Learning by living

Life has gotten out of control. The stories in my head have taken a life of their own. It’s time to write things down for the stories in my head are threatening to burst forth. For me, weekdays are like a battle ground. Getting out the door with a toddler in tow is the biggest accomplishment in a day for me. If I manage to get out the door without a racing pulse and a calm and collected baby who has been fed breakfast while sitting in one place - it is an exceptional day and I would feel like I’m on top of the world. But such days do not exist and I’m a person hardly in control of my own life. But there is one constant force in my life to give me much relief and that is my mother. Without my mother, I will not be who I am today and to realise this (I am ashamed to say) I had to become a mother myself. Every day that passes by now, I'm grateful for her for all her struggles and tears that we did not see. I can finally understand and ‘see’ her for who she truly is and has been for us. I can finally see where it is that she is giving from and with what intention and at what cost. All my life, I had taken my mother for granted for she has been a constant fountain of ‘giving’ and strength that was difficult to understand and get along with for her pain was always in the way of us becoming friends. Even in science when something is a constant, we tend to ignore it (with much relief) for we can count on it for not screwing us up by being a variable that behaves in unexpected ways. But to consider for a moment what it takes for a person to be a constant under all circumstances? That is humbling for what it takes is intentional self-sacrifice. It only took me 3 decades of life to figure this out. It’s unfortunate that we need to have to go through what another goes through to truly understand and know them at the most fundamental level. This makes me feel somewhat sad to know that our Sons will never truly understand us. A woman’s pain will only be her own to share with her own kind (in time); it will never precisely be known by men, especially men who matter to us the most and whose understanding of our pain mean everything to our emotional well-being. It makes me think that perhaps, nature is not perfect after all. Nothing is perfect.