Peeping Mom
I can feel the slight give of the old wood as my cheekbone pushes into it. Peripheral vision gives me a haze of dusky blue that I haphazardly smeared across this door years before I ever knew my life would be this. I press harder and the doors are hung so poorly in this house I am almost inside his room, with my cheek pressed against my little sons as he cries himself to sleep.
It is rare that I allow myself this. I am a tough mother. I make room for sorrow and disappointment, but little time for sappiness over life’s little transgressions. Shake it off, you’re just fine, buck up. I’m a man at heart, that’s the truth sometimes. But tonight for some reason I allow myself to lean into this moment. I push the threshold and imagine myself here in a dozen more years, eavesdropping on my sons sorrow, there for every second of it but letting him go it alone. I’m wavering, staggering into the truth that is I can’t help him. Not today, over a lost nap and the disappointment of a shopping trip. Not next decade when he will inevitably cry over a broken heart. I can hear it now, a throatier voice, far more wise than I will wish him, hurting over a broken heart, a disappointment far greater than the one tonight.
A mother’s love is a cruel joke. It is uncontrollable, knows no bounds. While a child’s love fades and matures with time, becomes less dependent, a mother’s love grows and twists and vines its way through every possible crevice. And when her child is hurt and she can’t, or shouldn’t fix it, it feels like nothing else, a monsoon, a bolt of lightning. She must defy gravity to hold onto her heart.
I am struggling through the nuances of motherhood now. Trying to find a way to swim in this love that threatens to pull me under. Searching for a balance, a place where I’m treading water, holding them up and teaching them to swim all at once.
It is rare that I allow myself this. I am a tough mother. I make room for sorrow and disappointment, but little time for sappiness over life’s little transgressions. Shake it off, you’re just fine, buck up. I’m a man at heart, that’s the truth sometimes. But tonight for some reason I allow myself to lean into this moment. I push the threshold and imagine myself here in a dozen more years, eavesdropping on my sons sorrow, there for every second of it but letting him go it alone. I’m wavering, staggering into the truth that is I can’t help him. Not today, over a lost nap and the disappointment of a shopping trip. Not next decade when he will inevitably cry over a broken heart. I can hear it now, a throatier voice, far more wise than I will wish him, hurting over a broken heart, a disappointment far greater than the one tonight.
A mother’s love is a cruel joke. It is uncontrollable, knows no bounds. While a child’s love fades and matures with time, becomes less dependent, a mother’s love grows and twists and vines its way through every possible crevice. And when her child is hurt and she can’t, or shouldn’t fix it, it feels like nothing else, a monsoon, a bolt of lightning. She must defy gravity to hold onto her heart.
I am struggling through the nuances of motherhood now. Trying to find a way to swim in this love that threatens to pull me under. Searching for a balance, a place where I’m treading water, holding them up and teaching them to swim all at once.
