"Against and Alongside"

A friend sent this along in an email today and it truly couldn't have been better timing - although, it's made me cry for the last 1/2 hour...

Today was the day Maddie got to tour the Middle School she will be attending next year. The impending 6th grade transition has hung over our horizon all year, often becoming the subject of so many of our conversations. She has talked about it for the last nine months with such excitement, I didn't expect this morning to go as it did.

As I went about making lunches, Maddie reminded me that she didn't need one today, as it was the day of the tour and she would like to buy lunch there to see the routine. But then she added, "You're coming, aren't you?"

Momentarily stunned by the invitation (I've moved from "Mama" to mostly "Moooooom!" nowadays), I said that if she wanted me, of course, I would be there! And she did, so I was.

Walking into the auditorium, I was again shocked to see her waving me over and asking to sit with her. I pushed in front of another group of kids so quickly, those brats didn't have a chance to take the seat she was saving for me.

I watched her try to balance her nerves and her cool as I did the same. Tried to blend, but also made sure the questions I knew she had were answered. The handful of kids she knows up there were extremely gracious and went out of their way to make her feel welcome. Something as a mom, I was beyond grateful for.

It was a good morning for us. She even kissed me goodbye!

But then I got home to this essay below. Thank you, Angela. I wish I knew who the author was! It captures so many things that are so timely in our home and in my mind recently. There is a balance we are all striving to achieve, there are days like today and there are days, well, like yesterday, but that's another story... Motherhood is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and sometimes, it takes someone else to find the words you can't.
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"I began as the mother of babes.

And I mean that, for I was born then, too.
All of the me that had begun,
The wonderings and wanderings of my first three decades,
Melted away in the faces of those new babies
And I was born anew.

I spent the next decade tending.
And tending, I did well. It was my thing, apparently.

I grew into it, and I loved every minute.
Well,
You know that to be a gentle lie.
There were quite a few minutes of awful. Of anguish, even.
And so much comedy, uncertainty, dishevelment.
You know.

But now...
Some of my babes are almost grown.
Do not kid yourself about how quickly that happens.
Do not kid yourself and do not miss a second wishing those
Wonderfully intense, delicious early years away.

For it happens even as you are watching them.
They grow.

And as much as you need to lose yourself to care for those newborn babes, those littles-
When they have grown to your size almost-when their feet may be as big!-
It is then that you need to find yourself again.
You need to grow.

For then, as they come upon ten; at twelve maybe...fourteen certainly;
Then you must find yourself in order to know how to guide them. You must be the you
That you want to be,
So that the you they are growing up against and alongside, is the you that you want them to know.

For here's the thing:

In the end,
What you want for them most of all is to leave you.
To leave your house to become who they will be.
And when they are gone
Who do you want to be left with?

My wish is that my own answer
Is the me that was born out of mothering them.
And the man that's loved me all along the way."