I thought I knew what "Mother" meant

I don't remember the day, or the place, or the event.

I think it was a bible study. 

A friend said (and others joined her opinion)

that being a mother was the greatest calling in life. 

I (silently) disagreed. 

Mostly because I did not have the wish for a big family, or for

a small family, for that matter.

I didn't see myself raising children.

No. I saw myself with a job, 

and maybe a dog, and 

lots of vacation time to go off and travel the world. 

"Mother" hadn't been in my future.

Fast forward about 10 years, 

and you see me in midwifery school. 

Oh, the irony. 

At 12, I claim to want nothing from that section of the world,

and at 21, I am steeping in it, day and night, 

Breathing the stuff. 

And then a few more months go by. 

And I realize:  

Motherhood is the greatest calling in life. 

I think the realization came during a birth we were at, probably 

when the mother first caught sight of her baby, picking it up and placing it on her chest

that moment when the pain is forgotten and the only thing that matters 

is that there is a tiny human in the room, and she 

had made it. 

Any other profession - pastors, doctors, volunteer workers, search and rescue, and yes, midwives - 

pales in comparison to the long nights of moaning and sweat,  

labor and birth, and then joy. 

Let me break it down for you, in a generalized fashion:

Most mothers spend the first three months feeling nauseous, flinching for the wastebasket at each new smell. After the first three months, the weight starts to set in. Usually by halfway through the pregnancy they start saying 'Wow. I feel huge." And the midwives express sympathy, thinking, "Lady, wait until you're 41 weeks 5 days. Then we'll talk." After the halfway point, its all growth and please-don't-go-into-labor-just-yet. And that's just from the midwife's point of view. The mothers are the ones who actually have to deal with the symptoms. They can't lay on their backs, they can't lift anything, they swell, they puke, they feel exhausted, they can't eat sushi, coffee (good gosh they give up coffee), plus anything and everything which may make them sick, and then they add in a crap ton of protein, so much water, prenatal vitamins that turn urine bright orange, iron supplements that I've been told taste SO BAD, and goodness knows what else...

And then the labor. If you take an average of like, 5,000 women, labor supposedly lasts 12 hours long. That's like, a long workday, right? No big deal? 

IT'S A FREAKING AVERAGE, PEOPLE. Some moms have one and a half hour labors. (THEY PUSH A BABY OUT OF THIER BODY IN AN HOUR AND A HALF. DO YOU KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THAT. GO AHEAD. LOOK UP HOW LABOR WORKS. AND THEN CRAM IT INTO ONE AND A HALF LUNCH BREAKS AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT.) Some moms have 48...64...72 hour labors. And maybe its not like, active labor where you have to focus on pushing....BUT THREE DAYS OF A CONTRACTING UTERUS. Period cramps are bad enough. I cannot imaging three days of early labor. (Men, stab a knife into your belly. That's what a period cramp feels like. Now multiply that by 10. That's labor. Also you have to push an eight pound object out of your butt hole while enduring those sensations. Have fun!) (By the way, sorry for the yelling. #endofrant #kindof)

So that's the first 10 months...

Going on the rest of your life. 

From this point, the tiny human will rely on you for e v e r y t h i n g. 

Food. Clothes. Shelter. Love. Warmth. Probably college tuition. Probably enough emotional counseling for ten people (junior high is rough, you know). Guidance through life. You get to teach them how to use a toilet, put on clothes, coordinate clothes (as much as I love a three-year-old's style, it just doesn't work when you're 25 and doing job interviews as an engineer or a secretary), handle finances, drive a car, deal with people and friends and co-workers. Moms influence what their kids believe, how they act, what foods they like and continue to like. Moms wipe their kids butts, wipe their kids faces, their hands, they wipe grins off their faces when their in trouble and wipe frowns off when there's nothing to be sad about. For goodness sake, moms let kids breastfeed for sometimes what seems like forever, sometimes for as long as they can, and sometimes for less time than anyone wants. 

Moms make people. 

Somehow, I didn't see this. I mean, I'd heard the phrase, and I'd laughed thinking 'wow, that's true'...but then, it hit. 

Being female is one of the greatest things you can be, because it gives you the capability to be a mother.

Being a mother IS the greatest thing you can be. 

Right now, with school, I'm immersed in pregnancy, labor, and birth. I'm immersed in breastfeeding, in motherhood, in family life, in bringing new life into the world safely, and even with that sometimes all you can do is watch. Usually, I watch in awe, because the job of motherhood itself is so unique, but every mother-in-the-making does it differently.

 

I never thought I would say this. But, I'm going to, because now it's true: 

Someday, I want to be a mother. 

Someday, I hope to be as incredible of a mother as my mother was to me. My mother is constant. I know that if I call her, she will answer, I know that if I ask for help, she will give it, and if I ask for guidance she will steady me. 

Next to God, she is the greatest support I have ever had. 

Somehow I never realized this? Somehow I had passed it by, somewhere in my 21 years I had overturned the stone with this fact under it and then covered it back up again without realizing how important it was, thinking I knew it already. 

Somehow, I thought I knew what "Mother" meant, but I actually didn't. 

I probably still don't. I've probably missed a whole section.  I mean, we didn't even touch on high school, with the staying up late worrying because the kids were supposed to be home 37 minutes ago. We didn't talk about dating (oh gosh, no let's not) or marriage (panic mode, panic mode), or the grand babies (help. please. stop.). We didn't talk about the hours spent on bent knee, praying for God's mercy and protection.  

Being a mother - and I probably still don't get it all the way - means creating the next generation. It means making people. And not just their bodies. You make their souls, and their minds, their likes and dislikes. 

Mothers, the people you make? You make them who they are, who they become. This is indeed the greatest job, the greatest calling, anyone could ever have, and we are eternally grateful; we cannot thank you enough. Happy Mother's Day!

And to my mom: 

Mom, you're amazing. I mean it when I say you are the most incredible person I could have ever met, much less have been raised by. Thank you for the time you've put into my sisters and I. Thank you for the sacrifices you've made, for the worrying, the effort, and the time. Gosh, I wish I could reciprocate even a fraction of the debt I owe you for making me who I am. And I shall try. But in all honesty, I do not think I could ever repay you. You are the greatest mother. I love you! Happy Mother's Day! 

if places were people no. 5

i never thought i'd see you as a person,

except now that i found you it makes sense:

you became the place we hated.

you formed as i slept,

so i woke to your enormous cancerous thought processes

and your hopeless breath

that blows as mercilessly as the wind.

i woke to you being a mountain,

and i dangled off one of your cliffs.

you rise steeply

from the endless plain floor.

not sunshine falling from heaven,

but rock wishing to rule above grass,

tough as meat and

those shard-like word ledges threaten from miles away

sharp collarbones and jawline and thin thighs

my intention was to never climb your type,

but i'm the only one close enough to try.

now, when you aren't slicing with your obsidian edges,

you're mixing in dirt, breeding infection, reveling in the primal.

hungry green eyes.

you're wild, snarling,

edging away at every flower,

the ones that do bloom are tiny and dull and only last a week or two,

and then your thin breath suffocates them.

seeds only last so long underneath your snow.

your endless winter,

and the longer i spend in you the more i realize

why no one lives

here anymore

your hands used to hold mine and now they

hold me in the sunshine, mocking, until my skin burns.

your skin is dirty and rough and darkening with every day spent so close to the sun

your eyes used to make my own light up,

and now i shiver away at your glance,

afraid of what it might mean.

every car going in the opposite direction seems to call my name,

and i want to go with, but

from where i sit i can see the gravestone that holds childhood memories

and if you will not guard in then

i will

although i think even the memories have crawled out and left

i don't think you even know where the graveyard is,

though it continually fills with your victims,

and you know it not.

you only know when i'm in the area,

your arrows made of steel and the knowledge of my weaknesses

seek out not my heart, but the

arteries pumping towards it.

you aim for my limbs, not

my organs.

you look for targets to maim,

not to kill.

you would hate to be a killer.

you would hate to be anything horrid,

anything blatantly wrong.

but you don't mind the label of desert.

or rock of a mountain.

you don't mind the fact that people climb you to die, not to live.

or that they only come visit you when you smile,

not when you snow your black snow, dark thoughts.

you don't mind that everyone calls you no-mans-land,

no-woman's-land

the forbidden and hated and avoided land.

you say you don't mind, anyway.

but it must be lonely.

it must be quiet.

and i know how you loved the music in the city squares.

how you loved it when people smiled at you

and i know it because you loved it before you changed,

and you say it's an act but i will be honest

i do not believe those words of yours.

i try to bring it to you, the music,

but it isn't the same without the crowds of dancers

and anyway,

your shale mountainsides cut my feet when i dance for you.

it must be trying,

having everyone hate the way flowers grow rarely

so i try to plant a garden,

but your winter comes to soon

for sprouts to push out of the ground.

it must be

so

terribly

hard

to be a mountain in a country

where everything dies.

and yet here i am,

sitting with you,

because so far i have always been a mountain person

and i am starting to think that i have changed,

and that maybe the ocean is more of my style

except i don't want to leave you.

not like this,

not when you've run out of victims so you're turning into one yourself.

not when i can see the structure of the mountain,

and the covering is starting to fall.

the skin is starting to sag and stretch and

you're getting thinner.

i don't want to leave that grave of childhood

the snows came early this year,

i think you crave the ice water more and more.

there was one day this winter when i couldn't make it to the grave.

when i went the next day,

your forced laugh of a wind had felled a tree

breaking the headstone.

i think i will catch one of those cars now,

because who knows when the snows will melt.

i think i will go to the ocean

to see if less thin air will bring clarity of mind.

i think space

between us will make your

visible ribs seem less knife-like.

maybe space will make me miss you.

maybe i will like the thin air when i come back.

maybe the flowers will grow more, if i'm not watching them.

maybe you will have a bouquet for me when i come back.

maybe you will not be so hated when i come back.

maybe it will be better

when i come back.

if i come back.

you stabbed me from behind, when

i turned to walk away today.

an ice shard through my thigh

so that when i do walk, it will be painful.

i can still walk.

but i don't know

when i will come back.

if

i will come back.

too many scars from your arrowheads will

make it harder to climb your

unscalable peak

if i come back.

YO ALL!!! i'm still alive. (seriously i keep saying that. why. maybe because i have multiple not-so-near-death  experiences so i SHOULD be dead.) (i was busy.) (and there was a lack of coffee.) (don't ask.)

SO YEAH. there's another super-downer for you. in my defense i TRIED to find something uplifting. what can i say. i listen to too much chopin to be an expressively happy person. OH WELL. 

xoxo