Deja Vu

Have you ever been back at the site of an accident you were involved in? It's the strangest feeling, you almost feel like you should be seeing something there, some evidence of the magnitude of the fall, the injury, the drama. And yet, there is nothing there but people walking about their daily business and it hits home how much life moves on, with you or without you in it. Wait! You want to shout, this here. THIS is the spot it happened, your mind screams. Right here! No one cares, they mill around waiting to pick up their children, gabbing on cell phones, playing on their hand helds, reading books, not aware of what the walls had witnessed a few months back. It's almost like you want to make it into some sort of a shrine, except not in a reverential way. You want the spot marked. You remember all too clearly, waiting for your child, just like they are now. Talking on the cell phone, just like them. Feeling darn good in those strappy, made for you, high heeled shoes. Half aware of your other child losing his balance as he tries to hug you. You holding on to him for dear life and spinning, spinning through the air. You, hearing your bones break with a crunch in your shin (more than feeling it) and thinking "Oh shoot baby, what did you do?" before the pain hits and you fall down, holding your ankle, screaming "My foot, my foot" not even aware that everything you were carrying has been flung down, your mom with whom your were on the cell phone not a moment ago hearing every agonizing scream from the other end of the world. Your child rushing at you with concern and you flinging him away in your moment of intense pain. Nothing but white hot pain. Your child moving to the corner and standing with his back pressed to the wall. Not having it in you to comfort him yet. Not yet. Needing a selfish moment more to just feel your pain and no one else's. Other parents rushing in and lifting you onto a chair. A woman there picking up the scattered items from your bag and handing you your phone and asking you to call whoever. Dazedly realizing your husband is not in town and that for the time being atleast, you must pull yourself together and get your children to a safe place first. And then calling your husband and telling him to get home asap as a part of your leg is literally hanging off a chair. Calling friends. Asking the parents there to please call 911, please, please, please. And then praying that your friends will get there before the ambulance. All the while watching your children, their faces pressed to the glass and willing themselves not to cry. Shivering in the thin shirt you are wearing, shock lowering your temperature. Yelling at the paramedics as they ask you incessant questions, waiting for the blessed morphine to take effect. Panicking as they load you on the stretcher and the friend not beingthere yet to pick your kids up. Sighing in relief as finally, finally, when as you are loaded into the ambulance, you see her leading your two little hearts to her car, their faces scrunched with worry and trying to look brave. Sighing that now you could think about yourself.
As you stand there and look at that place, you wonder at how anonymous it actually looks, that place.

Cuts both ways

I recently read MMs post here on the judgement SAHMs face and my comment ended up being too long so it is coming up as this post -

I think it it cuts both ways. I see plenty of SAHMs that tend to have a sanctimonious attitude when they talk to and of working mothers "I don't know - my family is so important to me that I could never leave them and go out to work". "I could never leave my child the way you do and go somewhere outside to work". Err, I think that a majority of mothers anywhere in the world would place their family and children on the top of their important list, working or not. WHy then do I have to hear statements that imply that by choosing to work, I have somehow brought down my family's importance in my life? That I choose to add something to my list of what is important in my life (in this case, me, namely because I don't need to work for the money but for the rush I feel from working))?. A lot of SAHMs behave like they have martyred themselves to the cause of raising their babies, especially when they sound defensive and qualify their choice with how important their family is to them and how they have placed their children over their selves. Plenty of SAHMs go to a gym, go shopping, get on the telephone with their chums everyday - arent they choosing a few minutes or an hour or two for themselves during those times? That is their "me time", granted. My "me time" takes up more time in a day than their "me time". So what?

The bottom line is this - each of us have to be at peace within ourselves for the choices we have made. For the longest time, statements like the ones above made me feel less of a mom somehow, that somehow I was committing a crime for leaving my children under someone else's care. As time (and a short 3 month stint at home) went by though I realized this - you do what you have to to be in a happy place deep inside. The happy place changes, what makes you happy changes but only you can judge what that is - you only need to be flexible enough to recognize that and move with the flow. Something that another mother does is not necessarily one that puts you in your happy place. As your kids grow and mature, their needs increase in certain areas and decrease in others and as a mother, you instinctively recognize the increased pockets of need and step in while pulling away from other places where they don't need you anymore or need you less (and I believe that pulling away is as important as stepping in). As more and more mothers choose to either join or leave the workplace, we have to recognize that it is OUR" choice and cease to make excuses for making them, other people be damned! Nobody else walks in my uniquely fitting shoes and nobody else is qualified to make a pronouncement on how those shoes pinch their feet, whether I am an SAHM or a work outside the home mom!