“Enjoy every second”

 

A recent blog post that has been circulating around Facebook has got me to thinking, and when I get to thinking, I tend to need to write it down.

Don't Carpe Diem

The piece really struck a cord with me, because very similar to her, I did not enjoy “every second” of mothering my children when they were young. There were times I didn’t enjoy entire days.

There, I said it.

Outloud.

Dude was 18 months old when my mom died. I was pregnant with him when she was diagnosed and started treatment. The Brat was 4, when she lost her grandmother. I spent the better part of the early years of my children’s  lives also coping with long term illness and death of parent. Juggling being there for her, parenting, working, and entertaining two small children often in a hospital room or her bedside, and then coping with the loss of the one person who was cheerleader, no matter what.  I was 30 years old and faced with coping and also raising my children at the same time.

I spent the better part of the next year, denying I needed help, and a year after that finally getting help for the depression I suffered.

I have eventually progressed, figured out what I need to do to feel happy and at peace. Although the specter of depression still haunts me around corners when I least expect it, I have learned to cope. 

I have spent a lot of time since those dark years, wondering how my own journey has affected my children. Is their ADD connected? Is The Brat’s depression and anxiety a result? I will never know.

I spent countless hours feeling like a less than worthy mother. Many articles, and at the time, “mommy message boards” (My generation’s version of “social media” I guess you would say.  we didn’t have mommy bloggers. We had Yahoo message boards like, “moms of 3’s! Always full of mom’s spouting moment after perfect moment. ) – the very places we often reached out for support, were the places where we could quickly feel less than worthy because everyone else seemed to be doing it better and happier than I was!  Mommy bloggers today, all be it with exceptions, are still blowing sunshine and rainbows out their rears, presenting only the “Oh look what I did aren’t I a perfect mom?” moments, instead of being honest.

I spent  many moments, naively, wishing away my children’s childhood because at that moment,

it.was.so.damn.hard.

Only to realize now, the moments I thought would be “so much easier”, are simply difficult in their own way.

I know and understand now, that I did the best I could.

But, as this author points out, there are those moments of clarity, when you feel the peace and joy of the moment, and you feel like you are doing ok. And sometimes as a young mother, those are the only thing that keep you moving forward and make it all *worth it*.

BUT – that being said, that was not the only part of the post that has stood out to me.

*I* have become….

“An older woman stops us, puts her hand over her heart and says something like, "Oh, Enjoy every moment. This time goes by so fast."”

Although I will take exception to the term “older” – and will just assume it is referencing the fact that I am older than the author and no longer have small children at home.

I have spoken those very words. I believe I do usually delete “every” because I am realistic enough to know you can’t enjoy EVERY moment. I mean, seriously, does any one enjoy EVERY moment of anything?

But I am *that* woman. ACK!

Age seems to have given me some sort of amnesia. Perhaps, it is similar to “labor amnesia” that allows to forget the pain and struggle of child birth, so that we would continue to procreate, otherwise every woman would stop at one child.

She is right. I am well meaning. The time does go fast.

I feel the need to tell her that.

Soon enough, she’ll be dealing with car dates instead of temper tantrums.

She’ll go from homework battles, to college applications.

And it is going to feel like a blink of an eye.

What I remember most , is not being “in the moment” enough. Rather than getting frustrated by my children’s behavior, I wish I had take time to simply take it in, laugh about it, and accept it for what it was – a moment in time. I wish someone had told a younger me about “kairos” time.

Is the fact that my son spilled his soda all over the table when he was three going to make a difference 10 years from now?? It is much more important to me that he learn to say thank you to the waitress that came to help is clean up. I can see that now. what did I see then? Embarrassment and frustration more than likely.

Maybe that is what I am trying to get the younger mom to understand.

I will try to be more aware of what I say and do. I always brush off any apologies a young mother makes if her child is making some noise in a grocery line, or bumped into me, or been in my way, because I understand, it is not as big a deal to me, as she thinks it is. I have been there. Children do things that you can not control, no matter how hard you try.

I want her to know it is ok.

I want her to know that no matter how she feels now, she is going to miss these days.

How do you verbalize that?  How do you put all of that into one statement?

I guess we can’t. So we say what is easy,

“Enjoy them. The time goes so fast”.

I guess there are just some things that come with age, and experience, and no matter how you try, you can’t understand until you have passed that moment in time.

Sometimes I just wish we could freeze those moments in time.