I’ve been trying to read more. You know, pick up a book in the evenings or during random free time instead if catching up on the latest episodes of Bluff City Law because, helloooooo, Jimmy Smits. Man, has that fine specimen of a human aged rather well.
I’ve gotten off-topic.
Which is, I suppose, maybe the point entirely?
Anyway, I’ve been reading more. One of the things I’ve read recently was about maternal rage. Anne Lamott wrote it and we all know that if Anne Lamott wrote it, it might as well be the spoken word of god because holy hell does that woman know how to put words to the often-universally experienced feelings of what it means to be human. And this rage she spoke of? I know it. I know it well. When I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever been more full of rage in my entire life than since becoming a mother. On paper, this realization sounds… I don’t know… so incredibly fucked up?! Isn’t motherhood supposed to give your life purpose which then gives you peace because you now know what your divine purpose is and are now filled with an all-consuming newfound perspective about what actually warrants rage because what constitutes a real problem and a minor annoyance greatly vary.
And yet, I find myself so fucking angry all the time. I often have to walk into another room just to let it simmer down so that my children aren’t scarred by their mom losing her metaphorical shit more frequently than is deemed socially acceptable for mothers to do so.
I’m angry because I can’t finish a sentence— not because my kids are mannerless assholes, either. I can’t finish a sentence because my kids so desperately want to include me in knowing any and everything that is important to them and what happened on any given day that they cannot contain their words and prevent them from pouring out of their mouths in a regulated manner. Shouldn’t that fill me with so much warmth and love that my kids’ favorite person to bombard with their thoughts is ME?! Shouldn’t I be able to consciously remind myself that they’re just kids and communicational norms don’t register when there is a day’ worth of details to download onto the person whose axis they spin around?
I’m also angry because I’m tired. As in, chronically exhausted and have been for nearly eight years now. That’s not to say that my kids aren’t good sleepers or that I haven’t slept through the night in all those years because I have. It’s just that, as a mom, I am so physically and emotionally tuned in to my kids that if so much as their breathing pattern changes from three bedrooms over, it aggressively beckons me out of the middle of a deep and very much needed sleep cycle, throwing the remainder of my sleeping hours off beyond repair. Cue the fucking fury.
Then there is the physical sacrifice my body has made and continues to make even though I haven’t had or nursed a baby in nearly two years. There was the postpartum hemorrhage that you can, you know, die from which I nearly did. My pregnancy with Marlo just so happened to cause my gallbladder to fill with stones and altogether fail. Enter emergency surgery #1. Eight months later to the day— on Mother’s Day, in fact— my lack of a gallbladder had been putting too much strain on my appendix and, while on my way to the ER for what I assumed was a stomach bug, it burst. Emergency surgery #2. Then, of course, there’s the clinical depression that has hovered over my life like a leech for the last eight years. Most recently, I was informed that in order to repair the damage caused by physical trauma during Knox’s birth, I will likely have to have a hysterectomy in the spring. Rage.
Rage, rage, so much fucking rage.
Which brings me to today. Today, the rage was under containment but with little room for error and, in an effort to manage any potential unraveling, I desperately wanted and needed to be left alone. I wanted to sit in silence, to not be touched, to not be a Snack Bitch, and to swoon over Jimmy Smits. Not so possible with kids and a husband who, for some reason, enjoys my less-than-pleasant company on days like the one I was having today. Like he does most Sundays, Joe suggested we all go to the park to enjoy the sunny, frigid forty degree weather because he’s a Labrador retriever and there’s no such thing as bad weather. I grit my teeth. I don’t want to fucking go to the park. I want to simmer and sulk and online shop and sit in my bratty rage all by my lonesome.
“Sure. Sounds like a great idea.”
Rage.
Rage and lies.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m bundled up and my ass is firmly planted on a park bench. Nobody is talking to me or invading my personal space. The sun is shining and it feels good on my pale face. This isn’t so bad, after all. Joe is running in circles with Knox on a nearby basketball court, continuously lifting him high into the air over his head so Knox can try to make the shot. I can faintly hear Knox sternly reminding his dad that “ball is life. Hoop ball is life, Dada.” Joe reassures him that he would never forget such a known fact and they continue shooting and missing baskets. Twenty feet in front of me, Edie is crushing the monkey bars that, just a few weeks ago, she couldn’t cross on her own. She smiles over at me, beaming, and tells me that she’s been practicing every day at school and was excited to show me. She floats from bar to bar a dozen more times before she moves onto something else. Marlo is doing what Marlo often does at playgrounds— anything but play. Today, she’s gracefully placing one foot in front of the other as she balances on the short concrete retaining wall bordering the playground. She’s humming to herself, blissfully unaware of the world (and my vibrating rage) around her.
I immediately begin to silently sob.
If not for my obnoxiously large sunglasses hiding my falling tears, anything left of my dignity after being such an ornery, ungrateful curmudgeon all day would surely have been effectively and deservingly destroyed.
Being human is hard. Being a mother who remains human has proven to be the hardest thing of all. All of it is so heavy and important and easily fuck-up-able. How can I love three tiny humans so much that simply watching them exist and just be on a playground on a cold Sunday afternoon could shatter me to my core, bringing me back into the light and reminding me of all that is good and beautiful and magical in this world? How can I become so viscerally frustrated with the same three people who have been the sources of everything that is worthy and consequential in my life since the day I learned of each of their existences? Likewise, how can I love three someones so much that I would literally die for them when they are the sole source of so much emotional and mental and physical fatigue?
How is the degree of love that a mother feels for her children even possible? I suppose it doesn’t matter why or how we’re capable of loving people so much that it’s actually painful. I guess the only thing that matters is that we can and that we do love to an unfathomable degree, even— and, I’d argue, especially— when it’s hard and we’re full of rage and just want to take a nap. That love caught me by the throat today and forced me to get my head out of my ass. And thank goodness it did because that love that I feel so deeply in my bones reminded me of just how grateful I am for them to be mine and for me to be theirs.
The work and the sacrifice required of me as their mom may light the fire and ignite my rage but it’s only because the love I give and receive from my three beautiful babies are the fuel.
Rage and love on, mamas. Rage and love on.
