;)
Tuesday
Apr132010
It Should Be Against the Law For Your Child to Reach the Same Age as Your First Boyfriend.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 11:33PM
Twelve years ago today, I doubled. I don't just mean that in the 'I weighed 98 pounds in June of 1997 and 205 on April 14th, 1998' way, either, though that is also true, unfortunately for all of us, mostly my vertebrae.
The day I gave birth to you, you gave life to me. And I never saw it coming.
I had no idea that the moment I'd become someone's mother, the moment I would look into the eyes that I could never imagine, no matter how hard I tried, that an entirely separate me would be formed. A me that would walk along side the old me, mending what was torn and gluing together what was shattered.
This other person, this mother of yours, she was an empty vessel soaking you in.
I drank in every drop of you, even the puke, but we'll let daddy tell you that story someday. The me that was helpless against you, that shrouded herself in your eyes and your hands, your whimpers, your growth, your words and your breaths and your movements...she absorbed you whole, and eventually, everything about her became of you.
For 12 years, I have built up this person that I am becoming on the back of your falls and scrapes, your triumphs and victories, your strengths and your weaknesses. I have become the thing I imagine you want me to be. I have grown for you, because of you, along side you. Every breath you failed to take, I couldn't take along side of you. Every drop of blood you've shed has poured out of my veins, too.
I have never felt anything in the world like I've felt you.
The old me, the one I hope you can't remember anymore, used to have to dig holes in my skin to feel. I used to have to die, just so I could remember how to live. Now, all I have to do is say your name out loud, and I am flooded with the feeling of your fingers ripping against muscle and driving out through my skin, pushing so hard for exit from me that I could trace every little finger on the outside of my stomach. I am overtaken by the physical remnants of you inside my head and my heart, your footprints quite literally stomped into my soul.
I have this statue on our mantle, a tiny plaster casting dipped in bronze, perched atop a marble pedestal, of your two week old wrinkly, clenched fist. We took that casting while you laid, milk-drunk, asleep in my arms in the early days of May, 1998. Occasionally, when the house is quiet and there is no one around, I'll take that down from the mantel and I'll trace the curve of your fist, each little wrinkle, each dimple of your flesh, and if I try very hard indeed, I can feel you again. I can hold that tiny, perfect hand that I held onto so tight, for so long, warm again in my palm. I can call you back to my heart in an instant when I need to, and believe me...I need to more now than you'll ever realize.
Today you turn 12 years old, and 12 is not so very old at all from where I'm sitting, but 12 is actually very much so grown indeed. My very first love, the boy who's pictures still clutter the very darkest corners in the bottom of the wine crate that contains the tattered remnants of my history, that boy who still can make my heart flutter at the very thought of him, he was 12 when I met him. He was the same age you are today, and the imprint he left in my heart will never diminish. 12 is a powerful thing to be, because you can be you now. You can change someone else's life. At your core, you are the person you are always going to be, no matter what mutation of you walks out of your teen years and into your adult life. The man peeking out from behind your eyes today...this is you, forever and ever amen.
I took your hand to cross a street the other day, as I will always do, and when your fingers wrapped around mine, it was unfamiliar, like grabbing your drink off a bar you've been at for entirely too long and realizing it isn't your water, but someone else's martini. The shock was jarring, and it hurt in a way I've never felt. I thought I'd felt ever pain there was, but this is indescribable frightening.
I catch a glimpse of you as I walk past your bedroom door, in your little man-cave, topless and distracted. I see you for a splinter of a second without a shirt on, and I realized that I can't recognize that torso anymore. I can scarcely remember where I think there should be a birthmark, because your body has been yours for so long now, the idea of it ever being mine is foreign and icky, like wine-soaked snails for dinner.
You were never mine. You were always yours, ferociously, independently yours, and I was merely an extension of you. I have no doubt that you've known this all along, but as is your nature, you've allowed me my wide-eyed wondrous folly all these years. Your infinite patience for everything in this life (save your little brother) has been the greatest gift ever bestowed upon me.
This is a difficult thing for a mother to grasp, the finality of childhood. I need this version of me that has spawned from you. I need this person who has no choice but to live in humble admiration and unmitigated awe at the power you hold over me. I need to be reminded that I am weak, that I once was broken, and I need to remember what it feels like to have someone come into your life and physically take it over.
This love for you, it is the most basic, physical thing I have ever felt.
And then I get up in the morning and I slip on my flip-flops and I take your brother and sister to school and I sit at my desk all day and work, and then when it's evening time, when I have all three of my gorgeous gifts back under my roof, screaming and pulling each others hair out, I slide off those flip flops and only then do I realize that I have been wearing your shoes, all day. And even though I was quite happy in them all day, the moment I take them off I realize that I am actually a little more comfortable all on my own.
You really can't ask for better allegory than that, yo.
You made me better. You've protected me from a whole lot of shit I kept trying to step in. You made a complete person out of a shell that was given to you, labeled "mother". You formed me from the ground up, and now it is time for me to stop taking from you and allow you to keep some of you for yourself. It's time to give you your shoes back and let you walk where your life will take you. It's time for me to put my own damn shoes on and walk beside you. From a distance.
It's time for us to become our own people. I know you are ready. I know you were always ready. And even though I am tethered to you in a way you will not understand until you have a child of your own and you feel what I felt 12 years ago today, I think I am ready to let the me before you and the me since you start coming together. I think it's time to soak the fiber of my being with the person that I have finally become, 2 parts me and 1 part you, shaken not stirred.
I think it's time to open the door of this life that you have spent 12 years helping me build and start living in it. But don't worry, kid, your room is right here, just like you left it.
The day I gave birth to you, you gave life to me. And I never saw it coming.
I had no idea that the moment I'd become someone's mother, the moment I would look into the eyes that I could never imagine, no matter how hard I tried, that an entirely separate me would be formed. A me that would walk along side the old me, mending what was torn and gluing together what was shattered.
This other person, this mother of yours, she was an empty vessel soaking you in.
I drank in every drop of you, even the puke, but we'll let daddy tell you that story someday. The me that was helpless against you, that shrouded herself in your eyes and your hands, your whimpers, your growth, your words and your breaths and your movements...she absorbed you whole, and eventually, everything about her became of you.
For 12 years, I have built up this person that I am becoming on the back of your falls and scrapes, your triumphs and victories, your strengths and your weaknesses. I have become the thing I imagine you want me to be. I have grown for you, because of you, along side you. Every breath you failed to take, I couldn't take along side of you. Every drop of blood you've shed has poured out of my veins, too.
I have never felt anything in the world like I've felt you.
The old me, the one I hope you can't remember anymore, used to have to dig holes in my skin to feel. I used to have to die, just so I could remember how to live. Now, all I have to do is say your name out loud, and I am flooded with the feeling of your fingers ripping against muscle and driving out through my skin, pushing so hard for exit from me that I could trace every little finger on the outside of my stomach. I am overtaken by the physical remnants of you inside my head and my heart, your footprints quite literally stomped into my soul.
I have this statue on our mantle, a tiny plaster casting dipped in bronze, perched atop a marble pedestal, of your two week old wrinkly, clenched fist. We took that casting while you laid, milk-drunk, asleep in my arms in the early days of May, 1998. Occasionally, when the house is quiet and there is no one around, I'll take that down from the mantel and I'll trace the curve of your fist, each little wrinkle, each dimple of your flesh, and if I try very hard indeed, I can feel you again. I can hold that tiny, perfect hand that I held onto so tight, for so long, warm again in my palm. I can call you back to my heart in an instant when I need to, and believe me...I need to more now than you'll ever realize.
Today you turn 12 years old, and 12 is not so very old at all from where I'm sitting, but 12 is actually very much so grown indeed. My very first love, the boy who's pictures still clutter the very darkest corners in the bottom of the wine crate that contains the tattered remnants of my history, that boy who still can make my heart flutter at the very thought of him, he was 12 when I met him. He was the same age you are today, and the imprint he left in my heart will never diminish. 12 is a powerful thing to be, because you can be you now. You can change someone else's life. At your core, you are the person you are always going to be, no matter what mutation of you walks out of your teen years and into your adult life. The man peeking out from behind your eyes today...this is you, forever and ever amen.
I took your hand to cross a street the other day, as I will always do, and when your fingers wrapped around mine, it was unfamiliar, like grabbing your drink off a bar you've been at for entirely too long and realizing it isn't your water, but someone else's martini. The shock was jarring, and it hurt in a way I've never felt. I thought I'd felt ever pain there was, but this is indescribable frightening.
I catch a glimpse of you as I walk past your bedroom door, in your little man-cave, topless and distracted. I see you for a splinter of a second without a shirt on, and I realized that I can't recognize that torso anymore. I can scarcely remember where I think there should be a birthmark, because your body has been yours for so long now, the idea of it ever being mine is foreign and icky, like wine-soaked snails for dinner.
You were never mine. You were always yours, ferociously, independently yours, and I was merely an extension of you. I have no doubt that you've known this all along, but as is your nature, you've allowed me my wide-eyed wondrous folly all these years. Your infinite patience for everything in this life (save your little brother) has been the greatest gift ever bestowed upon me.
This is a difficult thing for a mother to grasp, the finality of childhood. I need this version of me that has spawned from you. I need this person who has no choice but to live in humble admiration and unmitigated awe at the power you hold over me. I need to be reminded that I am weak, that I once was broken, and I need to remember what it feels like to have someone come into your life and physically take it over.
This love for you, it is the most basic, physical thing I have ever felt.
And then I get up in the morning and I slip on my flip-flops and I take your brother and sister to school and I sit at my desk all day and work, and then when it's evening time, when I have all three of my gorgeous gifts back under my roof, screaming and pulling each others hair out, I slide off those flip flops and only then do I realize that I have been wearing your shoes, all day. And even though I was quite happy in them all day, the moment I take them off I realize that I am actually a little more comfortable all on my own.
You really can't ask for better allegory than that, yo.
You made me better. You've protected me from a whole lot of shit I kept trying to step in. You made a complete person out of a shell that was given to you, labeled "mother". You formed me from the ground up, and now it is time for me to stop taking from you and allow you to keep some of you for yourself. It's time to give you your shoes back and let you walk where your life will take you. It's time for me to put my own damn shoes on and walk beside you. From a distance.
It's time for us to become our own people. I know you are ready. I know you were always ready. And even though I am tethered to you in a way you will not understand until you have a child of your own and you feel what I felt 12 years ago today, I think I am ready to let the me before you and the me since you start coming together. I think it's time to soak the fiber of my being with the person that I have finally become, 2 parts me and 1 part you, shaken not stirred.
I think it's time to open the door of this life that you have spent 12 years helping me build and start living in it. But don't worry, kid, your room is right here, just like you left it.
Reader Comments (60)
So very awesome!
<3 you xoxo
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
Dear @momofali, I posted again. http://www.whiskeyinmysippycup.com/2010/04/14/1of3s-12th/
This was just beautiful! It brought tears to my eyes. :)
So yeah. That was totally exquisite.
That is absolutely the most beautiful, heart wrenching letter from a mother to a child that I have ever read. Crying over my coffee here at work.
Thank you for putting into words thst which I feel daily for my daughter. You are so very good at this.
My god.
That? Was a thing of incredible wonder and beauty. Wow.
My son is only 3, but I have been watching him evolve already into a person who is completely separate from me, who doesn't need me quite as much as the day before. But you said it so much better than that. Thank you for sharing that.
Your son is so lucky to have such an amazing, self-aware mother. Thanks for expressing what I could never put into words.
i love the way you share such treasured and personal thoughts with the rest of blogland. this was both beautiful and touching and although i dont have children of my own you've made my fallopian tubes weep in preparation for the future.
Simply beautiful. Makes me want to step away from this damn computer and reach out for my little boys. And hold tight.
But, not too tight.
Thanks for that.
All this stress about what to get your kid for his birthday? This right here is the best. He may not realize it now, but one day he will. Happy birthday, 1 of 3.
awe
xoxo
This is awesomeness and just yes.
Happy Birthday 1of3
and Happy Birth Day to you, my amazing friend.
This touched me down to my core. My oldest son is only 8-1/2, but man...
I tell all 3 of my boyz - "no matter how big you get, you always HAVE to hold your mother's hand, m'kay?"
*sigh*
Absolutely Beautiful.
I've been struggling with the decision to have children after a miscarriage. That combined with my often crippling anxiety and panic disorder I really wasn't sure I would ever be ready to have children. Reading this makes me feel more ready than ever. I can only hope that I will one day feel that connection to my own child.
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.
Stab me in the heart, I love the way you love your kids.
Happy Birthday, 1 of 3.
well knock me over with a feather. I just lost all my eye makeups I had on, at 930am. that was achingly exquisite. thank you for sharing.
i LOVE your birthday posts, your milestone posts.
This post is the reason you may never, ever quit writing.
My youngest daughter turned 12 yesterday - a mix of cool new clothes and cool new curves. 12 is AWESOME in so many ways. I think I will share (most of) this post with her. You really get to the heart of things. Happy Birthday, and Congrats Mom!
I kinda forgot how to be a blogger, but I remembered my kids birthday, so there's that. http://bit.ly/bJn5Fb
I pulled this up on my Blackberry as I was waiting for my 11 year old daughter to come out of school and I can't really express my mix of emotions. I leave the expressing thing to you, because you do it so well (and I know I've told you this before, but I'm saying it again because it is so damn true) that I never want to write again because I am not really a writer. You are. Your words are palpable. I feel them crawl inside me and get tangled up in my soul.
Anyway, I sat in the parking lot and I cried. Because this is beautiful. You, your son, my daughter are all beautiful and this rang so true that it made my heart hurt.
Then my daughter came out and was totally embarrassed that her mom was crying and wanting to hug her. Because the best part of having a 'tween is the fact that you can make their face turn as red as a beet.
Yeah. That was effing BEAUTIFUL. Wow.
gah. make me cry woman. this is a beautiful post. happy birthday to your son.
*Cryball.
It's BUNNY'S birthday? My sweet, handsome, gorgeous BUNNY?
Oh man, I gotta call. Cuz I love me my Bunny.
(oh ya, nice writing too.)
Posts like this make me realize what a crap writer I really am. http://www.whiskeyinmysippycup.com/2010/04/14/1of3s-12th/
And...crying at my desk: http://bit.ly/9IooJW (via @MomoFali)
This is so very true. My daughter will be 12 in June and I know my letter will never be as eloquent.
Thank you for once again sharing your soul. Mr. Lady you are a beautiful inspiring mother. ;)
reading http://www.whiskeyinmysippycup.com/2010/04/14/1of3s-12th/
I am one of your "lurkers" but I just had to respond to this post. My boys are 22 and 24 and I still struggle with "letting go". Your post has brought tears to many of your readers...add mine to the list!
mo
very nicely said. how true, how true. when are our children really ours...? you think you know each and every part of them, and then you see the change, and you're like, huh, they're slipping away. it's so saddening. congrats. my son and daughter were having a brief conversation as they walked ahead of me and it killed me, bc it did not involve me, and i wished i could be their size so i could see the world through their eyes. i just hope i am creating a beautiful world for them to see. i really hope, bc sometimes it's not fun or easy.
That took away my breath, dood. I think this has replaced the former favourite post as my most favourite ever.
Well break my heart a little bit, too. For this is my future with boys who are currently basically babies...and who have saved me from myself on many occasion.
Happy Birthday to your lil man.
Gorgeous.
And also? I'm going to cling to these last two years that I get to be Part Of My Son.
WOW. I always tell my 12 year old "you know you have my heart. Don't f it up". He says he doesn't get it. I am going to have him read this tonight. You express motherhood better than anyone I have ever read.
Jilly
Who are you Mr. Lady? Seriously... who are you? Your rawness... your aching... your humility and your triumphs... leave me aching for so much more for myself and for my children.... you are freaking unbelievable... such a gift... cherish it.
Bless you Mr. Lady...
Lisa
Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?
Robert Hershon
Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge
My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?
What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand
So beautiful. So powerful. As a mother of 3 young boys (13 months, and twins - 4), I every so often think ahead to them growing up and get weepy as I am now. Reading pieces like this make me hold on a little tighter to the memories we make, and endeavor to enjoy the little moments a little more.
Thank you for sharing this, it really touched me - and a big happy birthday to your little man.
My eldest will be the age of my first serious boyfriend in 18 months.
And I want to die inside.
Such slow tears dripping down my face. This is so beautiful, and painful as I feel just a glimpse of this with my just eight year old son...
Beautiful words, Lady.
Happy Birthday to 1 of 3.
wow just beautiful
Outstanding. You have outdone yourself.
You found words for something so primal and familiar. . .love it.
My 1 of 4 wishes your 1 of 3 a Happy, Happy 12th Birthday! They are both 12, and I'm sure they would be great pals. Hopefully someday they can meet?
In the meantime, happy belated wishes from 1, 2, 3, and 4 of 4 + the 2 elders!
This just blew me away, Mr. Lady. Really, really outstanding.
that was amazing. I agree with you. Mine is 17 and very much his own. It's harder some days than others.
I've read many wonderful birthday tributes to blogger's children, sweet, touching, cute. But this one... this one made me cry real tears.
This is so beautiful.