Torn Edges
It took me five days to get 12 valentines done for Addy’s kindergarten class. This makes me feel that I am very bad at modern motherhood.
We just got invited to a little valentine’s day party and I asked her where the rest of the Valentine’s are. “I put them in my room,” she said. I found them and they are torn apart at the seams with big strips of paper hanging off of them, the attempt of an over-eager five-year-old to tear them at the perforation without the patience to fold first.
“Oh Addy,” I said, unable to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“I tried to keep them nice,” she replied sheepishly.
She is me.
I hugged her quickly and my eyes stung and I realized I was crying.
Every day I see social media pictures of cute playdates and creative math classes. My friends kids are dressed in sweet, non-Disney-related sensible clothing, with brushed hair and knit hats that look like they were made with love by a Swedish grandmother.
Social media is not reality, this I know. But there is a critique, here, one I could either grow from or buckle under. My house is almost never tidy and it takes me several hours to convince my daughter to write her name. My desire for expertise makes me feel inferior, it seems that everyone has gone to How to Be a Girl School except for me. Why does everyone understand eyeliner and know who The Weeknd is? How do they keep their throw pillows on the couch and their sweaters folded?
What do I do with this feeling of failure? For an indulgent moment, I ran my hands over Addy’s hair, finger the torn edges of the valentines and sob.
I probably just needed a good cry and to face the fact that life is sometimes inconvenient and that I am not good at certain things. The truth is, sweaters must get folded to stay folded, names have to be written even if it takes all day. I want to say something nice and trite, that motherhood is hard, that I’m in a “season” of figuring things out. But that’s not actually it, I don’t think. In reality, this is a lifelong struggle, not a season.
This isn’t about valentines or throw pillows. It’s not about homeschooling or lesson plans or sweaters. It’s about my place in the world, and whether I am going to let the current pull me or if I am going to stand firm in my life. I encouraged a coworker last week to see herself as I do, to be more honest than critical. I can only offer that encouragement because I am walking in it myself, because every day I have to decide which version I’ll believe about my own place in the world and my right to be here.
It’s popular to talk about having the courage to “take up space” but I want to do better than that. I want to have the courage to fill that space with the unique gifts God has given me, not the cheap imitations of someone else’s predilections.
Addy is tender to me even when I am annoyingly tough – she gave me a kiss and said, “It’s ok, Mom, you can still see Elsa,” meaning the Disney princess on her crookedly folded Valentine.
She’s absolutely right. There’s redemption in the imperfect, torn places, there’s beauty even here. Here’s to Valentine’s parties and showing up with our honest selves, ripped-off edges and all.