Piece by Piece

I am an artist. No matter what other labels I wear in this world; mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, speaker, teacher, author, and others which aren’t so pleasant that have been flung at me rather than bestowed, I am, in my heart an artist. My choice of media may change but everything to me is a work of art in progress, including life.

A few years ago when we were renovating our basement I wanted to include a mosaic countertop that celebrated my husband’s Rhode Island heritage and more specifically lobsters. For weeks my brain incubated and imagined designs, colors, and the finished project. I explored cavernous home improvement stores, tile shops, and art supply chains to find inspiration and materials until finally I was ready to begin the work.

I loved smashing the pieces of tile and getting grout all over my hands. (Did I mention I am often a messy artist?) I enjoyed trying piece upon piece until they achieved the angle and fit I was looking for. Then a funny thing began to happen. The more I toiled, the more I saw the whole made up of pieces that didn’t fit perfectly together. Certainly it didn’t look how I had first imagined it. Those pieces I had carefully selected began to look more like a misfit than a fit!

Isn’t that how we feel about our lives sometimes? We make choices, have jobs, change jobs, build relationships, leave relationships, buy homes, move, move again, start over, try again and keep it up over and over. How can all of these disjointed
pieces of our life ever fit together to make a worthwhile whole? This wasn’t how I imagined it! But the answer is not in the pieces; it is in the ‘grout’ that holds our life together. The tidbits, experiences, and memories, really the character and essence that make us who we are and who we will and can choose to become. What and how we choose to fill in the spaces is as important as the big pieces, in fact maybe more important.

What do you choose to fill up the spaces of your life? What holds you together and makes you complete? What are you committed to no matter what happens to the exterior you? Some days I know exactly what it is, I am sure of myself, I am on a mission. Other days I am lost in space trying to figure it out, but no matter what I never give up.

Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life says, “Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way, they will define you. Tell me what you are committed to, and I’ll tell you what you will be in twenty years. We become whatever we are committed to.”

Take time in the next week to examine your commitment choices. Is this the grout you want to hold your life together? Is it working, does it feel right? If not change it now. It is never too late to do the right thing.

The Mother Load

I know that May is over, but I am still stuck on the plight of mothers. When my daughter was an infant a friend of mine who was not yet a mom asked me “What is it like being in the club?” What club, I asked. “The Mother Club”. She saw it as a very exclusive, special, all knowing existence of purpose. And in the beginning I felt that way too.

Because I came late to motherhood and never expected to be one, I saw it as an amazing accomplishment that I never thought I would attain. I savored each proud moment of childhood development with wonderment and a ‘pinch me I can’t believe this is happening to me’ feeling. Now, years later, so much has changed.

Technically I’m still in the ‘club’ but rarely does a day go by that I don’t feel like someone made a terrible mistake and I should never have been allowed to be a mother. Maybe there was a mix up. The job of mothering is the most gut wrenching, humbling, exhausting, unpredictable, unheralded thing I have ever done. Instead of feeling better about my ability to mother as time goes by, I feel less capable with each passing day. I don’t think I was cut out to be a mother at all.

And so, I guess, goes motherhood. Just when I think I’ve maybe got it right-Wham-it knocks me for a loop and I have to start all over again. For me, right now, it seems like a trial by fire and the fire is winning.

I’d like to give up, but I can’t, my nature won’t let me, so I will remain, as steadfast as I can, dealing with the Mother Load.