The fraught jungle of feelings

and other thoughts about mothering

Happy birthday to my mom today!

Earlier this spring I adopted a cat from the animal shelter, a very young one who was barely old enough to have had a litter of kittens herself. Her name is Grace Slick and she is the most perfect cat. She sleeps on the end of the bed at night but doesn’t crowd me. She doesn’t yowl. She has some quirky, fun skills such as begging on her hind legs like a dog when she thinks something tasty might be in the offing.

Once the weather began to turn beautiful and my windows hung open all the time, it became clear that this cat really, really wanted to go outside. I prefer an indoor cat, one I wouldn’t worry about, who just keeps the cushion warm and observes the world. This is not Gracie. Over and over, she darted out the door and I scooped her up and replaced her in the house. Then she looked at me and cried and scratched at the screen. I was not mentally prepared to let her go out, but finally this weekend I relented. As she slunk around the corner of the building out of my sight, I told her goodbye and readied myself to never see her again.

Gracie as she skulked through the jungle, off to do whatever it is cats do.

And this, friends, is my version of a Mother’s Day post. Because being a mother always means letting go. It is the anticipatory heartbreak of knowing your children will leave. The leaving could be a trip to the store when they’re 16 and just starting to drive, or it could be beginning a career and moving away, or something unthinkable, or just about anything. If you were close with your kids while they were small, this eventual separation is almost the hardest thing imaginable — or at least it was, for me. I am constantly girding against the last time I will see them, or worrying about something catastrophic, or generally mourning the lost childhoods of everyone.

Two things incite me to send messages to my kids immediately: when I see moms with little ones anywhere (the park, the grocery, the Target), and when I hear about some awful tragedy that makes me want to tell them I love them right that second, just in case. I’m lucky they are usually quick responders. I’m used to their personalities now, at 21 and 19, but mothering them was not what I expected, nor was it a consistent experience across the two. As an only child, I did not anticipate any of this.

My daughter, the older one, has always been singularly independent. As a small child she did not like to be held, and went to sleep on her own after just a few months. She only ever did anything when she was totally ready for it and also wanted to. Now at 21 she does things like, saves money so she can take a months-long roadtrip by herself all over the southwest,¹ or moves into a tent on a friend’s property, exchanging this living space for work while she considers traveling to Israel in the fall. We’ve never before been as close as these last two years have brought us.

Heading out to hear the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, February 2017

My son, on the other hand, didn’t want to be put down as an infant. He came running back to me when it was time to go to Kindergarten. We spent a lot of time together as he grew up, especially after his sister got wheels. I took him to DC for a week once as a surprise, and another time we went to Canada for a few days, just the two of us. Saturday mornings we shopped together. We took so many road trips.

Now that my kids are youthful adults, my relationship with them has evolved. They’re grown up!² I want to advise them, but I don’t want to be Been-There-Done-That Mom. I want to know about their lives, but I don’t want to be Helicopter Mom. I want to help them but I don't want to be ATM Mom. Truthfully, sometimes I want to cling to them but...I don’t want to be Clingy Mom.³ No matter what, I'm always holding myself back from something I shouldn't do for them, to them, at them all while lamenting what all I could have done differently while they were children.

It’s an anxiety-filled, fraught jungle of feelings and I don’t know what to do about it. Mom guilt is the worst. And I know I sound like a lunatic — this whole newsletter is uncomfortable.

Basically, for me motherhood consists of both overwhelming love and overwhelming dread, bundled in an awful dichotomy as a single, two-sided emotion. The dread is a feeling so awful that I burst with relief when my children do return from wherever. I know these days — while all three of us live in Missoula and can meet up regularly — I know they are numbered. So I am sopping up the moments whenever I can to mother my children, to gather them to me, so that my heart can stay in one piece for another little while.

Gracie came back. For now.

1. She did this at 19, in fact

2. kind of

3. And I don’t actually want to cling most of the time, because I’ll tell you right now I don’t want either of them living with me unless Emergency Situation Mode is in effect.