27 years of parenting

I bet you are looking for advice. No, no advice here. Well, maybe some, but more for me than you.

I have been a mother for 27 years as of about 75 minutes ago. 27 years. I remember those hours (days) that lead up to the moment of birth and I remember the two weeks that followed (10 days of them in the hospital). It wasn't seamless.

But parenting, kind of was. Even the hard parts. The parts where I didn't (don't) know what to do, or say, or think. They are seamless. The days flow into each other and the relationship that I have had, and continue to have, with my children flows from one stage to the next.

The stage we are in now is parent to adult children. Children making their way in the world, settling into their lives, struggling with what it is to be an adult.

It isn't easy. Some days are, but many aren't. Life, even a good, blessed life, is still hard. My children, like myself, are always striving. And striving, not settling, is hard.

That baby boy, born 27 years ago, is figuring it out. He is, as I have told him, someone destined for greatness. He has so many strengths. He has many roads open to him, and he is figuring it out.

So is his mother.

Sorting through photographs I see him as a new born, bruised from his difficult birth, then a one year old lifted high in the air, held fast by his father's arms. Then pre-school with his new-born little sister, kindergarten, first day of grade one and so it goes all the way to high school graduation. I can flip through them in a minute or so. Each picture tells the story of a year, and then a blink, and they are gone.

He is now a young man, but within him are all those pictures, and more. And he is making new pictures everyday in his adventure up north. He is learning. Alot. About farming, and fishing, and relationship and self-sufficiency.

He calls at least once, sometimes twice, a week. Sometimes he chatters away about this and that. Sometimes our conversations are harder, and sadder.

I am always happy he called. I am always happy he can tell me whatever he needs to tell me. That is a gift I have been given by both my children.

Parenting. Seamless. One picture flowing into the next. One day into the next. When something is seamless it can't unravel. It is continuous. Like a moebius strip.

Yes, parenting is like a moebius strip.

Happy Birthday, dear one. Happy Birthday.