They tell you that when you have your first baby. "Don't blink, it'll go by quicker than you can imagine." And in between the brain farts that plague new motherhood, this registers, kind of. But it doesn't really sink in. Until nearly seven years later as your sleepy little girl rests her head on your breast as she once did as an infant. And you see the familiar curve of her face as you haven't seen it since the last time you nursed her. It's like a mack truck you never saw coming. It will bowl you over and make you bawl your eyes out. Oh how did I miss so much!? How did I let it go by so quickly? The answer is complex, and not in the least bit does it feel like a good enough one. Yes I worked a ton as a single mother because I had to support my daughter. But I also allowed myself to have "me time" and adult relationships. I now see how stupid and selfish and blind I was. I spent time with my daughter while she was growing up whenever I could, but did I truly appreciate it? I nursed her and rocked her and sang to her, but was I present in that moment, or was I mentally elsewhere, perhaps thinking about the things I would get done once she finally fell asleep? I contemplate these things as I look down the road to having a new baby in our lives. I don't want to make the same mistakes I made the first time around. But this feels like it somehow isn't quite fair to Kay. She didn't get the benefit of the "knowing mom" me. She and I had to learn together. And I regret this fact to the core of my heart so strongly that it gives me chest pains. I can't ever get back and correct those mistakes. The guilt I feel about everything that she has gone through as a child of a single parent has put cracks in my heart that no amount of mortar can fix. This singular regret has been haunting me in the background so quietly I couldn't even express it properly.
I. Didn't. Do. Enough.
And I know she is stronger for having gone through all of this, but is stronger always better? She will always be able to adapt to whatever life throws at her, but will that adaptability lead her to seek out a life riven with strife and chaos? How will having me as a mother affect her future? I don't know. And it scares the hell out of me. I would give anything to go back knowing what I know now and be a different kind of mother, a better mother. But I can't. So I have to move forward as the best I can be. I have to find a way to sink this damn guilt that is ill founded and does neither of us any good. It isn't warranted really as I did the best I could in a rough situation and it can't right the wrongs and help us in moving forward.
Looking down at her tonight was like opening my eyes after the longest blink in history. A blink that lasted almost 7 years during which I lived in a foggy daze and wasn't really connecting with everything going on around me. As if, the last time I held her to my breast and nursed her, I blinked and it lasted until 30 minutes ago when I held her and looked down. I can't blink anymore. I'm afraid that if I do, then next time I open my eyes she'll be in high school and hating me. I am so very grateful that we now live in the country where life moves slower. Where life seems more wholesome somehow. I love that feeling. I see how she loves it here too. Maybe it will help us hold on to her more out here. But now I must find a way to learn to live without blinking. To be in the now. To be present. It's time for the fog to clear and the mindful living to begin again.
I breathe in...... I breathe out.........
