Tales from a Mid-Lifer

When I was pregnant with twins, I upended my life in many ways. Small adjustments included moving the living room furniture. More significant decisions included giving my life to God.

I was going to do a 180° turn away from the confusing dysfunction of my childhood and ensure my children would live full, joyful, secure lives.

Emerging from a tumultuous background, brokenness, and all that, I was always missing sameness in my youth.

I wished all the people in my life shared the same last name like generations of other families. I wished for same relatives and holidays with the same people. I heard schoolmates talk about longstanding traditions. Loving grandpas and attentive grandmas who hosted the same family dinner every Sunday.

So, I set out to give my children sameness. Traditions. I sought to surround them with good adults and friends.

Turns out, I quickly learned the lesson all new Moms get bonked on their head with: we cannot control everything. Particularly people.

Former acquaintances and some blood relatives in my children’s baby books have faded away. Some by different life directions. Others by my intentional choice.

Focusing on giving my children a secure environment meant the same people around had to be good ones. The kind that actually invest their time, their eyes, their interest. I decided even the pediatrician would be one we traveled with until they all went to university.

Absurd, I know. By the time my twins were 2 1/2 and I was holding a newborn infant, the insurance dictated we in fact would not have the same pediatrician. Employers change insurance and Moms and Dads change employers.

I recall being genuinely upset about saying goodbye to the pediatric practice where they all knew our names. Like the old TV show Cheers, there is comfort and warmth when entering a friend’s house, church or even a physician office where people use your name and express care about your life.

When I was 33, I thought we’d live in our new-built home until I welcomed grandchildren. I imagined growing a garden and adding a front porch. Hating the subdivision life, we eventually moved out of the cookie-cutter Stepford nation, and into the country with an already-built giant porch.

Turns out, we would again move sixteen years later – not to North Carolina or Florida where we boasted for years we would land – but to Texas.

Doctors. People. Houses. And a host of other not-sameness.

The kids turn pages in the family photo albums, asking who a few people are at their early-life birthday parties. Some I wonder if I should have held tighter. Most were only meant to be in our lives for a season.

And that’s natural. Some would argue a person’s temporary status in our life story is ordained to be exactly that: there for a chapter, not the entire book.

I was a loving, eager-to-do-right Mama who now as an empty-nester understands that my young commitment to sameness wasn’t the key to giving my children happiness.

Their Mama was determined (if not desperate) to make home an anchor. To grow firm roots of confidence beneath them. To establish absolute security so they could focus on playing, dreaming and having a childhood before adulting knocked on the door.

Though we all have the same last name and enjoy annual traditions, I’ve come to understand that my children never needed same-everything to flourish. It wasn’t the same home, healthcare practice or even same familiar faces that turned them into grounded, loving humans.

We didn’t need everyone to know our names to belong somewhere or everywhere.

My children’s stability and sense of worth were shaped by loyalty and consistency – by learning respect of others, beginning with their siblings – and the unwavering presence of parents who showed up. Who loved them unconditionally and wholeheartedly.

Thank you for sharing your time with me today. I hope you had a lovely Memorial Day and I wish you a wonderful week ahead.

Featured photo: mine, family5power.