Cry Me a River

I cry on Mother’s Day. For years it’s been a thing. (I didn’t always cry, in my joyful youth I used to laugh, even joke about my barren womb) When I was in my twenties my little cousin jokingly told me on one Mother’s Day “maybe next year Nina.” It was innocent, said sweetly and funnily as we stood to leave. I was so far off from wanting a baby that it became the joke that I repeated over and over for a while. Then came the next decade in life and the comment turned into a torturous little mantra that rang annually in my ears and summoned my private pity party- the annual tears of mother’s day, like the religious zealots who flog themselves. Sometimes the tears would come at the beginning of the day as I got ready to meet my family. Sometimes they would come in the car at the end of the outing. Sometimes they would come just before sleep- the best time to think about all of your life choices and everything you’re missing (highly recommend this one if you’re a bit of a masochist and not into sleeping). My early 30s were filled with people who were not the one while I watched my friends get coupled or married or start their motherhood journeys. Each mother day’s would come and the pain of not being where I thought I would be felt like a little baby sized knife in the heart (is this a knife for a baby- why would babies have weapons? What kind of mob life is this? I digress…)  Then I met Kevin and the pain of not being a mom yet was there but it felt a little less and I had a cry, but it was a little shorter. “Maybe NEXT year” I thought. But I knew it would come eventually, so my heart ached a little less. But then it didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen. And that familiar ache returned. Each year between the brunches and the flowers and the “maybe next year,” the heavier tears returned. As we navigated infertility and adoption the tears and the distance to motherhood felt like familiar friends. They warmed my face each year and the days in between. When each round of IVF failed and my body seemed unable to do the basic thing it was made for, making tears was one thing it knew how to do!  Then came Luna and that first Mother’s Day with her. It felt like a lifetime of waiting had been lifted and the tears still came but they were different. Tears of joy, gratitude and relief that I would finally get to live this role that I had dreamed of. That I would get to mother this perfect child who needed me and who I desperately needed. And now this second kid is here and I find myself so tired and unsure. Not questioning my love for him or Luna but how I am navigating this journey of motherhood.  It is hard and the tears come from fear that I’m doing it all wrong. Tears that I am messing it up irretrievably. Am I asking too much of everyone to make this dream of motherhood a reality?  Tears. Maybe this is just what it is to be a mother. Tears yearning for motherhood. Tears of uncertainty. Tears missing a mother or a relationship. Tears while you are in the throes of it. Maybe when this season ends the tears will be for another reason. Maybe there will always be tears on Mother’s Day.