Motherself

Do you ever have moments where you step back and reflect, “Wow, my kids are going to have memories of the holidays that are done this way, with me as the mother.” It sounds like a very obvious statement, but there is something really strange about it, when you allow yourself to fully inhabit this reality. We all grew up with our own family traditions, and we associate the holidays with how we were raised to celebrate them. But as adults, it is not always possible, or even desirable, to recreate or continue these family traditions when we now have in-laws, distance, divorce, or other factors that change the way we do things. So I stop this Thanksgiving and take a look around me: this is the way, so far at least, my kids will remember this holiday.

And I am the adult in this picture. Somehow when I think about Thanksgiving, I still picture myself as the child, sitting in the backseat for the long drive to my grandmother’s house, running around with my cousins and putting on plays, eating lots of dessert and passing out on the way home. I am lucky to have nice memories of this holiday, and I will always treasure them. But now it’s my kids’ turn. It is truly amazing to try to step into my children’s shoes– see the world through their eyes. Wow, I think, they are just taking this all in, going along with whatever plans we have made, finding their place in the way of things. What an incredible experience, to be a child. You never know what’s going to happen next, not really. You understand some, but not all, of what goes on around you, and while you can’t articulate exactly how you feel, you know when you feel complete and happy.

Maybe it’s not so different from being an adult after all.

The difference, though, is that now we do have some choices, which, of course, come with many responsibilities. My intent is to not get lost in all these responsibilities, but to still feel the wonder I felt as a child, realizing again and again that, wow, we are really the actors on somebody else’s stage, not only the central character of our own.