The Awakening - When Lightning Hit Momma (Real Hard)

Originally dated: 8 January, 2016

I have been busy mastering the act of procrastination. I had the best excuse to cling on to – I am a single mom. I mother a hyper active 2 year old. Lethargy and procrastination have long been my friends. How did I find these few minutes to write this down? Well, that’s the whole point. Just as I was beginning to believe that we (the momma-daughter duo) had hit saturation point of doing things in a day, she fell sick, very sick. A normal day in a (single, working) mother’s life is on auto pilot mode. Wake up, boil milk, respond to the morning cuddles or tantrums depending on which side of the bed you got off, play various versions of peek-a-boo, balancing a glass of milk or / and a plate of biscuits or / and a bowl of massage oil or / and a diaper or / and anything at all that would shorten the lifespan of the foreplay. The ONLY objective of a working mother on a week day morning, is to wrap up the games, tears, giggles etc. before 8:30 AM and get on the driver’s seat with a bathed, fed, dressed baby (and self), all set to ‘start’ the day! I drop her off at her fairy godmother’s place and wave a hasty good bye and rush to work. We meet again late in the evening by when I’d be drained mentally and emotionally, trying to keep my employees happy and cajoling them to stay back with our Organization (I am a part of the Human resources team in an MNC and get paid for making work place a happy one). 

The PM schedule is almost a repetition of the AM one. Go home (tired), cook dinner (tired), feed and eat, crib about the situation, curse the universe,respond to tantrums and scold the baby for throwing food and toys around, cuddle her and feel sorry when she cries and go one level higher in the game of guilt. Putting her to sleep does not end my day. I am required to connect back with my work teams across the globe where it is still morning and establish warm relationships that will help get my work done faster. That ritual eats into my midnight, thanks to the umpteen ‘distractions’ like cleaning the house after my daughter has turned it upside down and making sense out of a dirty kitchen or a similar bedroom. Before long, the next day starts. Repeat.

I was frustrated and blamed my family for not being supportive enough. Found fault with everything around, cursed my fate for not being able to enjoy life the way my friends did and sunk into an ocean of feeling of worthlessness. That is when my daughter fell sick. And that is also when lightning struck me hard – the lightning of common sense of very high order. I sat down to think. I sat down to reflect. What am I doing? Where am I going? The extent of mist before my eyes scared me. Here I am, trying to bring up a baby in a city that isn’t mine, trying to embrace life from someone else’s world, trying to fit into every shoe that came my way because I had no idea who I am or who I want to be, forget alone the little one whose only world is me! I had to pause before I reached a point of no return. This is not the time for my insecurities. I decided to bring my daughter to this world. She is mine to foster. I am the link connecting her to future. Well, I guess at that moment I became a mother. What people say about maternal instincts kicking in as soon as a baby is born is completely fictional. I am sure mommies around the world will agree when I say that there are many moments in motherhood, especially in the first 1 year of it, when you wish for the decision to be reversed. It is fine to feel so. That does not make you a bad mother, nor will it take you to hell after you die. It is normal and natural for any mother to feel incapable during the initial days of motherhood. We all have that one moment when the lightning strikes and we decide to reform. Mine showed up now, when my child is sick. My eyes are finally wide open to reality. 

Step 1 – Acceptance - achieved. I listed down every little thing that my life is – the positives, the negatives, the wish list, the what-i-am-missing list – everything. One new row item added to this was ‘Priorities’. And that changed everything. Life is supposed to be a happy experience and left to its own, it delivers the promise. We complicate life. We complicate everything. We humans seem to love chaos and confusion because we then get to sort them out and feel great about achieving something. We create disorder in the natural systems and then invent tools and techniques to counter them. Only the scale changes. But fundamentally we complicate everything unnecessarily in a hope that we or someone else will sort out the confusion later. Anyway, coming back to my listing activity – the tiny act of writing things down has given me a new perspective to everything; it will uncomplicate my life. I had been living a mundane life with my little one, providing her with just the basic necessities to keep her alive – food, clothing and shelter.

The wild goose chase in the so called happening city of the country made no more sense to me.  I realized how quality of life had nothing to do with chasing the goose to my grave. It is far from the price tags on dresses, toys and lifestyle accessories I am used to; it is more about the smile I see on my toddler’s face, the feeling of security she expresses in my presence, the wild dancing we do at home and the rich memories I will manage to give her when she grows up.

Well, it’s my time to quit the chase.