Tomorrow (today now, really) is my daughter’s ninth birthday. Despite how tiny our house is, we managed to have a birthday party here. Seven giggling eight year old girls for two hours. I haven’t ever dared to have a party at the house before and I don’t know why I chose to this year, but I did. And I made it work! They had fun, ate good food, and only one girl felt left out (which was quickly fixed when I pointed it out). I’m amazed, really.
Over the last month or two, so many things have been shifting inside, and it seems that I have been able to find my resilience and strength for normal day to day challenges again. And the trauma symptoms have diminished so much- I’m at maybe 30 or 40% of what I was over the summer, sometimes even less.
Over the previous year, there were too many days that I spent in bed or wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, just trying to survive. I felt so guilty about not being as present as I should be for my daughter, even when I was in the same room with her, but I couldn’t manage to get myself fully into 2013. It was a terribly difficult year and as much as I hate what I experienced, I hate even more that I missed so much of this last year with my daughter and I can’t get it back. She is only going to continue growing up and I am aware that my time to hold her close to me is growing short. Even now, she needs to venture out, but at least she still wants to come back and nestle against me each day.
Somehow, it seems that I have managed to do what I needed to do to keep her fairly healthy, so some part of me must have been on duty, even when the rest of me was out of touch. I am grateful that I managed to take care of her, but I wish that I remembered more of what I did. I really wish that I had been capable of having more fun with her.
I can’t change the past, though. All I can do is to work to create a better now, which will hopefully lead to an even better future. So today I ended up with seven eight year olds in my house, running around, making a considerable amount of noise. This is something that a month ago would have caused me to dissociate for sure. In fact, I was over at another house for a play date about a month ago and that is exactly what happened. Today, I got kind of stressed for part of the party, but I was able to stay present, help the girls make bracelets, avert potential hurt feelings, and keep things running smoothly in general. It was exhausting and I took a three hour nap afterwards, but I did it. Most importantly, I gave my daughter what she wanted: a normal, fun birthday party with her friends at home.
Tonight, after she went to bed, I sat in the rocking chair, looking at the balloons bobbing on the living room ceiling. I remembered the sense of anticipation exactly nine years ago, knowing that by the next afternoon I would be holding my daughter in my arms. I had so much hope and fear then and I didn’t really have a clue as to how much joy she would bring, how I would love this little being more fiercely and completely than I had ever loved anyone, and how much heartache and frustration I would feel as I struggled through parenthood.
I am so grateful that I am able to do more of the living again while I am healing. I am particularly grateful, because I want to savor the time that I have with this wonderful, exasperating, loving, challenging, giving child of mine. She’s already nine. She’s no longer a little girl. I want to start to savor my time with her and show her that life can very much be worth living.
It’s great that you can appreciate this time with your daughter, knowing she is growing up, even if not perfectly. I can’t say I had that awareness when my son was young – it seemed he would be a child forever, and I didn’t think about it. I also remember how exhausting those child parties are – congrats on having managed this one so well! Your daughter is lucky to have a mom who cares so much.
Thank you, Ellen!
What a wonderful memory to give yourself and your daughter, Cat! I’m so glad both of you had this experience. I hope you took photos so you can look back on the event and remember when you need to remind yourself of the good times. What a birthday gift to give her! And you!
I was too focused on just trying to manage things and wasn’t able to take pictures. I did get my husband to take pictures of her blowing her candles out, though, and I did take some pictures of her this morning, enjoying presents that my husband’s family sent to her.
It never occurred to me that parents remain happy their children were born or that they can remember the anticipation they felt earlier. I always assumed raising children was a huge disappointment, that there’s all this hype and then the kid is there and is so much more work and difficulty than you ever imagined.
Ashana, you need to find some friends who are healthy parents! There is a whole world there for you to discover, if you have never been shown that parents can remain happy that their children were born.
Personally, I know that there have been times when I have feared that I am so clueless that I’m not capable of being a good parent. There have been times when I want to escape from all responsibilities, including my daughter for a week. I can get frustrated or angry. Just like being in a partnership isn’t always a happy thing, being a parent isn’t always a happy thing. Nothing in life that I can think of is always pleasant. But if I have had moments of regretting becoming a parent, they were fleeting enough that I don’t remember them.
I was 37 when my daughter was born, though. My husband and I went into parenthood with our eyes wide open knowing that it was going to be the most challenging thing that we would ever do.
If I had become a parent in my 20s, it would have been a disaster, but I knew that. I made the decision to wait to try until my mid 30s, because I didn’t think that I could make a decent parent until then. I had done a lot of healing by that point and felt that I was ready to be a different mother than my mother had been.
Becoming a mother at that point pushed me to grow and heal in ways that I don’t think that I ever would have otherwise. I think that it helped to make me more 3 dimensional, if that makes any sense. It helped to push me out of myself. She helped my heart to open up more.
If not every day, then almost every day, I marvel at least once over how grateful that I am that I have my daughter in my life. I assume that I would love any child this much, but I have to say that I feel incredibly blessed that this particular child is my daughter.
I do have friends who are good parents, I think, but it never registered.
You might want to ask them about it some day. In my experience, it gives good parents joy to think/talk about how much they love their children and how glad they are that they had them.
I will definitely do that. As a teacher, I hear much more about how much parents are worried about their kids.
I love this post – it’s so beautifully written and perfectly articulates something that is completely open and honest. I have a child of a similar age and recognise exactly these thoughts and feelings.
Thank you for sharing, and an enthusiastic ‘hi-five’ for your continuing progress 🙂
Thank you!