Despite frequent phone calls and photo/video updates by phone, by the end of day three, I was in tears at missing my little ones and my husband. I loved where I was and who I was with, but this didn't negate the fact that my heart was decidedly elsewhere.
I remember when I was first divorced. For awhile, I said several times a day - sometimes audibly, "I miss my husband." I continued to say it. At first, I really did miss the physical presence of someone I had cared for, known, and loved for 10 years and lived with in matrimony for nearly 8 years. After a year or so, I didn't so much miss his physical presence. As humans, we can become accustomed to nearly any type of discomfort, I imagine. However, I continued to say it - sometimes only in my mind. I often wondered why. I think it was because I missed the identity I had lost - the "wife & mother". I was still a mother, but that was only half the identity I used to have. "I miss my husband" was more about an identity crisis than missing a person... more about a missing me than a missing he. I learned during that time that I needed no one save God for fulfillment, but I love that He gave me a gift - that of family - to share my life on earth.
I felt this again when I missed my children. I found myself smiling at, waving at, and talking to strangers' children if only to feel counterfeit closeness to my own. I watched the other parents around the park - parenting. I thought, "I do that. Yeah, I'm a parent too." I almost wanted others to know it - wanted to wear a t-shirt declaring it or have it tattooed on my forehead. Why?? I knew that if my kids were there, Levi would be on his monkey backpack leash - pitching fits over sibling annoyances. Violet would be screaming to get out of the stroller and climbing anything that didn't climb her when she wasn't in the stroller. Claire and Sadie would be begging me to ride teacups and Dumbo's and other momits - things that go around and around till mom vomits. Austin would be putting the "middle school distance" between himself and his dorky family or picking mercilessly on the younger children. We'd have to stop at every shop and kiosk and try on every goofy (or donald or mickey or minney) hat in Disneyland. We'd be paying $120.00/meal to eat as a family, taking breaks every 5-15 minutes (alternating between potty/diaper change and water), and every photo I tried to take would have someone frowning, rolling his eyes, making a silly face, or holding bunny ears behind someone else's head. I had none of these "problems", but I was still missing the having of them! That's the insanity that is motherhood.
I rarely have time to do this, but I read the blog of someone I don't know a few weeks ago. A few of my friends were following hers, and I saw that she had well over one hundred readers. She considers herself a writer/poet. I don't know what one has to do to become these things, but I would think, by most standards, it would involve a college degree and some paid work in the writing/poetry field. Anyway, I read one of her posts describing how she was newly pregnant with what would be her first child. She wrote about this in some detail, and then she exclaimed to her readers at the end, something to the effect of, "Don't worry. You won't find me writing about my pregnancy and child now. This won't turn into a mommy blog, because the last thing this world needs is another mommy blog!" The obvious disdain for mothers who blog their daily thoughts was palpable. This was a barb. It annoyed me. Of course, I am a "mommy", and I blog. I found it interesting that the few posts following that one that I skimmed through all mentioned her pregnancy. So... the reality is obvious. Once a woman becomes a mommy, even if just in belly, it changes her identity. She is no longer all about herself - if she has all of the mental and emotional components God intended - she is now about another person. *gasp* There is someone on earth that I consider more special than me!? But the part of me that is mommy no longer has anything important or worthwhile to say or write?
I couldn't wait to get home and hold my babies. They are so dear to my heart. Of all the special things I see them do on a daily basis, the depth of who they are still escapes me. That frustrates and fascinates me. It exasperates me and yet thrills me to my core. I get to learn more about the special, whole, younger people in my home. I suppose I'll never stop learning about them. I can't think of a more precious moment last week than the one that took place the night I got home - singing my baby girl to sleep while she strokes my hair and squeezes my shoulder with her chubby hand... while trying to shove her pacifier into my mouth. The joy of it's telling brings a lump to my throat. Is there any felicity in all the world that compares with this?
Independence is nice, but, for me, dependence is so much nicer. Me is okay, but me and him and him and her and her and him and her is so much more complete. Me and HE is all I really need, but He saw fit to give me more. My identity is loosely tied to those with whom I have formed the tightest earthly bond. I don't need them for survival, but I was given them for thrival. (Yes, I made that word up.) Sure, I am technically more than a Christian, a wife, and a mom, but who cares about that? I've all but forgotten who she was.
Why is it that I seem to overestimate myself and underestimate others? I thank God that I have more than me to impress me. I have my peeps, and they never fail to astonish me.
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