Navigating Motherhood’s Emotional Challenges

I will tell you right now that I am feeling a little extra weepy this morning, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.

Maybe it’s the fact that I just got home on Sunday from a quick trip back to Monterey over the weekend, and it was so lovely (most of it) that the contrast, when arriving back here, was really…kind of unfair. It feels so good to be home-home, where I know every inch of every place, where I know so many people, and where, honestly, it’s just so much lovelier than any other place I’ve lived. Except maybe for Maine, but even as much as I love New England, it still doesn’t have the friends and the familiarity that the peninsula does and always will for me.

Maybe it’s the fact that, for the first time ever (aside from pregnancy, which is absolutely not a concern at this time) my period decided not to show up. I got all the symptoms of its arrival, and perhaps I’m still experiencing them now, but the final act just…never showed up. I’m 49, it’s not like I haven’t been expecting this, sometimes even anticipating the end of the cycle that’s plagued me for the past thirty something years. But it’s still very strange, this indisputable evidence that a part of my life is effectively ending.

Maybe, and most likely, it’s both of these things, combined with the fact that I am living with a fourteen year old who hates me. Of course, she doesn’t really hate me, I know that. Except for when she does. If this sounds confusing to you, just know that it is the same for me. It’s exhausting and confusing, heartbreaking and infuriating, to live with a person that you love more than life, who once thought of you as the center of their universe, and now can barely tolerate you breathing too close to them.

I try very hard not to take it personally, I do. Because I know it has nothing to do with me at all, really. But the thing is, I really thought, because I was a good mother, the best mother I am capable of being, I think- I thought that would help me to avoid this part.

Boy, was I wrong.

Being a mom is hard. It is wonderful, it is rewarding, it fills your heart with the kind of love that I didn’t even know existed before I experienced it. I would not trade a minute of the sweetness of our memories for any price.

But still, it is hard. The worry that begins the moment they are placed in your arms that never goes away, just changes as they do. The guilt for all the things you did wrong, or didn’t do at all, the nights when you lay in bed and hate yourself for yelling or being impatient or a million other things, over and over again.

And then they grow up, and the things they don’t like you for aren’t even reasonable! Like, if you’re going to hate me, hate me because I threw your push-up bra out the car window in a fit of temper when you were thirteen, not because I chew weird. Hate me because I yelled at you when I didn’t know how to help you with your math homework, not because I pointed out that sometimes your boyfriend is a jack ass.

Or maybe just don’t hate me at all. Because I love you so very much, and I miss you all the time. Sometimes even when you are sitting right beside me, pulling away from me when I try to lean my head on your shoulder.

Last night was a really bad night. Cam was in a lot of pain and the Advil hadn’t kicked in yet, and she was tired and frustrated by a figurine she was trying to put together. I was just sitting on the couch, watching TV, trying not to react to any of her increasingly obvious attempts to pick some sort of fight with me. I was tired, and homesick, and just wanted to enjoy our first night back home together.

And, if I’m being honest, she was just out of hand. She was loudly expressing her anger at the task she was struggling with, to the point that the neighbors could definitely hear all of it, and I suggested she take a break and come back to it when she calmed down. This was the wrong thing to say. To be frank, I don’t believe there was a “right” thing to say, and that even saying nothing would be a problem. But that was all she needed to let loose, which she did, and I just sat there, wondering what to do.

If it had been Aisley, thirteen years ago, I undoubtedly would have fought back in a completely unproductive and immature way. I would have yelled just as loud and possibly knocked some things over for good measure, because NO WAY was MY CHILD going to speak to me like that in my own house.

I’m just not that person anymore. There was a small little warning voice inside me that told me this was not okay, but when I finally reacted, it wasn’t…much. I just basically said, that’s enough, if you raise your voice to me again, I’ll take your phone and you can spend the rest of the night in your bedroom. You don’t get to talk to me that way.

And that was it, that was all. The rage died down, and the tears started, and I sat with her on the couch and smoothed her hair back on her forehead and reminded her that how she felt now was going to pass. The pain would pass, and the anger would pass, and even in a few minutes she might feel better.

It took me two children and twenty seven years, but I am finally learning how to not make everything about me. I am not proud of this at all, just to be clear- I should have learned it long, long ago. But at least I didn’t lay in bed last night filled with shame over the way I behaved. Instead of calming down and realizing how badly I’d acted and needing to apologize, I went to bed calm, with a calm child, having had lots of hugs and some good conversation. That’s growth, no doubt. Thinking about it now, I really do feel proud, actually.

I’ve known for a long time that our relationships with our mothers as older children and adults are incredibly complicated. But now I am the mother in this scenario, and it makes me look at my own relationship with my mom differently. As a mom, we mess things up, sometimes really badly. And believe me, we know it. I think it’s incredibly important to acknowledge our failings and say sorry, as many times as necessary. It’s also incredibly important to listen without getting defensive to what our children have to say about the things we did that hurt them. To deny it, or say “it wasn’t that bad” is so deeply invalidating, especially when it’s such a vulnerable position for them. Aisley has brought up a few things over the past few years that were hard for me to hear, but she wasn’t wrong. All I could say was “I’m so sorry, honey. I wish I could change it.”

I am trying not to make the same mistakes twice. Which means that I am making brand new mistakes, of course, and I’m not sure if that is better, but at least it’s different. The only thing I want is for my daughters to be part of my life for the rest of my life. That’s it. That’s all I want from them, ultimately. To be a mother they love and miss and enjoy spending time with. I think that’s what most of us hope for.

So far, I have achieved this with one. The jury is still out on the other one. But if I can stay the course, not punch any walls over math homework or throw any pushup bra’s out car windows…I might just have a chance.