Motherhood Limbo

In January I went through a period where I tried to plan all sorts of outings to do and classes to take. I kept thinking “well no baby so I’ll…” Thus I’ve been taking a Spanish class on Tuesdays and a sewing class on Thursdays. Of course I signed up for the courses while I was out of work and by the time they started, I was back working again. So every afternoon I have to wrench myself away from a job that’s utterly overwhelming me most of the time and cart myself off to class. I’m in the final session of sewing class tonight and working away at my apron when the subject of children comes up among my classmates. They’re all a bit older than me and have either grown children or pre-teens. Their jobs, their potential to drive cars, their friends and their temptations, these are the subjects of conversation. I wasn’t actually asked if I had children. I dodged that bullet, probably by having talked about making this or that for my nieces.

These women in sewing class don’t really know me, don’t know my history. And although inside I stew over saying something about Colden, about my sadness, I don’t. This much is clear to everyone though: I’m not part of the club. The mom clique. Mothering (at least in my distant understanding of it) is an intensely physical activity, the actual act of diapering, feeding, soothing, cuddling, loving. It’s something you know over a long period of time, through many stages. I did the first bit of it but never got a chance to do all the later parts. And so I feel like I’m looking in the window, staring in at all the other moms casually talking about their children, their fears for them and their accomplishments. I am their worst dread come true so I don’t tell them how bad it can get.

What does it mean to have carried him but never really known him, never really mothered him? It’s motherhood limbo. Half in, half out.