Beloved

"To have given love, to have felt love, and to have inspired the love-giving of another. That's how I want to leave life."

As a working mother, getting out of the house in the morning is damn near impossible. Every morning I try to sneak out before the kids awaken and every morning I find my husband prying each of them off of my legs as I try to peacefully, lovingly vanish. "Oh, these kids!" I say in my head. "Why do they feel like they need me so?" I dart down the stairs, grab my purse, my computer, and my lunch bag and jump into my car. On my way to work, I stuff a breakfast bar down my throat and frantically call my office with the usual, "I'm on my way!" I screech into the parking lot and do the "walk fast but really run" move into my office to start the day.

But wait. Let's pause here. Let's rewind to the part where I see my 3-year-old boy's eyes as I'm leaving, filled with tears and face as red as a sunburn on a hot day. I focus in on my daughter, who is almost six now. Though she isn't crying, her face is scrunched up as she is whining for me to come back to her. "Mama come back. Stay with us today!" Then, I look at my husband, who is trying to calm each of them (while in the midst of getting himself ready for work) as he stares at me and mutters, "Get out of here!" in the most loving way possible. Because he knows that once I go, they will be fine. And I will be fine. We all will be fine.

Do you ever think of how you remember the most random things? Like, in graduate school, I will never forget where I was sitting in an individual counseling class when the professor told us what the word "fine" means to her. Did you know it's actually an acronym for: Feelings Inside Not Expressed? Yeah, I didn't either. And, no, it isn't an actual acronym. But, I will never forget that as long as I live and I will never use the word "fine" the same way again. Anyway, I digress.

The truth is, my children, through their fitful acts of sadness, were showing me love. So much love, that when I think about it, my insides melt and tears well in my eyes. They love me so much, that they cannot stand it when I leave for work. They love me despite the fact that I will never have the same abs that I did when I was 20; that I have a severe case of adult acne; that the gas that comes out of my derriere smells so bad that insects seek refuge; that I don't make my bed or theirs every morning; that I am terrible at being the "chair" of any sort of work group; that I procrastinate; that I live in a world of ideals and "what could be's"; that I spend way too much money on chai tea lattes; that I am deathly afraid of heights; that I need a pill every morning to help keep my serotonin levels on an even keel; that I overreact and take things way too personally; and the list goes on. They see me. They see past all of my weaknesses and insecurities. They see a woman who would literally lay down her life for them; who would drop anything that she is doing if their worlds were spiraling out of control; who would leave work 45 minutes early so she could get a seat in the first row so her daughter didn't have to feel so afraid at her school show; who skips Barre class (her one refuge from the week's madness) because her kids were acting out (not to punish them, but to spend time with them because she sees the acting out directly related to her not being around them as much as they need her); who spends weeks preparing for their birthday parties because she can't stop envisioning how happy they will be to relish in a day that is completely and utterly dedicated to them; who would lay in bed with her son for an unlimited amount of time to quell the fear of his that a lion would come into his room and bite him. A woman who would be everything to them that she needed when she was younger. That's who they see. That's why when they see me leave, they aren't seeing the person "me" leave, they are seeing the source of their love and comfort walk out the door.

Then, that's when their acting-out defenses kick in. Up to what point in our lives is it OK to not kick and scream when the source of our love is leaving us? As we grow older, we don't loose our defense mechanisms, as I've learned. They only mature into more developmentally appropriate ones (those who don't acquire developmentally appropriate defense mechanisms are the ones who are most likely struggling through life.). So, they kick and scream with their loss of love and I focus on the task at hand (a suppressive defense mechanism, I'm sure) with my loss of love. I, too, want to spend the day with them. I want to build a lego house, play with play-doh, and nap (ah, my favorite) with those that I love. But, then that whole "love for myself" thing kicks in and me being at work, in higher education, fulfills me, gives me love, and energizes my love for my children, too.

I really think the key to life is to understand that love is the motive behind everything. Whether it is lack of love, lots of love, loss of love, or an uncapped amount of love juice flowing through one's body, it has an impact on just about everything that we do. At this point in my parenting gig, my goal is to see every act of my children as love-related. From the temper tantrums to the whining to the waking up at 6 freaking a.m. on the weekends. When my son throws his pretzel on the ground because he is mad that I told him that it was his last pretzel, and then the dog eats it and he gets even more mad that the dog eats it, the only way to react to that is love. By looking at him, resisting the urge to give him another pretzel (Because what lesson would that teach him? That his mom is a sucker.), reaching my hands out to him, and holding him tight. I then learned that this was the right answer because when I held him tight and rocked with him, he didn't ask for another pretzel: He asked for me to play cars with him. When my daughter is so nervous that she can't seem to focus on anything else but being nervous, I don't just disregard it and tell her, "You'll be fine." I stand by her side, comforting her. I look for sources that I think will get her out of it. I spend time on building her "Don't worry, be happy" repertoire so when mama is not around one day, she'll know what to do. Like, every time she said, "I'm so nervous" before her first soccer game, I had her follow it up with, "I'm so excited." It got so ridiculous that she just stopped saying that she was so nervous, and kind of forgot to think it, too (she ended up having a blast, by the way). We have to understand that there is love behind every action of our children and that the best way to react is by doing something with love as the foundation.

We are building our children's love foundation. One night recently, as I was washing my face, getting ready for the kids bedtime routine, I felt my son come up behind me. I was expecting an ornery act, like a slap of my arse ("Leo, why did you just hit mommy's butt?"  "Welllll, daddy does!"). Instead, he gave a big bear hug to my legs. He then took a deep breath and on his exhale said, "I missed you today." Then,  I came home one day from work to find a little note my daughter had written me on the chalkboard. It went like this: "Mommy, I love all of the sweet things that you do for me." Wow, I just teared up writing that. I think that if we focus on the times that we have used love to answer our children's pleas then it will inspire us to keep using it.

As a working mother, I know that my children not being able to act appropriately with my departure (and my arrival, for that matter) is not despicable. In fact, it is quite the opposite. To have given love, to have felt love, and to have inspired the love-giving of another. That's how I want to leave life.