Yesterday I joked to a friend at the playground after school that I hadn't checked Class Dojo in a week because I couldn't bear to. Not another bit of school-related app-facilitated information could make it through the sinister shine of my phone screen and into my brain. Thus, Beatrice didn't know to wear pajamas and bring a stuffy for the cozy fun last day before break and was dressed in her customary jeans and sweatshirt.
Hahaha! She feels left out and it's because I couldn't make myself pay attention. Haha!
Jokes are funniest when they are true. Uncomfortably so is best. I had arrived at the playground in the drippy cold weather pleased with my decision to take the day off so I could luxuriate in the after school experience. I'd make Bea happy, see friends, and get to feel like the kind of mom who can pick up. But alas, instead I was the kind of mom who doesn't keep up with school communications and whose daughter is annoyed at her because of it.
I felt that heart-tug again submitting college applications with Frances (why haven't I done more to help?), and watching Gabriel get a ride that I could have given him a half-hour later but not at that moment. I feel it all the time, even though I know that I am doing the best I can and my Oura ring reminds me that I average between 0 and 4 minutes of 'restorative time' daily - meaning I never stop. And I don't like that! I desperately want regular down time, for reading and writing and watching TV and staring at the ceiling and cooking up plans and ideas. I am not proud of being stretched thin. In fact I hate it.
But even more, I hate that my kids only have me. I don't want them to be made aware of their status as children of a single parent, which translates as having 100% less parental and adult support than they came into this world with and could reasonably expect to continue enjoying for the foreseeable future. They arrived as children possessed of two adults who loved them more than anything and would coordinate to accompany them through preschool tantrums, difficult homework, athletic events, class parties, college visits - two adults that would coordinate in such a way that they wouldn't have to be achingly aware of the sacrifices involved in being that kind of parent, an involved and engaged parent who shows up on time, knows where the game is, can give other kids rides and contribute to the bake sale.
I know Mike is dead. And I know I am half of the adult force I once was. Yet I can't quite accept that reality for my three children. That stubborn refusal means I feel terrible, just terrible, whenever those brute facts break through everyday life.
Friends will reassure me that even with a co-parent they too drop balls, and can't always make it to events, and generally struggle to balance work and kids. And their husbands are useless anyway! They never remember dentist appointments! Uh huh. Yeah, totally. And I want to spit at them. And cry. Like a three year old who is told her fear is irrational. There's nothing to be afraid of honey! My mistakes and limitations feel like evidence of my children's loss-in-action; theirs do not.
This is our fifth Christmas without Mike, and I feel the pressure as much as ever. If I don't make a proper Christmas for my kids, their half-orphaned status will push against the day from the inside out and threaten to topple all the chocolate and presents and the whole damn tree festooned with ornaments from other times. As if it weren't bad enough to have Papa's stocking hanging below the stairs, empty on Christmas morning. (Though it seems worse not to hang it at all alongside the rest of our stockings). I don't want this holiday to be a shred harder than it naturally is. I want them to feel loved and cared for, to feel joy without the pinch of absence.
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this method of self-compassion: when we find pain inside, we can hold it tenderly, imagining it to be a crying baby. There is no need to argue with a crying baby, or to scold or reason or shake a finger at her tear-streaked face. All you can do is hold her gently in her inconsolability, waiting for the distress to peter out within the safe container of your warm arms, and the quiet, fatigue-laced peace to come.
On the fourth day of the mindfulness retreat I went on last fall, in my growing and unexpected comfort with meditation, I noticed some nasty thoughts come up there on my round cushion. You aren't really meditating, Meagan. You aren't doing any of this, you're pretending to do it, you're pretending this is meaningful. You're not even on this retreat. You are so full of shit.
Oh man. I felt an immediate, familiar sinking, a heaviness, a recognition. It's so true. I am totally full of shit. I can't believe it. How could I have proceeded this far without remembering my own glaring fraudulence?
But then, with nowhere else to go, I sank even lower, past the thoughts to a deeper recognition. Wait. Hang on just a minute. These fears are just more crying babies inside! And they need me.
So I stroked their hot red cheeks, and and held them in my arms. I nursed them, an imagining that brings the same deep embodied calm from the many years I spent nursing the crying babies who live outside of my body. Eventually they settled, and fell sweetly asleep.
That day I learned in my bones that there is no pain that can't be transformed by love.
And now, over a year later, when I am a little bit more grounded than usual, I remember that. I do believe treating the pain - the smallness, resentment, grief, and fear I feel for my children (and by extension myself) as they grow up in a community of friends who mostly enjoy two involved, imperfect parents - as the nursery full of crying babies that it is is the only way forward. The only way that promises healing.
To pick them up, whisper shh, shh, shh in their tiny delicate ears, tolerate their heaviness in my arms. This is so much harder than crying to my boyfriend how impossible this all feels sometimes, or attacking housework with aggressive desperation, or waking up far too early to get things done so I feel some sense of control. I imagine I'll always do those things sometimes. But this season, I want to remember to occasionally pause all the maneuvering, the pursuit of an illusory dream of greater efficiency, the strained effort to be two parents when I am only one. It is advent, after all. I am trying to pause, invite tenderness, and wait.
