Friend at the Mall
“My husband blew a tire on the way to work,” she tells me. We’ve run into each other in the shoe department. Mare and Ren are going through boxes trying on wildly inappropriate sparkly plastic kitten heals. I’m too tired to get a handle on it.
“My car blew an engine,” I counter. “And the following day, my husband got rear-ended on the way to work. AND,” I add. “I am here buying a dishwasher.”
“My sceptic tank backed up,” she says.
“OH. SH—”
“Exactly. It took all our savings.”
“You had savings??”
***
Friend From Mommy Group
“My mother thinks I am wasting my education. I have an MBA, you know.”
“I was a Press Secretary at the age of 24.”
We contemplate.
“I think you rock,” I say. “I really do. I think your little girls are awesome, and you inspire me every day. I can’t speak to the MBA, but I really can’t see what you could do with your life that’s better than what you’re doing.”
“I wish my mother knew that.”
She is sad, and I am sad for her.
***
Friend at the School
“So I totally thought of you,” she says. It’s the first day back to school, and we greeted each other with schoolgirl squeals and then lost 20 minutes gossiping while the kids waited for us. “I was standing in line at the sandwich shop, and the woman ahead of me was juggling three kids, and she was totally stressed and the kids were running everywhere and she was saying, ‘I just wish I had the Snugli, I was supposed to have the Snugli …’”
“And you thought of me?” I laugh.
“So, okay, so she takes her smoothie, and she’s holding the baby and she turns … and dumps the entire smothie into her purse.”
I am gasping for breath. Tears are running down my cheeks.
“So she’s got this squishy purse, and her kids are still running around and she’s still mumbling, ‘I was supposed to have the Snugli …’”
“Poor, poor girl.”
“Yeah, so I said, ‘Let me help you,’ and I got napkins and I started cleaning and she just stood there thanking me and saying she was going to talk all about it on Facebook.”
“Of course you would help,” I say.
“Oh, God, we’ve all be there.”
***
Back at the Mall
“I think you take it with the sceptic,” I admit. “That’s really bad.”
“Yeah, it was,” she laughs. Suddenly my big kids need to pee and the little one needs to nurse and chaos ensues. My friend runs the kids to the bathroom, Eden feeds, and then we start collecting ourselves to head home and start our evenings.
“You think you’re going to grow up, and have a job, and raise your family and that’s it. And it’s just not that simple, is it?” I say. “It’s really hard, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“I never feel like a grownup,” I add. “I feel like we’re always struggling to keep things together and we shouldn’t be.”
“We all feel that way,” she says. We part ways. I stagger along the mall, dragging my kids.
“Oh, my,” says a passing woman, elderly, with gentle eyes. “What gorgeous girls.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“God bless you,” she whispers. And she means it, and I am undone.
And I think of what Kristin says. She has six children and when people hear that they always say, “God bless you!” And then she replies,
“Thank you. We believe he has.”
I’m sitting here at 1:00 AM and tears are running down my face. This post made me thankful for my friends and the kind strangers who have blessed my crazy mommy days. I too didn’t think it would be this hard, and I was a nanny for 17 years before I became a mom. It is just so important that I don’t screw this up. These little beings are counting on me to guide them into adulthood. I am so thankful for all the other moms who get it too.
My mother-friends have saved my sanity! Sometime last year we started meeting after school at a corner we dubbed Roach Corner (aka The RC) where a dead roach still lays near a potted plant. We moms dump the kid gear on the floor and the children all run around laughing like maniacs and playing with one another while we chat for a solid 30 minutes. It is motherhood therapy. We swap stories about our kids, our husbands, our mistakes and our accomplishments.
I’m pretty sure the school started shutting off the air at Roach Corner. But they don’t understand that our need for our mother-friends far outweighs any concerns about sweating to death.
I left all my great mom friends in CA when we moved back here to New England. I feel lost without them. I know there are folks here who feel the same, it just seems that so many mothers aren’t willing to admit their faults when in reality it’s the admitting of it (the faults, mistakes and feelings of failure) that help us cope, and make clear all the good we do in spite of all of that. Thanks for yet another beautiful, thought-provoking post!
I love it! Thank god for friends! I love the “You had a savings?” No kidding!
I swear reading your blog is like my little bit of therapy each day!!
BTW, I can’t believe your tweet about the woman in the stall. How can people be so gross?!
what a waste of a good smoothie (says the woman who is 9 mths pregnant)
your comment about thinking you never feel like a grown-up rings so true- i think that often, especially when I have to explain to my almost 3 year old the ways of world and I prepare to have a new little one enter the world…heavy stuff!
I’m amazed how God blesses people, and it’s wonderful when those people realize it and appreciate it. What’s even more amazing is if you go thru what this guy has gone thru and still can see the blessings in your life.
http://www.spencersstory.com/index.html
Enjoy your many blessings!
I appreciate your posts, sooooo much, DaMomma. It was a hard day for me today, besides being 37 weeks pregnant and having a 2 year old, I was supposed to take a big pot of soup to some friends today, and despite the fact that I put it on the floor of the car and packed towels around it, halfway there, it still dumped over in. my. car. And you know what? I couldn’t work up enough energy to clean it up. So it’s still there. I’m hoping hubby will help when he gets home…..if he ever gets home…..*sigh*……I’m so glad for my mommy friends, including you, stranger-friend, who help me through days like today. Thanks for that. Daily.
The sisterhood of mothers is quite frankly, for me, right up there with morning coffee and chocolate. I would not survive otherwise. This post captured the exchanges of women leaning on each other for guidance, laughter, and light. Wonderful and inspiring.
Back when the kids were teeny I asked my husband to give me a sherpa for Christmas. Many, many times I asked him over the course of six or seven years. I never got one. If I’d had more than two kids I would have been a LOT more insistent.
This brings back so many memories. I remember with great glee (now that they are gone) all those days. Just gotta keep laughin at life because you will blink and too soon one of your blessings will be dressed in white walking down a wedding aisle and you will think, ” Where did it all go? How did that child who lived in paint suddenly grow up? . Ah but it gets better because now that kid in paint will soon be a momma too and so the cycle will begin once again, full of funny and tragic days all wrapped into one.