I had my two sons relatively close together. Since I breast fed them both…first one, then the other 17 months later…the nursing years seemed to stretch on forever. I call them “the lost years.” Not because I didn’t love them over the moon and back, but because by the time the younger one was…maybe three?…I realized I started slowly having more than 15 minutes at a time to myself. These mere minutes I like to call “time on my hands.”
What does one do with this time? I don’t have to change a diaper, nurse, bathe them, fix a meal, fix their skinned knees, wash clothes, entertain them (short attention spans means extra work), clean up after them…so then what?
I rediscovered my knitting needles and yarn stash. I’d been knitting since I was a pre-teen but had forgotten that “I used to do this.” I started a small garden…then a bigger one…but it wasn’t until those two babies were in high school that I started writing again. I volunteered in my community, eventually starting up a community center with the help of so many others. I started a farmer’s market. I started freelance writing and a friend and I started a knitting business.
Now I’m 75 and writing, knitting, and gardening still. My sons have had kids of their own, so I don’t need to call them up at 2:30 am to tell them I need to pee (a sort of revenge I thought of but never actually did.) I look at an occasional photo of them growing up and nostalgia creeps in. Their kids are growing up, some are adults. I think about how I loved being pregnant.
And now the wheel is turning. I think about reincarnation. Assuming I don’t reincarnate as a fruit fly or a cucumber…I dream of giving birth all over again. Some idyllic place with a loving partner and a tribe of monkey-children, wild and free, experiencing life with every part of their being.
~~~Adapted from the song “Pass It On” by Bunny Wailer~~~
“Be not selfish in your doings
Pass it on
Help your children in their needs
Pass it on
Live for yourself, you’re gonna live in vain
Live for others, you will live again.”
Bless the Mothers.