We Carry On

I heard the unmistakable sound of china smashing on tile floor. Shit… I had foreshadowed that sound enough since that morning that I knew it was for real this time. So I’m a soothsayer, an unfortunate manifester, or have just been a mother long enough to know it was going to happen and to still hope for the best anyway. 

My seven year old had asked me before school that morning if he could use the delicate china mug his sister had picked out for me on her school trip. It had a picture of a calico cat sleeping on a heap of pillows. She remembered me telling her about a Ravensburger puzzle I saw that had a woman in a cabin on a rainy day, reading a book next to a wood stove, drinking tea, with a fluffy blanket and a cat on her lap and it reminded her of that puzzle. Reminded her of what she knew my perfect day would be. Probably reminded her of how home feels when I’m not overwhelmed and the most important thing on our agenda is tea and snuggles. She told me she would never forget how happy my face was when I opened the gift and saw the mug for the first time. I had used it exactly three times before the chaos erupted. 

When he asked to use the mug, I hesitated for half a second before saying yes. I had an entire conversation with myself in that half second about empowering my kids with my trust, and reducing– of course never eliminating– the reasons they’ll be in therapy as adults. To him, that half second was a lifetime. He saw it. He felt it. My daughter made it super clear how disapproving she was of my decision and I assured her it was fine. He would be careful. 

I was talking to a friend on the phone after I dropped the kids at school that morning and I told her I hadn't been to a yoga class in way longer than I even wanted to admit. She lives hours away from me now. When she lived closer she taught a Sunday morning yoga class down the street from me and I never missed it. The kids spent the weekend with their Dad at that time and it was my Sacred Sunday. I would get to class early to spread my mat in the spot in front of the woodstove. Every single Sunday. I loved her class because sometimes we would sit back-to-back with a partner and surrender ourselves into sweet, sweet support. I loved her class because I could feel all the way into the depths of my hips and pour broken, grateful, grief-filled tears. But now Sunday is sacred in much more mundane but exquisitely potent ways and I told her I hadn’t been practicing. 

I told her I hadn’t been practicing but when the shit hit the fan– or the china hit the floor– I didn’t even flinch or need the half second before I pulled in a long, deep breath and doled out hugs and tenderness. Before I kissed foreheads and wiped everyone’s tears. Before my heart immediately bubbled assurances that yes, I was sad and disappointed, but I was not angry. That my love was and always would be bigger than my sadness. That I would always remember how loved I felt when I opened that gift and that love would never leave and was a million times better than any present I could ever get. 

I told her I hadn't been practicing but that afternoon I had colored a kid’s emotions wheel I found online to hang in our crafting area and had to make modifications because it didn’t have joy or gratitude… or grief. I’ve been thinking so much about grief lately. About how I feel like I have been wandering around in a tall, swaying grass field of grief for a couple of years now. Some days pinpointing exactly what I’m grieving that day– like the pictures I had of what my life would look like at this stage of my life, things I want to give my kids, relationships lost or not yet found and the heavy, crushing weight of the fear, injustice, pain and sorrow everywhere I look. 

Some days I allow myself to just name the grief without naming the cause and that is enough. I told her I had not been practicing but some days I see grief for the central world that it is, full of doors and windows that we would never access if we didn’t let ourselves ramble unhurriedly down the grief halls. A world that leads to parallel worlds of unbound gratitude, all encompassing joy, and a whole cosmos of love. 

Motherhood is asking for all of me right now and it has not been easy and definitely not perfect. I have made so many apologies. So many “I was frustrated and I took it out on you and that is not okay.” So many “I made my grouchiness your problem and that is not fair.” So many mornings of 5am alarm clocks with the intention to get on my mat, and instead washing the last night's dishes, making the lunches, searching for the favorite pair of jeans or socks and then shaming myself for “not practicing.”

I saw a post from Rachel Cargle today that said “Like all things, I exist in cycles. Even when I do not feel like it, I am always whole.” 

I am practicing constant reminders of wholeness. Of cycles. Of apologies. Of trust in grief and in love as the world spins madly on.