I was pretty mad that first 24 hours. I couldn't believe how mad I was. Rejection and uselessness make for some bad inside-my-mind motherhood yelp reviews. I was also mad to realize that the college end isn't at all what you're running for. You're running because the motherrunning is so fucking awesome. Sure you're always late and dirty and swearing and overburdened. I had no idea that THAT busy-ness, is what life is, and there is nothing apart from that. That is its meaning.
How ANYONE can enjoy the 100 mph of motherhood as it keeps ramping up in the teenage years until you barf them out into college and then come back to the silent garage crammed full of all the memories - and then not be crazy? I don't think this person exists, this all-figured-out mother. I think there is only me, the mess, and the pools of love everywhere from the raindeluge of children.
So I'm now one week in, and I have to tell you, going through the garage (while not what I want to do ever) is actually really really fun. I give myself a limit so as not to be crying from the hugeness of all the stuff, I say to myself, Myself you only have to do two bags. One trash and one donate. Each day.
Without Bess to worry about, I actually have time to do things in a thoughtful way. I can stand in the garage and sift through things and there is so much laughter at the stuff they said and the tooth fairy letters and their handwriting and the sports pictures when they had no teeth and I know exactly now what I can throw away and it isn't agonized over now because it's obvious what is necessary and what can go.
Sifting through makes me see every minute how busy I was, how I didn't know what to do with this stuff but I knew I would get to it later, and best of all, seeing the remnants of 25 years on the go hands full with babies made me see how rich
i am rich
our family is rich beyond Zeus and Hera and Europa and other distant god planets
B and I and my parents and my bigger fam, we got to be part of someone's life fabric we got to be threaded in there. Those three kids are rich because of us, man. And WE are beyond because when you put your whole heart into something you blow up like the guy who strapped lawn chairs to a bunch of balloons and launched himself into the sky in Orange County somewhere in the 80s. Remember that guy? He was stupid and he was flying up by airplanes.
We launched ourselves and we don't have to come back from that. We can stay floating and enjoy the incredible and unique scenery we created.
Those babies make the world make sense.
I'm not mad at all anymore. I can even talk to that guy Barry. I am curious to see what this new path is. Once I make a path in the garage. Then I can make another one outside of there.
Also I kind of like the one I'm already on. All the paths are good and the best ones end in ice cream.
Also the very most important thing of this week of recovering from Hands On Motherhood? B bought bagels the day before she left and we didn't get to eat them.
I froze them so they wouldn't go bad and every day of these last 7 days I have been unfreezing and eating a fresh bagel. If you ever get to the end of motherhood, make sure someone who loves you buys you bagels for that week. Fresh bagels, fresh eggs. It cheered me up every single day.
