Watching The Hills makes all things better

I was reading Jane (I read all the time but rarely comment but I do love her blog)....anyway I was reading Jane's latest and something hit me. Yesterday I had a really bad day what with being ignored by the sports moms who know me but pretended they didn't know me until I shouted HELLO to them to make them say hello back to me (see post below).

What I realized was that I left out the most important thing that made me feel bad yesterday and it was my daughter!!! I've written before what a sore loser she is and thank God she doesn't lose too often or I'd need to be medicated to get through the dramatics. I was sitting with two of her friends who had come to watch her play. Well, my daughter comes off the court with her sourpuss face and bad attitude about the loss and since I know how she is, I didn't say anything. She started to talk to her friends and I heard her say something like, "Great, you come to see me the one time I lose," and I thought to myself, well, this isn't going to be good. So I said something about it being a good match regardless of the loss, which, of course, is never a good thing to say to her because it's only a good match if she wins. I need to remember that.

I thought I would diffuse the situation by offering to take a picture of her and her friends (I photograph the kids while they play during the season), and my daughter says, "UM...NO...look at my face. Do you really think I want to get my picture taken right now?" And she said it in a really loud, mean voice in front of her friends and all of the sudden I could just feel myself shrink because what I wanted to do was slap her face, but what I did was stand up and tell her I was going to find somewhere else to sit and to please remember her bag because I wasn't going to take it for her. Then I walked away and sat by myself and then those other moms ignored me and I think that is what sent me over the edge. Everyone was determined to hurt my feelings yesterday and they succeeded.

I don't have a cute ending to my story like Jane always does because while I had planned to rip into my daughter as soon as I could get her alone, by the time that happened, I had lost all my fight. I kept my distance from her when we returned home and wasn't overly talkative then she asked me to watch The Hills with her and I said ok. All was better. The end.

A Good Mother

I've been a parent since I was 23 years old--more years than I've been without kids. In a lot of ways, the time has flown by in a blur, but in other ways, it feels like forever, if that makes any sense. While my friends were out having fun, I was raising children. Having children was the most sobering thing in the world to me. Being carefree was a thing of the past. I stayed serious and determined because I did not know any other way to be. I learned to put myself last and that came easily because all mothers should strive to be selfless, right?

I can see myself from the outside looking in and this is what I see: I see someone who has been waiting patiently for a time when I no longer had to be last. It's like I was willing to be last as long as I knew that there would come a time when it would be over--knowing that made everything bearable. It was a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It was a star I was inches from touching. It was a pot of something splendidly wonderful at the end of a sun-kissed rainbow.

I'm not sure what this says about me. I'm afraid it says that my heart couldn't have been fully into parenting if I was simply waiting for the time when it would end.

I mention this because I have days when I'm not sure I will ever get the chance to have a life outside of being a parent. I was fortunate to be able to stay home with all of my children all of their lives and this is what I know better than anything. While other women were establishing careers which paid them for their hard work, I was home playing Chutes and Ladders with my kids. I was repeating nursery rhymes a million times. I was pushing them on swings and building sand castles. Their lives became my life.

Whenever I start to get excited about gaining part of the old me back again, something happens and the date gets pushed back even further to the future. I get sick of the fact that it appears my life is about living with the decisions other people get to make for me. My oldest child is moving back home again and I think a good mother would be happy about that, but all I can think about is how much more work that will be for me. I think of the extra laundry, the extra meal preparation, the extra person I will have to always consider before thinking about myself because that is how I am wired now. I feel resentful and hateful. I'm convinced that a good mother would not feel this way.

And the hardest part of all, the most confusing thing to me. is that mostly I am happy with my life and I don't know how to reconcile that with the fact that I long to be free of taking care of other people. My children only know me as a mother and I'm sure they never stop to think that maybe there is a part of me I've sacrificed for them that I'd like to reclaim at some point. I don't think they want anything for me except this and I can't say that I blame them since I've made it perfectly clear that it's ok to think of me last.

I wonder, sometimes, how long I will have to wait.

I've always been good at waiting.