But You're So Far Away From Me

A friend just emailed me to talk about truth—and how there is none in most parenting magazines and how she likes that we tell the truth at THE FAMILY GROOVE.

She writes: "One very cool thing about what you are doing with this online magazine gig is simply being honest. Motherhood is such an intangible when it goes beyond the procreation part...even that now is fraught with issues—to bank or not to bank (the cord blood); are you a negligent parent if you don't shell out the $10,000 bucks? Will that be yet another knife of penance? Did you let your child FALL OFF THE COUCH!!! SEE!!! THERE YOU GO!!! It is always the mother's fault."

What she wrote along with the topic of my last blog (read below post) have been on the tongues of all of my gang members lately. We're all wondering about, trying to make sense of and mired in attempting to feel comfortable in the newfangled, modern day world of motherhood. Don't we have anything better to do than fret over the formulation of an ever-changing institution? Must we really, truly know our titles and job descriptions—is that even possible?—and everything else that goes along with our latest and greatest gigs. Why can't we just be here now and let the job unfold itself before us. Well, for one thing, the constant act of picking up the mushed blueberry muffin bits off of the den floor has been doing my head in lately. I guess you could say I'm on a crumby overload right now.

A chick down the block from me left her family a while back. How did she get to that place? I just want to know how you do that—not so I can do it, but so I can understand. And so I can know that there is so much farther to go before you really, really, really can't take it; that there are problems and then are PROBLEMS; that I'm just a gal going through growing pains like I've done at every major turning point in my life; and that I am just a normal mom who has normal feelings, the same as everyone else. I guess I am just seeking to understand the extreme to help me feel more comfortable in my place in the world. And I guess that's what we're all doing to varying degrees: trying to figure out our place in the world, one blueberry muffin crumb of truth at a time.