There's nothing that gets my heart beating and my palms sweating faster than a room full of married ladies talking about diaper rashes and chew toys. There's nothing that bores me faster than shopping for baby clothes (or any clothes at that). Yes, I love to be the one that gets her smiling face out of bed in the morning, and I admit, I babble to her in high-pitched baby voices, but that's not where my life ends-oh good lord, no.
Moms come in all shapes and sizes, but I don't think being a good mom equals replacing my needs with hers. Sure, I comfort her when she's sick and cuddle with her on rainy afternoons, but that's one part of my very big life. And I need those other parts. Some women might think I'm ungrateful or even ill-matched for motherhood. I couldn't disagree more.
I'm pretty sure if I had lived the life I planned, I would have been an entirely different kind of mom. In fact, I'm quite certain of it. I possibly would have made my child/ren my entire life, probably because I wouldn't have lived much of an adult life without them. Although I could have done without the heart-wrenching dramatic parts, I'm kinda happy, and pleasantly surprised, with the mom my life has shaped me to be.
This is the way I see it. In those years I imagined myself planting flowers and preparing the nursery, I traveled the world and drank too much wine. I watched the sun set from Normandy beach, ate dinner overlooking Chain Bridge in Budapest, heard Willie Nelson amid the Red Rocks of Colorado, had a beer in Joyce's favorite Dublin bar, danced on a table at midnight in Chelsea, NYC, and watched fields of sunflowers salute the Kansas horizon at dawn. I crave my single and otherwise unconventional friends and the conversations that come with them. I don't ever want my life, or hers, to be without those loves of my life.
A good friend wrote in a baby shower card to me, "Children are little people who come to live with us a while." Yes, it is our job to guide them through this ridiculous maze of life. We need to do our best in the time we have to teach them how to not be jerks and hope and pray they become reasonable, responsible adults, but she will be who she is in the end.
Gradually she will grow into her own person. She won't need me to guide her as much or as often. When that time comes, I don't want to be the mom whose standing there saying, "What now?" And I doubt I will. The truth is: I love getting up and going to work every day, and most days, I don't mind leaving her to do her thing. I long for lazy mimosa brunches with my lady friends while my little one plays happily at home with grandma. This doesn't make me a bad momma. It's a reasonable expectation of myself, and one I'm confident will leave her more well-adjusted, allowing me to hang on (with my bare finger nails at times, I'm sure) to me.
And I'd like to think I'm worth hanging onto.
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