Middle Mama

The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.

I just returned from a Mom Vacation.
This weekend,
seven of my closest girlfriends and I descended upon Lake Tahoe, CA like a drone, primed and ready for three solid days without children or spouses.

This weekend we just got to be us.
Not referees, or chauffeurs.
Not short-order cooks, finder of keys,
or scullery maids.
Just us, doing what we wanted exactly when we wanted;
And let me tell you –
It was magical.

None of us could get over the way it felt to lay on a beach without concern to who might be edging too close to the water, or who was eating a mouthful of sand.
“Look at me,” shouted my friend Amanda, laying face-down on a towel.
“I’m closing my eyes here.
I am closing. my. actual. eyes. on. a. beach!”

I looked around at my tribe this weekend and loved those girls so hard it felt like their only flaw was that they were morning people.

Some of them runners,
all of them in shape,
all 5-10 years younger than I am.
I warned them all in the car there as they talked about potential hikes and sky-diving that if this was actually them kidnapping me for surprise Fat Camp I was calling an Über and going home.

Most of them were up with the sun,
seeking out their endorphin fix.
The only thing that I seek at 6:00am is to pee with my eyes constantly closed so that I don’t “ruin my tired” so I can go back to bed.

I forgave them later for deciding to walk to dinner in what would prove to be like the walk that Forest Gump took.
I’m pretty sure I missed an actual birthday on that walk.
When I lagged behind, my friend Ori stayed back, too.
“We will get there when we get there,” she assured.
I was so very glad when we did.

I laughed this weekend harder than I have in years.
I laughed so hard that I often did my Secondary Laugh.
You know. The one we all have that is for when you pass the level of your actual one.
The one that has more air and less care for what people will think.

I made a game of making my friend Brienne snort.
A few of us peed just a little.
It was every good thing I needed;
Which is why Saturday morning I was taken by surprise when nearly the moment I opened my eyes I was overwhelmed with a flood of all the raw emotion that I had been holding in for months.
My daughter moved out and got married.
The house was feeling the hole that she’d left.
My middle two started Jr. High.
Drama level has been in the red-zone.

After this trip there were no more words written on the calendar followed by exclamation marks.
All my foreseeable plans would be over,
and so would the me that I had prepared for.

Who would I be after this part,
once the day-to-day restarted,
but my whole reality was new?

All of my life I’ve identified so well as a
“Little Kid Mom,”
but there, surrounded by so many moms who still actually were,
I suddenly felt the divide of actually being more of a “Middle Mom” now,
and the middle – it just kind of aches.

There, in a house with so many of my closest friends,
for a shocking moment I felt lonely.
I was the only one standing where I stood.

I sat on the edge of that bed that morning and just cried.
Before long Amanda found me, and wrapped her arms around me tight.
She who has walked through so much with me.
Five minutes later, it became clear she had told the others of my state,
and before I knew it I was positively surrounded by the arms, and words, and prayers of the ones who know me the very best.
They had come in an impenetrable circle to prove that we Middle Moms matter to the ones that are coming behind.

All my life I wanted to be a wife and mother.
I’d pictured babies, and classic small kid milestones.
We don’t talk enough about the things that come after we’ve reached our biggest dreams.
We don’t talk about who we think we will be then,
or what it will feel like to think to ourselves,

“OK. So now what?”

While they had voiced worries over toddler melt-downs, and exhaustion issues,
I felt like whispering,

“Except…one day they leave…
One day you nudge from the nest…”

But, bridging the divide this weekend,
as love is supposed to do,
7 strong, beautiful, diverse voices reminded me, steadfast, that I am
held together in this journey by my people from all sides.

That never-ending feeling walk to dinner that night had proved to teach me that sometimes you are out front,
and sometimes you might be falling behind, but if we look from above, we can see ourselves move as a bold, beautiful, each-one-essential cluster.
We are all just “getting there.”

Whether we are in the exact same phase of life, or not,
whether one of us is walking just a little past the others, or one is watching from behind, and longing to catch up,
this weekend I was reminded that we are never really walking anywhere alone.

My tribe of Elephant Mamas had circled me, and stamped out the enemy.
The one that, this time, had been my own mind.

I returned home yesterday filled, capable, and prepared for whatever it is that is coming next to an immediate reporting,
when I was barely through the door:

“And yesterday we had Starbucks drinks, and bagels, and then fast food for lunch, and then we weren’t that hungry for real dinner because we’d eaten so many fries, so we ate ice cream instead, but then we got hungry before bed time because all we’d had was ice cream,
so we went to Taco Bell and Daddy didn’t make us go to bed until right after we’d finished our Taco Bell, which was pretty late…”

I stood there smiling, thinking that 10 years ago this report would have frustrated me.
I would have taken that time to lecture them all on the importance of such things as fiber,
and consistent bed-time.

Tonight, however, as I viewed from a more secure feeling middle,
and after realizing their complete destruction of their gut flora had at least allowed for me to have a weekend away laying by water,
being fiercely loved, and without a single thought to dry-drowning,
I just looked at my daughters and said,

“Wow. It sounds like you had fun.”

The middle, it can feel really hard,
but,
it is also teaching me some things:

1. Hard things pass
2. Letting go leaves our hands open for a brand new filling, and
3. A weekend away of being restored is so worth allowing any terrible choices that their daddy may have made

Mom Outnumbered

Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.