It might be in how you look at it

With each of my non-first-born babies I swore this time would be different, it would be a fresh start, I would keep my cool and refuse to make the same mistakes stemming from frustration, lack of sleep, or exasperation.  I would remember the vivid feelings surrounding each’s birth.  I would closely hang on to the anticipation I’d nursed for nearly ten months at the forefront of my memory instead of relegating it the place at the back of my brain where algebraic formulas latently rest.  And yet I have failed every time.  Easily by the time each was 18 months, I honestly can’t remember, I’d already lost my patience.  The unjaded memory I’d had when they were helpless babies diminished, and  before I knew it we were entrenched in the real work.  And yet this is still my go-to coping technique because it helps it from being worse than it could’ve been.  I pull up snapshots from the back of my mind of when they were tiny, and I juxtapose that memory with the scene before me: tall teenagers in grown-up bodies, big kids I have to look at closely to make out how they resemble their baby pictures.  I love them in some ways the same.  I long to just hold them.  I still love listening to the way they interpret the world—and I still can’t understand what they’re saying.  Only now it’s different.  When I see them through the lens of a young, inexperienced mother and the unblemished, utter awe I had for them, I’m able to apply that deep, abiding love to whatever kind of tricky situation we might find ourselves in.  The balm of that untarnished love I had for my brand new babies softens me and helps me remember to make sure our relationship always matters more than the issues facing us.

Here in Montana people have been shoveling snow for more than five months; it’s now the snowiest winter on record.  All they can talk about is spring and warmer days.  And yet in the height of summer all we wanted was a cool spell; we enthusiastically anticipated the first flakes of winter.  Our kids are always eager to go through the boxes and find clothes to match the new season; and, as much as we bask in the summer freedoms, we’re all ready to switch out shorts for jeans, hamburgers and grilled fare for soup and bread, fires in the backyard pit to blazes in the indoor fireplace.  But why is it that we’re emotionally done with our seasons just because we’ve spent a little time here?  It doesn’t change the forecast; all it does is gray our mood.  Winter’s here for awhile longer.  So I tried to look at the snow outside the other day as if it were one of the first storms of the season.  I recalled how I looked forward to jeans and sweatshirts.  I asked myself, do I like wearing them any less just because I’ve been doing it for a few months now?  Not really.  I still do like the feeling of clothing caressing my white freckly limbs, it feels soft and cozy.  I lingered in the remembrance of the first crisp fall mornings just a few months back and pretended these chilly mornings were just some of our first.  It made me smile.  I remembered all the things that made me look forward to winter: long nights curled up watching movies, time to read all my books, quiet dinners with friends, inside projects, puzzles during the holiday breaks, the muffled calm of blanketed hills.  I smiled some more.  Dark clouds are on the horizon; there’s still time!

I also like to kind of close my eyes and remember all the feelings and memories surrounding our beginning.  The early days when we first met, how it felt to hold hands, a first kiss under an umbrella in the rain, how much I admired his humble confidence.  When I interpose those images with the current everyday ones, it’s almost as if there’s some magic at play.  And I’m able to overlook the monotony of everyday dishes and bills and feel gratitude for a life partner, a committed husband and dad, a confidant and best friend to share my days with.  Is it any less of a treat to meet him for lunch more than 23 years later? I exhale slowly.  I am so blessed.

And we are all blessed to have memories to draw on.  Our minds are reservoirs that bathe our senses, help us recall our earlier anticipations and refresh our ordinary days.  Just because we’ve been living our dreams for months or years now and just because they’re just a tad different than what we thought they’d look like doesn’t mean we can’t still be excited about them.  I’m not saying life doesn’t happen, that there aren’t really good reasons (and excuses) to become jaded and complacent.  But trying to remember what it looked like in the beginning can help us see things more clearly now, it calms us and rejuvenates us at the same time.  Switching lenses shows us what we once eagerly anticipated.  And when we apply those feelings to present situations we remember what we never want to forget and act accordingly.