I'm training to be an acrobat.
I sense your surprise: seems an unlikely hobby for someone who never learned how to do a cartwheel (I can't believe I just admitted that) and feels faint being upside down. But flexibility has become essential. Agility is the only way to survive. So you heard it here first: I am aspiring emotional contortionist.
Let's discuss.
In any given 24-hour 10-minute span, I'm called on to be: playful, pragmatic, imaginative, attentive, stern, and silly. One minute I'm Awesome Mommy enabling pre-lunch ice-cream-eating while watching backhoes do roadwork; the next minute I'm Dictator Mother unapologetically sentencing a boundary-testing toddler to a double-header timeout; the minute after that, I'm Sucker Mom melting when her son hugs her from behind, sweetly cooing "I sure do love you."
Nothing in this crazy life is ever configured in a nice straight line; having kids seems to magnify that on a moment-by-moment basis. As "number of experienced emotional states" goes, Owen and Eliza lap me regularly; I'm still stuck back at Frustration while they've already moved on to Merriment and Delight. But if you don't move fast, if you don't get unstuck, you'll miss the good parts. The phrase "get over it" has never rung so true.
Example: this video was taken tonight at 6:39PM. For those 54-seconds, my life was pure, unadulterated, maternal bliss. This is what all of life is about. This is what I live and breathe for.
By 7:04, about an ounce of that bottle had reappeared in the form of projectile spit-up, Owen had logged two nuclear meltdowns and one timeout, and both kids were being escorted to very early bedtimes by exhausted parents on their way to eating toast for dinner. This is what life is all about? This is what I live and breathe for? But then as I rocked Eliza to sleep, the sweet little wiggle-worm settled into my shoulder and stared up at me, studying my face and looking intently at my eyes, and I knew that this - all the messy parts of it - is what now makes me, me.
Yes, there are those moments when the stars align, the heavens sing, and everything comes up roses. And these moments are inevitably followed - thirty seconds later - by shit hitting the fan, the bottom dropping out, and everything spiraling hilariously out of control. But you have to be ready for both. You get yourself geared up to be both punisher and playmate. You have to relish -- like really be present for -- those 54-seconds of life's most perfect moments, and then be okay when the whole encounter ends with Owen asserting: "Get off me, Ewiza!! I need space!!"
So that's my quest, my many-times-a-daily visualization that I'm flexing my emotional muscle and learning how to become a professional mental contortionist. And even if it doesn't work -- even if I don't stick the perfect landing, or can't keep up with my emotionally-nimble children -- well then, I always have the backup plan of running away with the circus.
