The Isolation Journals - Day 40

Well well well.  Here we are on the 40th day of the project, making it a true quarantine in the etymological sense.  And, it's Mother's Day, a day I managed to screw up by ordering gifts that are floating somewhere on the planet in shipping limbo for two out of three mothers in my life.  Sorry.  What are ya gonna do?

Today's prompt comes from Meaghan Calcari Campbell.

Prompt:  Write a letter to someone who (or something that) has mothered you—gave you medicine when you needed it, raised you, reminded you that your story needs to be told, gave you life, or saw you wholly, maybe for the first time. What would you say? What would you want this person (or thing) to know?

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I feel extraordinarily lucky to still have my mother and grandmother in my life at age 34.  They both raised me, and taught me so much about how to human.  I'm also fortunate to have a fantastic mother-in-law who I genuinely like and admire, which I hear is rare.  

So why, then, do I feel like a failure?  Is it because I've selfishly hoarded this embarrassment of motherly riches all to myself, as I've declined to pass them on to a child of my own?  Setting aside the fact that, biologically speaking, that 'ish was just not happening, I still realize that my choice/not-a-choice has seriously disappointed people in my life.

Truthfully, the thought of being a mother has always low-key horrified me.  Not just the enormity of being forever responsible for someone else's life, but in the Puritanical, high-school-sex-ed sense, too.  Keep your legs closed.  Don't get pregnant, that's the worst thing you could possibly do, it'll ruin your life.  I fear I internalized that message a little too deeply.  

For a few years in my early 20s, I used to just post the words "I'm pregnant" on social media on April Fool's Day, as if it was obviously a hilarious and absurd joke.  Then, I got married and people my age started having kids -on purpose, can you even imagine- and I realized maybe saying "I'm pregnant" was less of a joke and more of a tease.  I can read the room, sometimes it just takes me a minute.

The point is, I've retired that joke, for now.  In about 10 years, it'll be appropriately implausible and horrifying again.  

But okay, okay, about that letter.

Haters will say it's Photoshopped

Dear Mom and Grandmom,

Only one of you will read this, but that's fine.  I'm used to half my audience ignoring me.  Thank you for raising me, shaping me, in some aspects warping me.  I know you both love me, and I'm grateful that you both show it in such different ways.  

Mom, thank you for always supporting me, accepting me, and tolerating all of my bullshit since literally moments before I entered this world.  I would apologize for the whole 24 hour labor and meconium aspiration incident, but that's water under the bridge at this point, isn't it?

And Grandmom, thank you, conversely, for tolerating precisely none of my bullshit.  Together, the two of you taught me, intentionally or otherwise, that certain people (you) will always love me.  But the rest of the world?  Probably doesn't give a rip.  I might be a special snowflake within the confines of our family, but in the outside world, I'm just a speck in a dirty, melting snowbank.

That got dark, but I didn't mean it in a negative way.  I sincerely appreciate that lesson.  I wish I could be with you both on this Mother's Day, but we don't always get what we want in life, do we?  That's a lesson I learned from you, Mom.  But who knows, maybe one of these years, you will finally receive that "pound of 50s" you keep requesting for your birthday.

Love,

Katie