Goodbye Motherhood, Hello Me!

Once a woman conceives a baby, her life changes for good. Her whole existence fuses with her child for eternity. Even when the child is no longer part of her flesh, the human she has produced remains a permanent resident of her mind, heart, and soul. It doesn’t matter to a mom whether her child is still a baby, toddler, preteen, teen, or already an adult - she lives and breathes thinking about her child. The moment a woman becomes a mother, she will perform this role for the rest of her life, no matter the kids’ age, location, occupation, or relationship with her. Her children become the meaning of her life. She allows her life to revolve around her kids’ lives so much that she sometimes forgets that she has her own desires and needs. That is the curse of being a mother. She never seems able to let go of the urge to make the kids her priority. In other words, her job as a mom does not have an expiration date. In spite of my children being in their twenties now and me staying busy to the brim every single day, there isn’t a day in my life or a few hours in a day that I don’t think about my son and daughter. No matter how my occupation has changed over the years, from primarily caring for my children at home to combining this duty with a professional career, I am always a mom. Even when I wake up at night, my first thought is, “I hope my son is well” and “I wonder how my daughter is doing.” My children live separately, so I can partially ascribe this thought process to the fact that I don’t see them every day. But I am confident I would think of something related to them even if we shared the same living space. Now that my kids are grown-ups, I feel like I have entered my third life. The first one was my birth through the age of twenty, then motherhood, when I was raising my children from the age of twenty-one until forty, and now I am experiencing a “back to myself” stage of life. Though my freedom returned to me in that I no longer must calculate each step in my day around my kids’ activities, their presence in my mind is constant. A mother can never expect a total separation from her kids, nor can she ever enjoy complete peace. In the back of her mind, there are always her children. Sometimes this loving care and concern for the kids can be overpowering, eclipsing everything else in the woman’s life. That’s a struggle I had had for a long time before I came to certain realizations and learned to tame this “concerned mother” beast in me. As I am writing these lines, I am sitting in my comfortable home office, listening to soothing music on the Music Channel Soundscapes, sipping my freshly made steaming chamomile tea with a usual side of my sweet snack. My life seems ordinary and peaceful right now, and I feel fulfilled and content. But it wasn’t the case for quite some time in the past. My circumstances were different, but most importantly, my mindset was not the same. I was overly susceptible to external aspects of my life, especially negative ones. I could wake up happy throughout the day, but my day could turn out badly if I found out or realized something adverse regarding my kids. That discovery or realization could define the course of my day, leaving me feeling depressed and anxious. It was like living in captivity - my state of mind depended on what was going on in my kids’ lives. The bottom line is – my attitude toward negativity has changed. I am finally in control of my life, no longer fretting over my kids’ issues every waking hour. I had to make a conscious decision not to succumb to perpetual worrying about my kids and feel satisfied no matter what was going on in their lives. I have gone through the joys of my kids’ childhood, faced the hardship of raising them as a single mom, and lived through the darkest times of my son’s misbehavior. Nowadays, my kids may still disappoint me, my husband may occasionally drive me crazy, and other life’s daily issues may cause me anxiety, but now I feel superior to those irritants. I no longer let them affect my well-being. They don’t overshadow my joy. They don’t determine whether I can be happy or not at any given moment - I do. Of course, life tries to shake me up from time to time. But I have found a personal magic key to sanity and inner peace despite what’s happening in the outer world. Now I am relaxed and can channel my energy into a multitude of uplifting activities. But not that long ago, my life was entirely different. Here is an excerpt of how my life transpired several years ago: ….It is 3 in the morning, and I do not know where my son is. I go on my mobile phone app to track his whereabouts. Luckily, it’s showing some signs of activity. The dot on the screen indicates that his car is very far away from home, but at least I feel comforted by having this electronic thread that connects me to him. He must be okay if his car is moving, so he is simply driving. Now I will try to go back to sleep. Hopefully, I’ll see him tomorrow. I wake up the following day and need to go to work. As usual, my coworkers ask me how I am, and I tell them I am good. I am not, but that is my necessary daily mask to get through the day. In the middle of the day, I get a call from the high school and find out that my son has skipped classes again. I do not know what to do about that. As the day progresses, the additional bad news keeps coming in. I open my emails and see another complaint from a different teacher notifying me that my son has been flunking his tests and being disrespectful. And it goes on and on… Though this is a snapshot of my life from what now seems like an eternity ago, when my son was around 18 years old, I can find reasons to feel anxiety over what he is doing at his current age. Now in his mid-twenties, he is not a typical young man who has freshly graduated from college, has a girlfriend, and likes to spend time with his friends. No, he leads the life of a recluse, having isolated himself from civilization almost all the way. The only people he communicates with are those who work with him, which is not a high number, and his immediate family, including me, his sister, my husband, and a few others. I can lament that he has not earned a higher education diploma like most of his peers or dwell on how limited my interactions with him are. Still, I choose to see what is good in his life. Indeed, I can view this situation as a grim reality and wake up every day with bleak thoughts, worrying about my son’s present and future. Or I can practice gratitude and realize that Jason has improved tremendously from the old days of crazy behavior. It all boils down to how we perceive things. As Wayne Dyer wisely remarked, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” I can ignore what does not seem ideal and paint a different picture of him to myself and others. I can acknowledge that he owns three real estate properties free and clear, though not quite habitable at the moment, yet relieving him from having to pay any rent like many individuals his age must typically live. I am proud he pulled off such an accomplishment without formal education beyond high school. Last but not least, I appreciate that he does not do drugs, drive drunk, or do any other dangerous activities. It is up to me whether I focus on the bright or gloomy sides.