Sure Things

There aren't a great number of things in life that I've been rock solid sure about. In fact, there are only two things that I have known for sure since childhood. At least about things that I want in life. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a mother. And I don't remember not knowing that in order to be happy that I need to have a creative outlet or five. As I got older I realized the first one was complicated in a number of ways. That obviously this was something I didn't want to do on my own. Not that it's impossible, but having grown up primarily in a single parent household I wanted the father of my children to be an involved, hands-on sort of dad who would truly participate in the rearing of his offspring. So then I had to engage in the primitive societal interview process known as dating to find this mythical man. Which I mostly did not enjoy. Eventually I listened to the ticking of my biological clock and married a pretty decent guy with whom I conceived two sons. For the most part I have truly enjoyed the mom experience. The whole miracle of pregnancy and birth was a process I reveled in and absolutely loved. There are few relationships in life that contain the intensity and fierce, unconditional sort of love that grows between a parent and child. It's a hundred different relationships as those involved grow and mature through all the stages of life. We metamorphose along, the infant becomes a toddler, a child, a tween, a teenager, and eventually matures into an adult while the parents frantically try to keep up with all the changes. It's all one big experiment where I frequently felt confident, capable, competent, inept, idiotic and irritable all in the space of an hour or two. You'd never think your proudest moment in life would be when you outsmart your five year old. But it doesn't happen often so you really should write it on the calendar and give yourself a gold star. My sons are currently teenagers, about to be 15 and 19 years old. I sometimes look on these enormous, goofy, wonderful boys and wonder where they came from. It seems the older they get and continue to grow into what they shall be I find it more and more difficult to believe that I had anything to do with their arrival on this earth. I have to go back to their baby books and look at the pictures of all of us as our much younger selves to remember. And it's a sure thing those memories will make me smile.