Much as I would like to think that some echo of my former self still lingers, the truth is that this chapter of motherhood has effectively killed her off...and with her, all sense of scheduling, organizing, and planning.
That's not to say I don't still try. The planner sits atop the kitchen table, full of hastily scribbled "reminders to self" and checklists and calendar notations. But at the end of every day, the page tells the true story...a few lines of text checked and crossed off in the early hours of caffeination...and then, abandonment. Each day rolling over into the next, with a growing list of to-dos and want-tos...and, worse yet, should-have-alreadys...
'Twixt toddler-hood and the (now) 20 year old, my days are a precarious balancing act of tasks/goals and chaos control...and that's before adding in the "crisis management" that has been the operating system of recent months.
Come night...or, rather, midnight and her shadowy sisters, I pause long enough to copy the lines of one day over into the next and shake loose the disappointment-irritation-shame of having failed to accomplish once again.
So here I sit, with planner beside me, full of 'best laid plans' and the traffic snarl of 'good intentions'.
Here I sit, in contemplative silence (of inner self, not surroundings...ha!) marking the passage of days and idly scrolling through my handwritten notes.
Wondering, as always if I'll ever get back on track.
Wondering just where and when and how I got off track to begin with.
And then I hear the hushed murmurs of my two boys, from but a few feet away, where they play.
Two boys.
One young adult.
One newly minted three year old.
Playing with all the wild abandonment of boyhood at trucks and dinos and transformers.
Ah. Yes. There it is. The off-ramp.
Of motherhood.
Motherhood of this variety.
The "drop everything to be in the moment" motherhood.
The "tend to the curiousities" and let the rest fall away motherhood.
The "wear all the hats" motherhood.
The "embrace both skills and deficits of disability" motherhood.
The...
Stop
Drop
and Roll With It
motherhood.
The...pause now to pick up the pieces and wonder if I'll ever even get back to finishing this post motherhood.
6:37 a.m.
