Recently I shuffled my life around to be able to pick up my child from school. That might not sound like a lot but it involves taking a pay cut (but not a job cut), hauling in a babysitter in the mornings and paying an exorbitant sum just to see the kids off cuz I now start work earlier, and effectively learning what it feels like to actually be with my child at a time when I never usually am. To observe and be with him at a normal time of day, every day.
The latter being the biggest change, and because I know I am the remedial Mom who, after being spending my entire motherhood diagnosed with ADHD in the remedial class, was given the basic assessment test again and was grudingly granted furlough, turning me loose on motherhood in a way I have not been before. Literally, before this my child's exposure to me was maybe 3 hours a day during the work week, and less than an hour of it could've been considered actual attention paid to said child. Most of the available fuel in the brain trust was spent wildly stomping on the desire to deal with details in lieu of dealing with the big picture at hand (just what in the fuck should I do with this small purple button lying here on the counter? keep it? toss it? what if I need it? I don't know!). The big picture being so large it was just a blob, and the substance of it...just left me feeling defeated, and so I squinted at the picture instead, and pondered the fate of the button lying randomly on our desk counter for the last three months.
But on that first day of school at 3:30 I jauntily walked up the street, eyeing other mothers trailing in from all different directions, answering the motherhood siren call. They stand around unhurried, watching their kids play with each other and talking a bit, before meandering away from school. They stand in pairs and clusters, in Tory Burch flats and worn expensive jeans, North Face fleeces, sloppy ponytails and modestly makeup'd faces. Relaxed. Its a scene, like anything else is a scene. They are the Motherhood. I want to fit. I want to fit purely because I want my child to fit. (Like me? Well, you'll LOVE my child!) My child, who doesn't really do playdates because I'm never around. My child, who doesn't have 6 extracurriculars, in part cuz I feel panicked that the growing stack of unread Sunday New York Times is a taunting detail existing to prove my willful ignorance of the world at large and must be addressed NOW.
So after weeks of remembering names, trading smiles, proudly standing relaxed in the playyard, with the security in knowing that I too have the ability to leisurely wander away from school when we're ready, I came home to know that I could walk by the stack of mail and not twitch. And the fucking button, its still there. And when the requisite tantrum has been thrown by the three year old and the requisite googl requests for treats has passed, I will still have time to go through the homework folder and put something together that some may consider dinner. These, little tsunami's all, are convincing of the truth of the adage "time heals all wounds", in an unique way. Motherhood may not be my nature (see etymology above), but it is certainly more my state now than ever. In this state, the big picture has form, and its substance is scalable.
