of her opinions and all of her stubbornness and all of her sweetness. I suppose I should long to savor those same things in myself as well. I wonder what it could look like to believe that the things I have to say deserve space to be heard and that the path I want to take is one that others want to travel with me, regardless of how many times I circle back around to the same place. After our adventure, we headed back to Micah's school for a "Teddy Bear Picnic" with his classmates and their favorite stuffed animals. It also happened to be the day they celebrated Micah's birthday, and as he walked around the corner towards the playground in his paper birthday crown I watched his eyes immediately scan the horizon for mine. I saw a hint of anxiety in those brief moments before he spotted me, just as I do every day at pickup, and then the brightest of lights in his beautiful smile as he realized that he had been remembered. He is my spitting image, not necessarily in physical appearance, but in the makeup of his heart, and I know that this experience of spreading out his wings is both the best and the worst thing that has happened to his little life so far. He never fails to remind me when I have forgotten to ask him about his "happy/sad/silly" from the day on our drive home from school, and he bursts with pride when he shows me the pictures he has drawn and tells me the things that he learned. "Mom, look at this!" is a phrase I hear over and over and over and over again throughout our days as he radiates delight in his cleanly wiped butt or his snail magnet sculpture or his impeccable letter "H", and each one of those moments is balanced with an adamant exclamation that, "THIS (insert object here) IS BROKENNNNNNNN!" or an "THE TOWER KEEPS FALLING!" through exasperated tears and palpable frustration. The last few days he has begun telling me stories about an imaginary friend named Oliver, sharing with such genuine and heartfelt concern that Oliver is feeling sad because he misses his mama when she goes to meetings or when he goes to school. So we talk about how we could help Oliver navigate his sad feelings, and I see a little window into the heart of my amazingly tender boy and desperately try to learn how to steward his precious heart. I'm watching him wade into an awareness of himself and the world around him, and part of that awareness is the complexity of these transitional seasons. He is thrilled and excited and proud. He is scared and anxious and overwhelmed. He is remarkably aware of how he feels, and he is also completely caught off-guard by the magnitude of those feelings. He is me, in miniature. While I have (sometimes) learned to reign in my tantrums, I do not feel too distant from his stomping around the living room in the wake of one of sister's destructive rampages shouting, "I! AM! ANGRYYYYY!" And while I am (mostly) too insecure to share my creative side with others (hence the year-long gap since my last blog post), there are few things as valuable to me as knowing that the people I love really see me and hear me and value my contributions to the world. There are days when I wish I could channel my son's naked awareness, because I see the way he moves into and through those big feelings with remarkable grace for someone who has only four years of experience being a human. I don't necessarily wish to shed all of his tears or scream all of his screams, but I do hope and pray that he and I can grow together into this space, and that we can learn to give ourselves permission to be our truest selves in both joy and sorrow. I want to foster his creativity and remember the elaborate stories he tells about Bear and Moo and Octopus (his personified stuffed animals). I want to comfort him when he crashes hard on his bike, and I want to remind him to get back up and keep trying because I know that in just a few minutes he will be squealing with delight again. I want him to keep bringing me the beautiful things he has made, and I want to keep bringing the world the beautiful things that I've made...even if they aren't quite as tangible as a Lego tower or a magnetic pump track.
Every ending, it seems, is a beginning. Whether we invite and embrace it or whether we fight it with everything we have, the transition will come. The leaves will change and fall. The gray and rain will descend upon our little town, and some days the sadness will feel too big and some days the joy will feel too strong and every one of those days we will, Lord willing, continue to step into the truth of who we are in the midst of everything. When the thing we worked so hard to build gets smashed to bits, as I tell Micah, we have some choices to make. Do we start over again? Do we come up with something new to create? Do we return to what we once envisioned, or to we decide to look for some new possibility in the midst of the rubble? Do we kick and scream and shout for a little while because that's all that makes sense? Do we find a few pieces that we can still recognize and let them speak to us about what they would like to become? I think it's a little bit of all of this, really. It's knowing what was and trusting what is and believing that something - anything - could still be. It's all the possibilities of a floor littered with magnet blocks, including the knowledge that we will probably step on one and the pain will be excruciating. But somewhere, in the midst of what was once a ferris wheel and a stop sign and a hammer and a rocket ship, there is a snail.The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning.
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