Change of Life.....

Last fall I can remember telling one of my best friends that I had the strongest feeling something big was coming.  I get these feelings from time to time and they are always right on the money.

The other night we were reminiscing about this and marveling at all the big changes that had happened since then, and we were laughing when we looked up and noticed the boys coming home in the 1994 Dodge Caravan.  She said it was so strange to see that van driving around, and then when she got close enough to see who was in it, for there to be 2 boys who looked just alike.  "Wait till you get the dogs in there, people will be running off Main Street," was her remark.  The dogs and the boys are equally good looking, in my opinion.  I am not surprised people would stare.  :)

The 1994 Doge Caravan is now on the road!  The single most important thing this means to me is that I no longer have to go to Wal Mart, or anywhere, really.  There is always a boy more than happy to run and get whatever I have forgotten.  These are indeed good days, long in coming to us.

For the first time in 24 years, I get myself up in the morning, get myself ready, and drive off to work, by myself..  That's it.  That's all.  The first morning I left before The Grand Finale did, I kissed them both and said it was so strange to just be driving off and leaving them there.  They smiled and rolled their eyes, which is as good a reaction as I get these days, and said not to worry, that they would be fine.  They practically patted me on the head, which I tried to take gracefully.

I cried on the way down the street and decided to stop for a donut to commemorate this glorious occasion.

And it was very strange, but they were all right.  Despite my constantly checking my phone in case of emergency all day, nothing happened at all.  Four days in, it just keeps happening.  I hardly know how to act.  The second morning I showed up at work an hour early, mostly because I didn't know what else to do or where else to go.  I am seriously considering setting my alarm for 6:30 instead of 5:15 for the first time in my adult life.  Of course I'm putting it off so I don't get severely disappointed if it doesn't work out, but I am really enjoying just hitting the snooze and not worrying right now.  Every single day it feels like less pressure and more time, and I am reveling in it.

I know this is a blessing, and I am slightly ashamed that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It feels simultaneously like a lack of faith and good judgement.  I 'm learning to live with it.

Other things I can learn to live with are beginning to disturb me. The kitchen that was clean and empty last weekend is now strewn with debris and we are fixing the cracks in the walls and ceilings.  I have spent almost every night this week pulling off pieces of my walls and ceilings and just flinging them to the floor, where I am not concerned about ever cleaning them up again.  That crap can easily be rolled right up when we remove the carpet, hopefully this coming weekend.  I just pull, scrape, throw, and let the chips fall where they may.  Then I leave them there and I do not care.  This is the first time in my life I have ever done anything like this and I find it lots of fun.  How often do you get this opportunity in life???  How often can you just start tearing on a thread, have it all fall apart, throw it in the floor and not care?  Not often in my life up to this point!  I have scraped knuckles and calloused fingertips, and actually had the thought that I needed a manicure, none of which are like me at all, but there you have it.  This is me, now, apparently.    I just go with the flow, where ever that takes me, and it's working out pretty good.  I guess. One thing about going with the flow is that there is no destination point known to you, which changes everything, really.  This is one lesson I have been grateful to learn.

I'm enjoying being care-free for the first time in many years.  It took me a while to recognize the feeling, so long had it been since I had felt it, but I'm settling in pretty comfortably.  My decision was reinforced last night when I got home after work to find the boys playing their Magic game of cards in the basement, where they had cleared off the table and found seats amongst the furniture piled willy-nilly all around them.  I had to move an empty wicker shelf set to even find them.  One boy was new, and had not noticed that we were remodeling upstairs.  I found this both remarkable and slightly disturbing, but put it down to teenage tunnel vision.  Either way, it looks like we can adapt to just about anything in stride.  

Lots of changes of the permanent variety are happening now.  For the first time in a very long time, I feel like the future holds new things.  Surprises.  Things will be different forever, and they will never be the same again.  We are all getting older, and we are all also getting stronger.

If you are in your 40's or older, and feel like you should start a work out routine, I can highly recommend working on your own house instead.  You will most certainly get a workout but more importantly, you will also never get bored.  Peeling away tape from a crack in your wall all the way to the bare boards has a way of getting your heart rate up that no treadmill can hold a candle to, let me tell you.  Fear of the walls of your house actually cracking all the way through can tax your system more than 100 reps on the most expensive weight machine, no matter how many bells and whistles it is endowed with.  Climbing a ladder 40 times a night will make many more muscles than simply walking for miles, and almost throwing yourself off the top of a ladder?  Because you are about to peel off a stubborn piece of tape/plaster that you've been battling and as God is your witness, you are going to get it off?  It's an adrenaline rush that has only been matched in my own life by having to track down and kill a bat in my own house.

It's also very good for your skin.  I must say that no Biore Strip can compare to the mask of sweat and plaster dust you can achieve just by sanding off mud where holes have been patched in a wall.  Do this above shoulder height for an added whammo for your floppy upper arms, and you've got a winning combination.  If I am not mistaken, this works not only as a mask but also whisks away all those downy hairs that menopause so gloriously, mysteriously and (girlfriends, I tell you) constantly bestows us with right off!  Perhaps forever!  It felt like it was from the roots, but I'll let you know.

Totally up to you, of course, but I believe there is no gym that can really compare to the experience of working on your own house.  At least I can't imagine one, and I would never want to go through these kinds of things in front of strangers.  The bang for your buck is just better served, it seems to me, the way I'm doing it.  For all the aches and pains I feel night and day, I am sitting up straighter, walking more comfortably, and my clothes are fitting more loosely.  I briefly wondered the other day if my feet my finally be shrinking a little, after the 1 1/2 sized gained after pregnancies, but I will have to wait till the swelling goes down to be sure.  My knees protest loudly but bend more than they have in years and even my hips feel less jiggly.  

Not only am I living with all these changes, but I have worked my way up to staying up until midnight and not turning into a zombie.  The first week was shaky, but I think I've got it now.  It's been 10 years since my mother passed, and it feels like the fog of grief has finally burned away and left me with a nice summer day.  I think I've been depressed, hiding, waiting, not caring if things went on because there was nothing I could do about them anyway.  For a girl who always, and I do mean always, grabs the bull of life by the horns, this has been a long time coming.  I can procrastinate with the best of them, it must be said, but when the rubber meets the road I have always been able to count on being in the car, usually driving.  One reason I was able to get out of bed and on with it is because I didn't want my mother to see me this way.  It would not make her proud, it would make her sad, and I could not have that.  I am reassured now, to feel that I've still got it, that I am still me inside here, even if my heart is broken.

Life breaks us all, sooner or later.  Sometimes it takes a while to summon the energy to actively participate, and it is absolutely frightening how easily you can phone it in and the world will let you slide.  My dear Pretend Grandbaby and Bonus Daughter came along right in time.  Without them I don't know how long I would have stayed there, in that quiet place where nothing really happened.  Abigail got me up just by being born, and I thank God for it.  Never underestimate the power of helpless things, for it cannot be measured in reality.

I'm still proud and happy that I never took the pills.  What pills?  The magic pills that are readily and proliferously offered to you for the slightest of complaints from every direction these days, of course, especially if you still watch television!   That all these magic pills can guarantee is profits for lawyers during future lawsuits is something you will also see commercials on.  Even if you only pay attention to these types of commercials for 3 years, you will see evidence of this that cannot possibly be denied.  Think it over.

Maybe you should just get out of bed and discipline yourself and do what God has put in front of you, whether you like it or not.  No whining.  In other words, suck it up, buttercup.  If this sounds like your mother, well, you must have had a good one.  :)  Choose to have a little faith.  That's what I did.  Life will sometimes suck, and that's a fact, and there is nothing to be done about it but just go on.  Choose to go on strong, not by being addicted to some drug or suffering untold side effects for the rest of your life.  No one is perfect, everyone goes through hard times, and the world went on just fine for millions of years without magic pills or lawsuits.  You can, too.    

The boys (who will soon be men) are getting out of their comfortable kid routine.  I am not going to be the one to tell them that their last summer of laying around being lazy kids is in the past, but it is.  They will figure this out soon enough, as they seek jobs in order to pay their own insurance for the 1994 Dodge Caravan.  I'll always be a mother, but my babies are almost 17 years old, and in this house, kids are still considered adults at 18.  Any 18 year old worth their oats is ready for the challenge, anyway, to say the least.

Soon, I will be a grandmother.  This new chapter will happily start with a newly remodeled house, gained by my own hard work, and I am not just talking about work of the physical variety.  With any luck my calloused hands will be soft in time to touch that sweet baby skin.  Oh, the time grows short and I anticipate this new arrival several times every day.  It has been a very long time since I have looked forward to anything, and I cannot imagine anything better than this.

Another chapter of our lives is over forever, and I am pretty sure I 'm the only one who knows it at this point.  But that's okay, I've survived this chapter before.  Twice.  I am ready, and I know that whatever changes continue to come, we will meet them just like we do everything else, no matter how hard they are or how long they take, we will continue forward and do things right, whatever sacrifices that might entail.

Now, back to getting ready to paint.  Still haven't decided on colors.  I've been too busy explaining to the boys that the reason it's taking so long is directly related to the amount of time we all put in.  This is not complicated but what do you expect from boys who don't even mind weaving around through randomly placed furniture everywhere just to find a chair to sit in?  Onward we go, with me praying that nothing worse than the cracks in walls are discovered before we get this done.  I need the rest, and frankly, I've earned it.

Doorways....

There are many doorways that we go through during a lifetime.  Those moments, whether recognized at the time or not, after which things will never be the same again.  Little breaks in time of the before and the after.  Some of these doorways loom over us for decades before we step through them.  Some we step through before we even realize it, and some we have to decide to step through.  There will always be another doorway waiting, but no one ever turns and goes back through the same one.  This just isn't possible.  Life is reconciling oneself to the choices one has made.  The trick is to always be true to yourself, which can be hard sometimes, but one thing will shape in such a way as to keep you always ready to be judged by God at a moment's notice.  I speak of having a child.  Birth is one of the doorways that looms for women everywhere from the moment they are old enough to realize that they are "girl'.  It's what women do, what only women can do (transgender discoveries aside).  Whether one chooses to go through that particular doorway or not, many have found themselves staring at the handle nevertheless with a decision, sometimes a hard decision to make.

I tell you the truth when I say that you become a mother the minute you realize you are pregnant, and whatever happens, whatever happens after that moment, you will always be one.  And you will be a better person for it.  Whether that pregnancy ends in a birth, an adoption, a miscarriage, or an abortion, you will carry that child with you in your heart and in your mind forever, and it will color every day the way you think about the world, for better or for worse, and truth be told, you wouldn't have it any other way.  All this will happen in an instant, and I can tell you when it will be.  At some point, after counting days and taking several tests, you will stop wondering whether or not you are pregnant, and let your mind skip ahead to a scenario in which you are.  You might shiver.  Understandable, because you have just passed through the shadow of a doorway.  Nothing will ever be the same again.  Time has split into before and after.

What it is like to become a mother?  Such a simple question with such a complicated answer!  What is it like to become a mother?

It's terrifying.  First and foremost, this is what I remember.  The thought of giving birth is terrifying.  The thought of all that responsibility is terrifying.  The thought of all the things you don't know and how long this will go on and the fact that YOU will be the parent and no one will come and take over, like always before, is terrifying.

It's exciting.  It's wonderful.  You feel holy, if a little nauseous. Thrumming right along, under all the dread and preparation is the most exciting and exhausting sense of destiny playing out. THIS is what is going to happen to you.  You are going to be someone's mother!  Astounding as that is!  Maybe you didn't plan it.  Maybe you did.  It makes no difference to the ecstasy you feel, in between the bouts of incredulous confusion that this is really happening.  You are no longer alone.  You carry precious cargo every moment of every day and night.  You imagine what this child will be like.  I even had a dream in which I gave birth, which didn't turn out to be nearly as bad as I expected, only to see that I had given birth to a duckling.  Not that I didn't love it, in fact I think I loved it even more, but the guilt at the initial rejection of my 'baby' lasted for several days.  And yes, I knew it was just a dream, but pregnancy turns you inward.  You are constantly monitoring a whole other separate, even holy, world that is all within yourself.  If you didn't before, you start to get closer to God than you have been as an adult.  Which I believe is all part of the process.

Also a necessary part of the process is the waiting.  Nowadays, the waiting has largely disappeared, as it is not uncommon to pick a date and schedule a c-section at a convenient time, but I don't have any experience with that and personally I am hoping that is just a phase.  By the end of your pregnancy you won't be able to sleep much because you will be getting up to pee about every 2 hours.  Getting up will take a lot longer than you can imagine, and by then you will have lots of pillows placed strategically so that you are comfortable.  Your feet will be a lot bigger than they ever have been before and probably will never be the same size again.  You will have become familiar with all manner of hemorrhoid treatments, and you will have been wearing a maxi pad for a couple of months because you will pee your pants all the time.  Try not to worry about any of this.  Motherhood is not for the faint of heart!  Besides, this is the least of your worries.  Your main worry is how long is this going to go on???  Everyone you know asks you, no matter where you go, "You haven't had that baby yet??"  If you stay at home, they call you on the phone.  Then they frequently don't have anything to say, because "oh, you answered the phone.  I guess you haven't had that baby yet!"  Try not to take this personally, these same people will be helping you figure out the weird underwear in the hospital that you will have to figure out how to fit the largest  maxi pad you have ever seen in your life.  And you will thank God for them.  Try to remember this, as you feel helpless because you have no control over this and you really want to get it over with.  Everything is washed and ready and the room is waiting.  You are never really going to have any control again.  But don't worry, you won't care.  You are going to have a baby, and you are about to go into what I like to call "Lioness Mode".  You don't even have the faintest idea of who you are, but you are about to find out, and you are going to be so proud of yourself you won't even be able to believe it.

These days, most likely you will have to drive quite a while to get to the hospital (since no one in small towns can afford the malpractice insurance to deliver babies anymore), and odds are that you will have a C-section scheduled (because it's too inconvenient to let nature take it's course and/or the insurance has already agreed to pay for a C-section, you figure out which, if either, is more true).  I can't really speak about this without sounding bitter, but giving birth is about the most natural thing in the world and there is largely no reason to even have a Dr. or a hospital, in truth.  Having said that, however, in the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you that I have had an emergency c-section and it saved both my twin boys lives, plus my own.  Long story short, I had an amniocentesis to see if the twins' lungs were developed enough for me to schedule a c-section because I could no longer really breathe if I was lying down (not that I did that very often in the last months...).  The amnio needle caused a placental abruption, which is a way of saying that my placenta tore away from my abdominal wall and both babies and I were bleeding out, albeit very neatly inside my body somewhere and I had no clue (NO CLUE WHATSOEVER) that I was in the midst of dying along with the babies inside me.  I didn't die, and neither did the boys, despite being born with no heartbeats and only hald of their blood volume.  But that is enough of that story for our purposes here.  In short, while I strongly disapprove of c-sections just because, in emergency situations they can save lives, and of course you should never turn one down if you really need one.  That would be stupid.

This is to deal with normal deliveries, where you are taken through an ever increasingly painful, exhausting, and seemingly unending time where you are laboring.  You may have tried to get out of doing this by this point.  Don't feel bad.  It's only natural, and I have seen even animals try to run away rather than go through labor, but you will reach a point where you will realize you are not going to get out of this.  You know it's going to be bad.  It's been bad for quite a while now, but you know it is going to get worse.  A lot worse than this.  Don't be embarrassed if you get ugly.  I even tried to kick the Dr. at one point during my first delivery and he was not even the least bit surprised.  Never will you be so grateful for people who have the attitude of having seen it all before. You will feel yourself go into a "zone", or a spiritual state where your pain, your exhaustion, and most probably your "birth plan" no longer matter.   It's OK.   All that matters is the baby.  You may be looking at the clock but only out of habit, because the clock cannot keep track of this kind of time you are in now.  Time doesn't matter except that it is passing, passing, and no  matter how long it takes, you are going to see this little soul safely into this world, even if it kills you.  It occurs to you that it might, indeed, kill you.  You do not care.  It occurs to you that this state you are in is probably equivalent to an LSD trip, but that doesn't seem strange.  The idea of dying is put on the list in your head, but not at the top spot.  It is second on the list now, right behind See Baby Into World Safely, because you are now in Lioness Mode, and you are a fierce warrior, who will stop at nothing before her job is done.

For many women, even ones who have been Christians for years, this is the first time that they can say they actually know what it is to love someone more than themselves.  It comes to you crystal clear, you just know it in your soul, and you know that no matter how bad it is or how hard you have to work, this is what you were born for.  This moment.  This is it.  You are the doorway.  Even if you still don't think you are doing it right, your body knows exactly what to do.  This is the miracle of life, your life, and it is happening.  Nothing will ever be the same for you again, no matter what happens next.  You have carried this child, sacrificed for it, loved it, dreamed it's life, prayed over it, and now you are going to deliver it into the world.

By now they are telling you you are almost done.  You are not aware of the people around you except that they are manipulating your body, trying to help, and you don't even care.  They are on your side, you don't know who they are, you don't care, it doesn't matter, and then, suddenly, it's done.  You are distantly aware of feeling cold suddenly, you look up and see your baby, which is unceremoniously plunked down right on top of your huge, now jelly-like, sloshing stomach. You see that baby, and that baby cries.  They tell you what it is but it doesn't matter if it's boy, girl, or even duckling, it's your baby and it's alive.  You feel as big as the whole world!  You are not actually as big as the world, it's just that your world has just shrunken.  Everything that really matters to you is in that room.  You see your baby and your baby sees you, and the time that has been running so strangely stops for just an instant.  Everything else just drops away and you know, in your heart and your soul, that this is what it's all been for, and it's all been worth it, a thousand times over.

They take your baby away, throw it down (you will think) on a table under a bright light and rub it roughly with a towel to get the gunk off.  Should your poor husband still be under the impression that you are the center of the world, you quickly disabuse him of that notion with possibly stern orders spit in his direction to "GO WITH THE BABY!!"  Or not.  Maybe you will be a nicer Lioness than I was the first time.  Probably, though, you will at least consider him addle brained, perhaps for the first time.  Sorry about that.  It's hard for the fathers sometimes, I think, to make the transition.  He didn't just reconcile himself to death, and gladly, for the sake of the life of this child.  He made no bargain with God, he missed all that, and you haven't had the time to fill him in.  Don't feel bad about it.  Just blame it on Lioness Mode.  At any rate, he will go over there and they will hand him that baby and he will be lost, and for good, and he will figure it out pretty quickly.  Take heart!  He is about to discover that the wife whose temper he wants hates to deal with can be used as a shield that will protect your whole family.  Many is the man who has traded his dreams of a perfect woman in for a trusted comrade in arms.  You will work it out, and pretty easily, because you two have just hitched yourself into the yoke of parenthood, and whatever comes, you are never getting out of it.  Never.  No matter what.

Never in the history of birthing stories have I ever heard anyone talk about the afterbirth.  You will know in your mind, because you read the books, that the afterbirth is delivered.  I can vaguely recall that happening once, but not with any details.  Your legs might be shaking uncontrollably right after, and they once made the most interesting long bag of ice, slapped it right between my legs, and then covered me up with the most wonderful warm blankets, and I didn't even care!  I couldn't feel the cold, and they seemed so sure of what they were doing, I just went with it.  I think this is normal.  I can remember being back in the room then.  Whether I passed out, went to sleep, they gave me good drugs, or what happened between the baby being on the table and me being in my room is still cloudy to me, and so much the better, I say.  It just doesn't matter that much to you.  People who love you will be waiting in your room and they will fuss over you and bring you wonderful things, and if you take a moment, treasure that, because this is the last time that anything is ever going to be just about you.  From now on, no matter what happens, your child is going to color everything that happens to you, you are their mother, forever.  Now you are wanting your baby brought to you, and here it comes.

This is it.  You have been trusted with this life.  You are about to dive into the deepest water, with no assurance of survival but the biggest commitment of all.  You have been the doorway and now the safety of the realm rests with you.  Have faith, thank God, listen to your heart, and do what's best for your child.  Know that what's best will hurt, sometimes, and that's OK because some lessons are that important.  Know that everything else is just details.  It just won't matter to you as much, ever again, as it once did.  You will put it away with your other childish things and treasure the memory of the girl you were, before you walked through the doorway of motherhood.  You are so much more than that girl could ever imagine, and she would be so proud of what you have become.

Welcome to best club in the world!  You are a link in a chain that has no beginning and no end, it transcends language and cultural barriers, and has never changed...... Find a mother in any time period in history you will find yourself.  I wish you joy, and peace, and, it should go without saying, as few hemorrhoids as possible.  I already know you will have love in abundance.