The day I introduce myself to a geologist at a writing conference is the day I wake up to a deep need in my soul. "Geologist" sounds so cool. She's got curly hair and a British accent. She and I chat about the UK. Then she asks what I do for a living. "I'm just a mom." She nods politely. Then I hear, "Don't do that." A writer from Atlanta has retaken his seat between us. He's talking to me.
"Do what?"
"Discount your role as a mom. I hear it in your voice. What you do is important."
Slam. I'm taken aback. This dude has just finished a book draft. He has worked on a mentoring project for kids without dads. He looks like he has life figured out and his conference peeps are a band of single lovely ladies. Why is he calling me out? I wonder. Why would he care?
"You're right. I am." I say. Why, yes, Mr. Writer, I do it all the time. I fight it now, as I write. As I wake up and wonder if this voice has value. Mr. Writer is a guide for me at a crucial moment. He is also the bologna sniffer. He senses the de-valuing, the discounting, the identity-less-ness permeating me.
He sees right through me. The facade. The questions of self-worth. Any worth.
Sometimes we need someone to call us out into the light.
I tell my husband, "Tell me you love me and I'm awesome every day. Call me amazing so I believe it too."
Because I work, launder, bake, mow, transport, psycho-analyze, network, check homework, beautify, ratify.
Before these bold small people of mine cried themselves into this world. I had no idea.
No clue that the first 26 years (a blur of getting, good grades, nice tans, pining for boys, dreams, and then happily ever after) were nothing like the next few decades.
No one told me happiness was dying to myself every day.
Putting my dreams aside and giving up my time and well, my very heart. Oh yeah, my body too which will never be the same. Thank you, dear 9 lb. 6 oz. son. My son has the imagination of the sea and he whispered "I love you, Mommy," in the middle of his class presentation today.
No one told me I would need a bigger voice than my own to call me what God has called me. Someone to remind me this unpaid, wearying calling matters. My voice hungers for validation and self worth. I'm just a mom.
You are not the sum of what you do---although the blogs and status updates urge us to keep up, chin up, keep up. Then there are kid arguments, loneliness, work. They will swallow us whole if we forget to swim.
I have met invisible moms in South Africa. We crouched on the grass together and talked of love for our children and the knowledge that we have power as women to do something good in their lives. Their dark skin shone under streaks of white cream to shield themselves from the sun. Their children may have been dying. They may have been too. HIV had a vice grip on their community. They were at the mercy of an abusive patriarchal society. Life was stacked against them.
Yet their hearts soared with joy as they sang a large group of us back to our cars. Their pink palms waving, their hips swaying as they clacked their tongues and sang from the bottoms of their bare feet. We are alive. He sees us all. I could feel it in the heat and dirt.
I see you in the sun, mom. Mothers, grandmothers, longing to be mothers, someday mothers. You matter. What you do matters. But you are not defined by what you do.
We need the wake-up, move up, rise up, speak up of others to speak for us when we can't speak. Rise up, dear one. Rise up, dance with us. We are sisters and mothers. Be barefoot with me on this Holy ground where He says, you are beloved. You are more than just a mom. You are important.
- Christina H.
