Good morning, Sarah!

Dear friends,

I have a friend from back home named Sarah. She’s one of the most adorable 20-something girls you’d ever want to meet and she tweeted this yesterday:

Sarah is the daughter of a woman I went to high school with named Shelli. Shelli’s adorable, too, so it runs in the family. (In fact, back in high school another friend of mine used to say about Shelli: “Isn’t she the most adorable girl ever?”)  Anyway, Sarah has told me before that she likes to start her morning with Debt of Gratitude, and that thought alone makes me happier than you can imagine. Probably happier than Dr. Pepper, m&m’s and my blog make Sarah.

I was not having a stellar day yesterday. It was my first day back at work after returning from Oklahoma and it was jam packed with meetings and other obligations in which I had little interest. Everybody knew I had just returned from taking Kate to college and everybody kept asking me how I was doing.

I smiled. And I said fine. But really . . . I wanted to burst into tears. So when I saw Sarah’s Tweet mid-day, it sure perked up my melancholy little heart.

“I can’t be sad and mopey,” I thought to myself. “I have to go home and write something for Sarah!” I wish I had something more creative, something more profound, something more substantive than “thank you” to offer her (to offer all of you, really), but I don’t.

Still, since this is a blog devoted to gratitude, I can’t exactly argue with an expression of appreciation, no matter how modest.

So thank you, Sarah, from the bottom of my heart for evicting me from Mopeland and back to real life where I count my blessings every day.

With gratitude {for Sarah and all my readers whose daily visits enrich my life},

Joan, who also wants to give a shout-out to Debbie, her first college roomie who made her home-to-college transition so much more bearable all those years ago

PS: While I’m counting my blessings, will you indulge me just a moment? I want to show you some photos I took of Kate at college. She’s in a lovely environment and it gives me comfort to know her world is a pretty, happy place.

Kate outside her new apartment. She’s on the 2nd floor. Hooray for the built-in Stairmaster!

Kate’s bedroom. We both were pleased with the pink-and-black decor and the $20 craigslist desk. Hooray for cheap chic!

Kate and her roommate, Houda. Houda from Casablanca. I love saying that! You know what else I love? Houda is Muslim and speaks Arabic. Hooray for cultural diversity in Kate’s life!

 

Too many words on my mental state at this exact moment.

Dear friends,

I don’t have the right words to describe how I’ve been feeling lately, so I’ll just take a ham-handed stab at it.

Teary. Jittery. Frustrated. Angry. Distraught. Restless. Blue. Pensive. To the tenth power.

I told Mr. Mom yesterday that I alternate between wanting to burst into tears and stab somebody in the face. (Actually, I think if I could stab somebody THEN have a good cry, I might feel a whole lot better.)

At any other point in my life, I might have called this feeling hormonal. (Sorry male readers.) But I’m pretty sure I’m not hormonal.

I’m pretty sure I’m freaking out. I’m pretty sure I’m flipping my lid because the beautiful young woman in the photo above is moving out.  I’m pretty sure I’m melting down because my mother card is being punched for the last time and I don’t get a new one.

I’ve been a working mother for all of my children’s lives. My own mother raised my children until Mr. Mom took over a few years ago. I have always known my days as a pinch-hitter were numbered. But I looked up not long ago and realized my number had dropped from triple digits to double digits. That’s right, Kate moves away in 79 days.

Seventy-nine days and I’m no longer the mother of a daughter who lives under my roof. Seventy-nine days and anything I wanted to be as a mother, do as a mother, is over. Seventy-nine days and my fate is sealed on what Kate thinks and feels and remembers about her time under my wing. I had my swing at the ball and now I have to go sit in the dugout. Forever.

The thing is — when you are a working mother, you can’t think about your expiration date. You do, of course, but you don’t contemplate it seriously because — damn — you’re just trying to get through the days, you know, with some sliver of your sanity intact. Maybe stay-at-home mothers feel this way, too. I would never know. And maybe their guilt and regret is every bit as intense as those of us who go to the office everyday and work too many nights and weekends and take too many business trips and miss too many school plays and sporting matches.

Maybe the lot of every soul born a woman and who later gives birth is to feel sorrow and guilt and regret and to second-guess every thing she ever did, including the pink lipstick that she insisted upon and that infuriated her daughter on dance recital day, as well as the moment she lost her senses and threw the remote control at the back of her daughter’s head and mercifully missed because she can’t hit a target to save her life. Maybe the lot of every mother is to live out her days convinced all she did was fritter it away and screw it up and believe there is surely a special hell for mothers. Especially neurotic, introspective mothers.

All I know is this mother misses every moment she didn’t get to have with her daughter even though she knows made a bargain with her partner and her end of the bargain included earning a living and now feeling this way is selfish and indulgent, like she wanted it all and knew she couldn’t have it all but is still p-o’d about it.

Hey, I didn’t say I was being rational.

And since I’m not being rational, please don’t tell me about how great it will be to transition to the next stage of motherhood. I cannot hear those words right now. I’m still having a tantrum over this stage coming to an end.

But if you want to tell me I’m normal, not psychotic, that would be appreciated. If you want to tell me this feeling, much like grieving, will diminish with time, then that will be appreciated, too. If you want to commiserate and tell me this transition in a mother’s life sucks big-time — whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working mom — then I’ll give you an “Amen, sister.” If you want to hold my hand and cry with me, then come over soon, please, or at least before I get my ugly cry-face on.

Because let’s not compound the tragedy, okay?

With gratitude {for . . . I’m searching . . . I’m searching . . .},

Joan, who feels a little like Anne of the Thousand Days, only she had 7,000 and it’s still not nearly enough