"All I Know" : Written March 2016

I've never been 
An anxious person

Having a baby

However
Will turn any calmness on it’s head

Suddenly

Everything

I've ever done or said 

Everything

I have NEVER done or said

Seems like not enough

Everything in my life

Has come under
Some fairly harsh focus

I think this is biology's way
Of keeping us humble

After we accomplish this great task
Of bringing life into the world

Living in our present

Social media obsessed time

Doesn't help 
When you are fragile

From bearing life

And getting no sleep

And becoming something new

This time when everything

Seems infinitely more important 

For example

One day at Target
I was out with the babe

It was one of those days

When you dream up a list of things to get
Just so you can get out of the house 

Birdie and I went strolling through the aisles

I came across lots of things I wanted

Things to take home with me
Lots more things

I thought we "needed" to have
One by one 
They went into the cart 

And then back out again
As they failed to bring

The joy I thought they would

Or I reminded myself

Our trees had no money

I became more and more despondent 

Now let me be clear 
My child
Has never gone without
She has everything she needs and then some

So do we

What a gift 

All on its own
What an insanely wonderful gift 
As I write this I think of mothers around the world

Maybe even down the street

Who can't give their children

Even basic needs

I think of my own Mother
Who
Made herself sick

With the huge stress

Of barely being able to feed us

But at the time 
These thoughts didn't conquer my mind
In my exhausted state 
All I could see were shiny nice things
That I could actually afford

But that didn’t make me feel better

Most of my state of mind could have been cured

With a simple nap
In fact

Most things

Can be cured with naps

Anyways 
By the time we checked out

With our paper towels and baby wipes
I was in a nearly full blown depression

All the way home
Every life choice I had ever made
Came under the merciless scrutiny of the judge in my mind

Why hadn't I gone to work a "real" job
Why didn't I have more savings
Why had I lived this bohemian lifestyle and never prepared for having a child

What good was following my heart

If I didn’t have a trust fund

I should have done this instead of that
I should have not done this other thing

The time I was offered  a somewhat corporate gig

A gig that would have offered me financial stability of sorts

I turned it down for another gig

That offered more adventure

How could I have been so shortsighted

I was a terrible mother
Birdie should already have a ripe college fund
She should have a car

A pony

A nanny to teach her French and how to bake Macaroons

All she got was me day after day
A sometimes frustrated

Bedraggled

Former shadow of the vibrant

And now in my mind

Foolish woman I use  to be

By the time we got home

What began as a dark cloud of disapointment

Had boiled into a full on storm front

I hustled the baby inside
Got her settled and changed

Playing and cooing and "talking" to all the toys in her pack and play

I plopped down at the kitchen table

Began to robotically scroll through my phone.

All the people in my feed

Probably had done all the right things
They were probably more prepared

Their happy shining faces mocked me from the screen

I came just short of beating my forehead on the table

Then it happened
In the slurry of mind numbing memes

Political tirades

And muffins that didn't turn out like they did on Pinterest

There came a shining beam of light
An old friend
A mother of three babies
Had posted a status update
Just normal words 
About her normal life
They came a across my face like a glass of cold water

"It's hard to be made to feel miserable when you are content.
Content with who you are, what you have and who you belong to."

I read them again

Then laid my phone face down on the table

I looked over at my child

Just starting to get bored with her one thousand toys

She began to squirm and fuss in way that meant

"Mommy, please pick me up. I want you to hold me."

I walked over

Scooped her up

She laid her head on my shoulder in complete contentment

I nearly started weeping

Another gift

I could make her feel happy and safe
I could go to Target and buy wipes for her butt when she ran out 

We began to sway and dance around the living room
My baby girl’s giggles ringing off the bare floors

While the Doobie brothers played

Everything I saw as I looked around me

Seemed like a gift now

The mirror on the wall that had once been my grandmother’s
It had hung over her fireplace for all of my childhood
One day Athena would hear the story of her

How great she was
Maybe it would hang in her house one day

The chair

The record player

The table cloth I found at the goodwill

All seemed suddenly

Slathered in gold
How could I not have seen it before

I was content
I was happy
What's more

The people I belonged to were happy

My Mother always told me

Even as she was dying from cancer

"Gratitude not Attitude."

As I held my daughter

I prayed out loud

"Dear God, please forgive my craptastic attitude.

Give me a clean heart. A heart full of gratefulness. Thank you for showing me the truth."

The truth is

The life I lived before having a child

Was chock full of "mistakes"

Sometime felt empty and unfortunate

But without it

I would maybe have never wandered

Into that bar that time

And changed my whole life

I don’t know it all

But all I do know is this

You often see

What you look for

So from now on

As Birdie grows and life goes on

With all it’s moments and masterpieces

I will look for gifts

Behind every cloud

Down every aisle

And even sometimes

On a tiny screen