Not a Mama at Menopause

Apparently I have some “inner work” to do. Lately my brain is whirling like an Oklahoma twister. Lots of debris swirling around, transforming, shifting the old ideas about who I am.

Scary stuff, sometimes, but apparently necessary. A new phase of life has been forced upon me, whether I like it or not.

Now that I have officially passed the ability to have children without having any children, I am second guessing my childfree life.

I did not see this little “gift” of the Big M. coming, but here I am, feeling a bit bereft.

For the most part, I am content that birthing and rearing a child has not been part of my life. Of all the many reasons, (some under my control and some not) why I am not a mother, perhaps the strongest reason is that I don’t have much of a mother-instinct.

Not every woman has a strong mother-instinct. To put it mildly, this isn’t a popular sentiment to voice. I like babies and children; I never had a strong urge to have one of my own. This may seem bizarre and unnatural, but I always kind of smugly congratulated myself for realizing this lack of motherly feelings and then not fighting against these feelings and having kids anyway.

There were sweet moments when I enjoyed cuddling other people’s babies, truly marveling at the mysteries of birth. But when I handed the babies back, I was fairly happy to do so. Some women have an almost unbearable urge to have children, and motherhood is the fulfillment of a dream for them. They are meant to mother.

I respect that mothering need enormously, even if my childlessness has made me an outsider to a lot of what is central to most women’s lives. Childlessness makes me a bit defensive, too, as if I need to justify why I’m childless, or explain that I’m not evil, or emotionless because I’m not a mother.

For instance, I feel obliged to note that by teaching college students, I have had a turn at being a mother figure. Our student population here is a vulnerable one that often needs a shoulder to cry on, parental advice and motherly encouragement. There’s more than the typical amount of tears, tragedy, and trauma on this campus in a military community.

Maybe this is the mothering I was meant to do? Maybe if I had children of my own, I wouldn’t have as much energy to give to these students who do really need me, although I know plenty of teaching mothers who also boundlessly love their students.

I have had a fulfilling ten years giving myself to my students, and they have given back to me, too. Maybe I can be okay, knowing that I have loved these students, some who did not have loving biological parents to sustain them.

This does not change the revelation that I do have some grieving to get through, now that the door to motherhood is closed.

Even though I am still mostly content with an official end to my fertility, I have some truly unexpected, startling, sadness. I felt confident that I had already worked through my feelings about not being a mother prior to the final knell menopause brought to my fertility.

In reading about menopause, especially Magnolia Miller’s wonderful The Perimenopause Blog, I’ve found that grieving associated with this time of life is not unusual, whether one is a mother or not. Magnolia says we must acknowledge we are “mourning a loss" and "coming to terms with a new life on the other side of that loss.”

But the feeling of permanent loss, of no chance of a do-over, of not ever having the photogenic kind of family life that dominates social media, tv, and magazines does sting. Facebook, in particular, is soul-sucking for the childless woman. Some non-moms have deleted their Facebook accounts after it became too painful to look at other people's babies and children.

Even when we are savvy enough to realize that Facebook is mostly how people want to present their lives under best case scenario conditions, we still tend to buy into the seeming perfection. How can my childless life measure up?  Because that photo-shopped gourmet meal at the rustic table with the clean, smiling children, Dad carving the turkey, that's what family life is really like, right? At least some of the time.

I do grieve what I have missed and will never have, and I need others to understand that they can make me feel like an alien

Unfortunately, my grieving won’t be rushed, no matter how much I want to shake it off and move on to this new life ahead of me.

Girl Crush

“Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes—in not enough help, in brokenness, mess… in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions.” –Anne Lamott

My latest girl crush is writer Anne Lamott. My feelings toward Anne are part crush, part hero worship, part “she would totally get me if we met” awe.

I’m reading Lamott’s 2005 book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. After my dad died four weeks ago, I did what some readers/writers/overthinkers might do (perhaps especially if they have a touch of religious belief)—I went to Barnes and Noble and bought books about grieving, death, faith, and comfort.

That first week I was still numb, but I knew the numbness would wear off, and I wanted to be prepared. The way I saw it, $80.00 worth of books would be well worthwhile if I could avoid costly professional grief therapy. Yes, I’m a real DIY kind of sufferer.

So I’ve dipped into four of the books, but Annie’s is the one I’m reading the most. I was a little worried, since she started right off damning George Bush to hell for starting the war in Iraq. While I may tend to agree with her, the constant damning to hell of George Bush was not helping me move forward in my grieving process.

But I trusted, kept reading. 

What I love about my Anne is that she is so messed up and sarcastic, and she knows it. So self-deprecating, yet she’s unwilling to take shit from anyone, including God. She talks about Jesus and God in the most intimate and sometimes bitchy ways.

A recovering alcoholic, now in her fifties, at the time Plan B was written she is both a mother to a teenage boy and going through menopause, an incendiary situation. Summing her life experience up, she’s a survivor.

She overthinks, as well, a trait we share. Lamott admits to wrongheadedness, uncharitable thoughts, and murderous impulses. She’s not afraid to pray the one-word prayer: HELP!

In short, she’s exactly the kind of Christian I need right now. I don’t need platitudes, and my Annie doesn’t do platitudes. She’s had to do lots of inner work to get to where she is, a place where she is mostly (or at least sometimes) content with her life.

For instance, she admits that she’d rather be celibate than get into another toxic relationship. Of course, in the funny way life goes, a while after she came to that conclusion, she found a boyfriend.

She attends a racially diverse Presbyterian church in the Bay area, has a female pastor, and sometimes refers to God as “She.” I know this kind of new-agey feminist stuff drives some Christians over the edge, but me and Annie, we say, “Chill.” We don’t think God gets all excited about gender. Or about a lot of other stuff.

She says, “…we should try to stay on God’s good side. It’s not hard. God has extremely low standards. Pray, take care of people, be actively grateful for your blessings, give away your money—you’re cool. You’re in. Nice room in heaven, flossing no longer required—which is what will make it heaven for me. Oh, I mean that, and Jesus.”

Anne struggles with mid-life, admits she has a bit of flab, is creaky when she gets up in the morning, forgetful. She’s a white girl who gave up the struggle with her exceedingly curly, unruly hair a decade ago and now sports dreadlocks, feeling that dreadlocks are the equivalent of her hair finding its way home. She’s a blue jeans kind of girl; she’d never judge me for my general dishevelment.

If I lived near her, my friend Annie and I would go for hikes in the hills. She’d show me her favorite views, the trails she hiked with her dad as a girl. We’d talk about faith, and failure, and love.  I’d be sure she knew how much I valued our friendship, and she’d offer to read drafts of my historical novel. I might even admit that I’d had a girl crush on her. She’d be a little embarrassed, but mostly flattered.

She be kind, real, and she’d offer to watch my cats if I had to go out of town. We’d make each other laugh. I’d cook her some soup.

That’s my girl crush. Crazy Annie is helping me work through some of my grief, after all.

Have you ever had a girl crush on an author or famous person, living or dead? I challenge you to name your crush, and tell me about her.

  

Unbalanced

One of the books I’m reading, Healing After Loss, by Martha Whitmore Hickman (Harper, 1994), quotes social worker Lily Pincus:

When I asked the orthopedic surgeon who treated me whether people often fracture bones after bereavement, he said, without even looking up from my injured foot, “Naturally, people lose their sense of balance.”

Oh, so that’s what’s going on.

Never the most graceful of women, lately I have been walking into a few more walls than usual. My elbows flail away from me, hitting door casings. Small bruises appear on my arms and legs, and I can’t remember how I got them. Walking along, suddenly I veer off to the side like the cliché of the drunken sailor. I haven’t fallen. Yet.

Unbalanced. That’s a good way to put it. Off-center.

Losing Dad three weeks ago, I sometimes wonder I’m dealing a little too well with grief. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?

Then, leaving a restaurant, I encounter a little man, bent over his walker, wearing a WW II, D-Day veteran’s cap. Dad had a cap like that, but for his service in the Pacific. I bought it for him, but he was reluctant to wear it, and continued with his ratty Carolina Panthers hat. Dad didn’t like to draw attention to his veteran status.

The little man is toddling toward the restaurant door. Shockwaves hit me, but I smile, say “WW II? Thank you for your service,” as I hold the door for the little man and his companion. Then I turn away, hit with that stupid weight front and center, under the breast bone.

But it passes. A young man in a wheel chair rolls up, and I hold the door open for him, too. My day to be doorman, but that’s how we do it in the South. I pull it back together, and no one with me even notices.

Talking with my husband later, I told him that meeting the old man was an unexpected slap of grief. I should have been prepared to meet my first little man with a walker after losing Dad, but I wasn’t, hadn’t planned for it.

I’m dealing well with the grief thing, honestly. Just a little clumsy, the occasional crying jag in the shower, and the urge to hug little old men.

But that’s not such a bad impulse, is it?