I stopped in to Kmart to pick up some decorations for the upcoming party for my youngest, he’s turning 6. I found some wonderfully bright and shiny decorations, all which he’ll love, then decided to traverse over to the toys section to see if anything else needed to come home with me. To get there I had to walk through the baby section, and the look of a wipeable play mat, the familiarity of the colours, all the colours which I resisted at first then went head first into them in our lives. The glimpse of the tiny newborn outfits, the onesies, teething rings, night lights. In a moment I was in tears and I didn’t see it coming. A wave of grief had seemingly come out of nowhere and had taken me under.
My eyes were involuntarily dropping tears, my breath became slow and shallow, my heart ached in my chest. Meanwhile all the other shoppers were going about their day perusing what was on offer and I needed a moment. I always think there should be benches in shops, I mean, I get that they dont’ have them for the same reason McDonald’s purposely designs their chairs to be not very comfortable so you don’t stay long. If there would have been a bench I would have taken it, instead I found myself next to some wooden building blocks and just stopped.
I didn’t want to minimise the feelings, feelings are gifts, I wanted to feel what was coming up so that it could be just a wave and not something that totally immerses me or doesn’t come out and builds up. The grief was about that stage of my life, of having little, like really young ones, is done. I won’t be needing any more wipeable play mats, I won’t need the sippy cups, or all of the super small outfits anymore. It’s not like this is new, we haven’t needed that for a while, and I haven’t had a pram in years, but the realisation of time, of change, of one chapter being closed hit me hard. It still does as I recount this and even now have tears in my eyes remembering the feeling yesterday.
Sometimes I think having another one or two would be fantastic. It woudl be nice to expand our own little family so we have our people. That’s something a lot of immigrants would understand, being away from your original family, you make new friends and new networks, but you want your people, the peopel who get you. Then I remember that I’m 44 and although there are stories of moms having kids this late, my own grandmother was one of them, it’s still such a daunting thought, the lack of sleep, those early years really do become a blur due to said lack of sleep, and I just don’t think I could handle it now. I love that I have my healthy and happy two boys. We have a nice balance in our house with two parents, two kids, we can then pair up in various ways and it works, everything about a family of 4 works easily in the world, and financially it’s fine just like this, we can still get out and take holidays and still do things. So the grief isn’t necessarily about not having more, although it would have been nice. It’s more that the early years stage is truly over and that will never be again.
It is what it is, and that’s okay. It was a golden era and full of growth and a deepening of love that I had never known before, and with any and all love that goes so deep, it leaves space to feel it’s loss when it’s thats gone.
This is the interesting thing about life and getting older. I’m now aware of the distinct stages and eras that I’m in and have been in. I’m thankful that I’ve had so many “golden days” so many beautiful memories made in different distinct chapters of my life because I go all in where I am and explore who I am in each space and time.
I do so much personal research about topics all the time and this led me to learning that the middle school years are generally considered the most challenging for moms according to Psychology Today. It got me thinking about these different chapters and how even these younger school kid years will soon be wrapped up. My oldest is nearly ten, and his age will now be in double digits marked by years, so long ago did I mark him by being days old, or months old, it still feels like yesterday even though we’ve lived so much life together and since those days.
So the article about middle school being the most challenging was then somehow confirmed when we watched Inside Out 2 as a family last night! I love it when synchronicities happen like that, it’s like the universe is consipiring to make sure you get what you need in every moment, it’s beautiful.
To combat those years being extra challenging, it was suggested to make sure mom has their own identity and hobbies and not have their life wrapped around the kids only. For warned is fair game right, so knowing that these chapters of life are dripping with emotion and richness, then it only makes sense to go all in on every chapter and this next one requires me to own more of my own identity, to develop it further so that I am ready for what lies ahead.
This thought and post has meandered a bit, but I’m glad I’ve gotten it out. I’m really making more of an effort to post things publicly not just in my own journals or in my face to face interactions, in hope that maybe what I experience, feel, and consider may help someone else feel like they aren’t alone in it.
Please excuse any typos or grammar, I write like I speak and as much as I know I need to go back and edit, it’s terribly hard for me to do it! Also when I use grammarly I find it changes too much and doesn’t sound like me, so this is me in raw form.