Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

Early on, motherhood is very crowded, very little room or time or space just for her. There is always someone right there; possibly, multiple someones.
 

It’s loud and bustling, boisterous, filled with constant movement, fists and elbows and knees and feet akimbo, fingers poking you and the dog and the cat. There are bottles and diaper bags and baggies with cheerios and stuffed animals and lullabies, loads of wash and swings and mobiles and high chairs and sippy cups, soft blankets and wipes, oh so many wipes, photos, always photos to take. Outings to the playground or zoo or little gym or swimming pool are louder, busier, filled with the toddling, falling, imbalanced, unsteady steps, sand in mouths and hair and toes and socks and even diapers, the world a blur of small creatures and their eating, pooping, nose-picking, booger-eating, hair-twirling, farting, crying, wailing, laughing, singing, startling, small wars erupting when a precious item is hogged, turns are not taken, nothing, nothing, nothing will be shared without a fight. Even the bed is crowded, sets of footed jammies burrow under her belly, her thighs, her shoulders, her chin, her mouth.

 
Later, motherhood is filled with the sounds of school age children, classrooms with 25 small people talking, clamoring, tapping feet, scratching scalps, eating glue, stapling their fingers, doing everything except sitting quietly. Cars filled with sports gear or instrument cases, playrooms overflowing, bins up-ended, the world so crowded that there is barely room to step without setting a foot down on clothes and toys and paper and pencils and markers and glitter and fairy princesses and forts and Lego structures. Food is everywhere, on the floor, on the counters, on the kitchen cabinet doors, under the beds, in hair, behind furniture, in voluminous grocery bags requiring multiple trips to bring inside.

 
Later still, motherhood widens for moments of solitude too small and unexpected to fill. A child in after-school soccer or ballet, a pre-teen behind a closed door, on the phone, texting, playing Team Fortress 2 and Nintendos, teenage bodies emitting a new ripeness, hearts filled and broken, hugs, hugs, hugs – and tears – the force of independence strivings slamming shut a bedroom door, the wall of noise from music that grates on your ears and vibrates your chest wall. Motherhood that exists almost primarily in the car and in the kitchen and in the laundry room, motherhood as the central scheduling point from which everyone finds their just right place to be, which is always somewhere else.

 
And then – not like it comes without warning, without packing up and sorting through books and gear and clothes and bedding, trips to Goodwill, writing and revising essays, college campus visits, graduation ceremonies and all-night parties and conversations about sex that is safe and meaningful to children on the cusp of another stage of life who can do many things, not one of which is to have safe or meaningful sexual encounters – and then, motherhood remains in the realm of the mother, just her. Some texts, a visit, maybe even a weekend when the house is full, but it’s not the same. The grown children have friends to see, clubs and music and parties to check out, mornings lost to sleeping in. Visiting the ones who have moved away, like being on safari, she catches glimpses of an exotic other life, rare wildebeest and fast-moving cheetahs, people and places move quickly in and out of view, snippets of language she’s not sure she follows fall flat in her ears. Objects look younger than they appear, but only to the Mother.

 
The hardest times are right after she hangs up the phone, right after the front door closes, the long drive home in the too-spacious, too-empty car, whose radio buttons are no longer set to hip hop or teen pop.

 
Motherhood, once so overfull and crowded, once the center of so many lives, becomes a single teacup, a dispirited deli salad for one, in an orderly house where laundry is done only one day each week, Chopin nocturnes play in the background to keep her company, keep out the loneliness that burrows under her thighs, her belly, her heart, attempt to muffle the force of being no-longer-necessary that slams shut every door.