A Mother’s Journal

I’m well this morning, but I could certainly be depressed if I tried even a little. These are the kinds of mornings that I pull one of my many journals off the shelf to soothe my soul with memories and try to get a handle on my thoughts. I read. I write. I read some more.

I have journaled for many years now. There’s a shelf that holds my journals, some of them just a few pages from being full, some of them just started. Some are themed — garden thoughts, home industry thoughts. There’s a journal where I have written about each child through the years, starting with the expectation of them, and then the story of their birth and then just day-to-day thoughts. It’s stirring to go back and read them. It’s motivating.

Mother and Child Buy From Art.com

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One thing that I notice in all the journals written in the first 15 years of my marriage was that I always felt like time was “running away from me” or that life felt “out of control.” Have I changed? I don’t know if it’s just a different perspective for me now, but I have let go of that thought. I’m 45 soon and my baby is 9. We’re nearly 100% sure there’ll be no more children.

Young Girl in the Ocean Surf Buy From Art.com

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Life is going by, time is passing, slipping through our fingers, at an unbelievable rate. All we have is the here and now.  (And yesterday, if you care to join me in thinking of it that way.)  It’s always been true and it’ll always be true, even if at one time in my life I kept thinking that I could somehow grab hold of life and maintain some sort of control and have things flow my own way.  That thought is, in great part, an illusion.

I can make things go the way I want them to up to a point — train my children, keep my home, pay my bills, pursue the noble calling of wife and mother with zeal, do right in the moment, and then there are many factors out of my control.

This morning my husband is sick again. It’s hard for me and my children to watch. I won’t go into all the details here, but it’s the reason I work, it’s an uncertainty day by day, it’s a pain that you feel deeper than anything else when someone you love suffers.

The Busy Bee Buy From Art.com

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It’s a good thing to be happy in the here and now. It’s a good thing to be accepting of what is the here and now. (It seems a paradox here for me to say that we should make the best of every situation and change what we can, having just said we don’t have total control, but I believe in that — making the best of it and putting your back into changing what you can, and it’s fitting here because it’s inherent in accepting the here and now.) 

I was looking back at a journal entry from 1998:

My due date is only about 19 or 20 days away anyway.  Not long really, but it seems like a long, long time.  I’m out of anything to wear.  I didn’t have much to start with.  Hopefully the baby will come soon.

That baby did come, and now she is 9.  And the then little 10-year-old boy who so carefully checked on me day by day and couldn’t wait to hold the “new baby” is now 19 and working full time.  The years of having a baby crib in the house are “a long, long time” ago.  But I see her crib, and her matted-down and wet newborn curls everytime I look at her, even now.  I see my husband’s curious eyes as he waited to get a full view of her little newborn face.  Her auburn curls presented first — she had his curls, and it was with a breath-holding anticipation that we waited for her face to emerge. 

Seven Times One Buy From Art.com

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Every step I have taken up to this point is part of my here-and-now.  And this very moment will be part of the tapestry that is my life tomorrow — if I am here tomorrow.  It’s why this moment needs to be as rich and beautiful as it can be. It’s a moment that will be woven into the fabric that is my life, whether it’s a moment I would have chosen for myself or not.

The Little Helper Buy From Art.com

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There’s time to rest, but there’s no time to waste.
There’s time to ponder, but no time for pouting.
There’s time to harness your anger and do something constructive, but no place for malice.

Life goes on today.  I have taken time to reflect this morning.  I feel like I’ve laid out all the thoughts swirling through my mind, sorted through them and gathered them up neatly in order.  I’ve hugged and kissed all of my family — with an extra special hug for dear husband.  I’m thankful.  And hopeful.  And content – at least in the here and now.

Lynn