I marshalled three projects (2 small ones and 1 large one) through completion by 10:30 this morning, and all of a sudden my industriousness took a nose-dive. So I'm sitting here at my desk shortly after noon, wishing so desperately for the end of the day. Unfortunately, I don't think my company has nap-time.
I have been stuck in a funk regarding The Governor's sudden transition to being a complete little boy. Two weeks ago, I could see vestiges of baby-ness in his features and demeanor. However, he had this ridiculous spurt in his conversational and mental abilities, and now does things like recall from memory and verbalize those thoughts. And those are not things that babies do.
A part of me loves it and is enthralled. However, another part of me hates it. That's right, I said "hate." I am sort of miserable about not having a baby anymore in the house, and I am coming to grips with having to let him "go" in many ways. I view motherhood as a never-ending series of "letting go" episodes; I am constantly re-assessing my relationship to him. For instance, and the extremely crowded mall playground at the mall the other day, he disappeared from my site quite a few times as he moved from the different parts of the playground. While my previous reaction would have been to immediately readjust my location so that I could see him at all times...I knew that he already knew to watch out for other kids ("especially babies!"), and to not go outside of the playground area. I also knew that he periodically searches for me from time to time, and would eventually come back to see me and boast his accomplishments.
And so I waited for a minute until I moved so that I could see him. But that minute was an eternity: I was fighting the urge to automatically "protect him" while allowing myself to wonder whether he was okay. I had to "let him go" for that minute, and it was so. hard. But parenting is ultimately about loss: you do all of these things for your child so that he can live halfway around the world if he wants--and still be safe and be a good person. I just figured that out recently, and I am sort of "grieving" about it.
It might explain why, as of lately, I can't shake this fear I have about something happening to The Governor sometime in his life. I don't know if it is resolution with this aspect of my role in his life, or if it is intuition, but for some random reason, I have this strange worry in the back of my head. I mean, there is always some healthy level of concern (which keeps me going), but as of lately (with the snow and us running around), my general level of concern has increased. And I am sort of scared about what that means.
Posted by equilibrium-girl at March 2, 2005 12:50 PM