In Search of Summer: Nana and Papa's

My parents still live in the only house that I have ever known as home. Of course, that is until now, with my own family, and my own home. But that childhood home still bears a wordless weight that carries the memories of a swing-set no longer there, Anne of Green Gables read through a 6th grade summer, curfews, and crying over old boyfriends. It was wonderful. Nana and Papa took Ella duty, and I got to sleep in (8 o'clock...I never knew that could be sleeping in...), read a book, sit in the sun, and watch my daughter enjoy the air that raised me.

I love my mom and dad. They are special people with a laid-back style of 'sitting-without-talking-or-really-interacting-in-any-way-at-all' that drives my husband crazy, and makes me feel right at home. I hope Ella gets many more summer days spent with Nana and Papa.

And no visit home is complete without a good dose of Owen. The best, and original, cat.

Letting Go

I feel like I am at the end of a journey I never began. With all of my indecisiveness, fear, and avoidance, I have dreamed many dreams, and lived very few of them. My classes begin tomorrow, and as I decide against taking the lab for one, I realize that my always-thrown-around idea of going to med school really needs to take flight and find a new dreamer. As I head in this new direction, toward nursing, I need to be realistic, driven, and visionary; not halted by regrets or stagnant indecision.

In Search of Summer: Swimming!

Here in Arizona, summer arrived long ago!










What I love about the daily father-daughter swim:

• Ella's shrieks of joy.
• How proud Ella and dad are of blowing bubbles.
• Ella's cute little tukus.
• The pull-ups Ella does on the side of the pool.
• Basking in the fun of watching of watching my husband be a super great dad.

In Search of Summer: My New Motto

A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.

Disclaimer:
This motto does not mean that I have an unsanitary house. It is usually germ free. For the most part. Okay, maybe just sometimes...

Mary, I'm still waiting on the embroidered items to arrive in your shop! :)

Full Steam Ahead

So, along with my well-practiced pain avoidance, I have learned that I also avoid hard work (well, I guess the both are intimately linked). I know that my close friends will read this and nod, being glad that I'm finally acknowledging it. I am at a crossroads.

I am starting 12 credits worth of summer school next week.
I have 12 more credits to take in the fall semester.
I am teaching a new subject next year.
The deadline for applying to nursing school is Jan 2011.
I'd also like to lose my Ella ell-bees. (baby weight)

My norm is to ignore what I want, live in the mediocrity that feels comfortable, and defeatedly accept the failures that come with not trying. I think this is most appropriately labeled being a victim. I don't want to be this person anymore.

I want to throw myself into life with abandon. The old Meghan would have somehow avoided moving forward to this goal of nusring--well, actually I have avoided it for 6 years. The new Meghan is going to work her tukus off and make it to January. No excuses. No whining. Hold me to it.

My First Mother's Day

In After the Fall, Arthur Miller writes, "The word 'now' is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks." Isn't that true. How do I embrace and live fully in the now? My prayer this Mother's Day, and, really, every day, is "Oh, Lord, may these days go slowly and be full of joy."

While I look forward to knowing my Ella as a girl, a teenager, a woman, I feel the haunting ache of missing of her, of moving on, of being old.

I also ache because the relationship that I have with my own mom is so devoid of intimacy. I pray that this will also change, but I have to realize that it quite likely will not. I love my mom. But I am sad that, as I read others' 'Mother's Day blogs,' I see lists of "what I learned from my mom" or the like, I feel that while I do have a list of 'what I learned,' they aren't all great. In my journey, I have felt guilty for not 'respecting' or 'loving enough,' or 'insert guilt-induced-phrase here.' She did rock me, love me, stay up for hours with my nosebleeds, and was, in general, a wonderful mom, doing the best she could with the past she has. But that isn't any reason to lie to myself. So, please understand that while you may feel that this is a mean and ungrateful thing for me to be doing, that it really is necessary for me, and that I love and respect my mother perhaps more than ever before because of my honesty.

Things my mom taught me:

• To love learning.
• To love reading.
• To read to my own kids at bedtime. And read the same book again and again and again.
  
• That wearing makeup doesn't matter.
• That careless car mishaps are the reason we have car insurance, and aren't worth being too upset about.
  
• To never want anything in order to keep from being disappointed.
• To never share your feelings out of fear of making someone mad.
• To never be a student of yourself. It is too painful and you shouldn't want to actually change.
• To avoid confrontation.
• To sweep uncomfortable things under the rug.
• To insulate myself from friends--they are not to be trusted or confided in.
• That any man is going to be unfaithful, and we women are meant to endure it.
• That work is more important than family.
• That emotional intimacy is dangerous and will be used against you.
• That your husband isn't really on your team.
• That she doesn't really have an interest in knowing me, just an interest in assuming she knows me.
• That money is a mode of love.
  
• That I am incapable of doing anything without her help.

I pray that my children will always know that I am curious to know who they truly are. That they will never feel like there is a 'thing'--work, hobby, etc--that is worth more than they are. That they will know that my husband and I are co-captains, independent people, and in love. That they will know that honest communication sometimes means hurting others. That they will know that sharing yourself is dangerous, but necessary. That they will know what grace looks like. That they will know that being angry with someone does not mean there is any removal of love. Really, I suppose I pray that I can define family in a much different way that I knew.

I remember as a child, perhaps I was ten, saying to myself "I want to marry someone who is a good communicator." Of course I also wanted someone handsome, who would be a good father, creative, and, oh, and the list goes on. But I remember that one request above the rest. And, I only recently remembered this--all within the process of differentiation and growth in our marriage. I sat back to realize how blessed I am to have a man who is the one who made me a mother, the one who will cooperatively raise our children with me, who challenges me to be a strong, confident, independent woman, and who, regardless of the pain and frustration, has taught me how to communicate, to be a team player, and how to share myself.

So, basically, as I look back on my first Mother's Day, I am overwhelmed:

• Thankful that I have my mom, and that we have the opportunity to beautify our relationship.
• Thankful for a husband who has allowed, guided, and helped me to become the woman and mother that I am.
  
• And thankful for my precious Ella, a beautiful and fiery girl whom I am excited to get to know more every day.

A Mother's Tears

David Foster Wallace, in his short story, Incarnations of Burned Children, found in his collection, Oblivion: Stories, leaves the reader with a haunting image: "If you've never wept and want to, have a child."

Even in my love for heavy, some-would-say depressing literature, I personally find this specific story too disturbing to really enjoy. I read it many years ago, and was haunted for months--and, by this one quote, haunted for years--the memory of it has never left my psyche. Wallace's weeping most certainly refers to a suffering, sorrowful place; the cries of a parent when faced with the suffering of their child. But for me, this idea of weeping branches out in so many different directions.

In my first weeks at home, there were so many emotions. Once I began my 'better living through chemistry' regimen treating my postpartum depression, things were much better, and the emotions were real, raw, and amazing.

At night, I often would wake up in anticipation, anxious for Ella to wake up and nurse. I couldn't wait to feel her creeping little fingers, hear her gluttonous breaths, to gaze into her face. I would weep in anticipation. I would weep each evening, knowing that the day was done: loving and reliving every minute of it, and yet, melancholy that it was so quickly in the past. I wept as I realized that as I was anxious to see her smile, but that I didn't want to wish away one moment of the first six weeks. I weep knowing that I will miss her when she is grown, but am excited to know my daughter as a girl, a teenager, a woman. In my opinion, I would define my actions as weeping, but not a weeping from sorrow. It was and is a weeping from a depth that I would never know if I were not a mother.

I know I will have days to weep from sorrow. Weeping for my children, my friends, my family. And I pray for strength in advance. I rejoice that my weeping is based from a heart and life full of joy. I apologize to those of you who have had lifetimes of sorrowful weeping, my thoughts must seem so trite.

As I think about weeping in the bible, it almost always is opposite laughing: Luke 6:21, "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh;" Ecclesiastes 3:4, "A time to weep, and a time to laugh." How interesting that two antonyms can indwell my heart simultaneously. I laugh heartily at Ella's antics--and hidden in my heart is the melancholy weeping that these baby giggles will only last for a season, that this is a fleeting moment; a wonderful season and a heart-stopping moment, but none the less, one that will never be again. I think that is the weight and existence of both emotions that makes either worth feeling. My mother's tears, whether spilled or kept, are dammed in my mother's heart, full of strength and laughter.

Or maybe I just need to up my Zoloft dose.