I’m proud, dammit!
by Cheryl, posted on May 3rd, 2011 in Just me, Remembe(red)
Today’s RemembeRED prompt from The Red Dress Club asks us to write something about ourselves of which we are proud. There are many things I could choose from: moments from my career, having two home births, running two marathons…
It’s not always been easy to say, “I’m proud of myself.” I don’t remember my parents saying they were proud of me when I was growing up. So feeling proud of myself is an uncomfortable feeling. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s become easier. Healthier, too.
Sunday I left my house at 4:45 in the morning and drove to Newport Beach to run a half-marathon for which I didn’t train. It was a cloudless day and the sky melted into the ocean. Perfection. And since we didn’t train, we took our time. In the last mile when a young woman collapsed right next to us – my friend’s sister who had just come out to run us in helped her, and we found a medic. Then we continued on and finished together in the slowest half we’ve ever run. But we were proud, because not everyone can roll out of bed and run 13.1 miles without training – and we did just that.
I was home for only an hour, barely enough time to shower and change and drive up to LA for the Listen To Your Mother show, of which I was a cast member. I got to sit on stage at the Rosenthal Theater for Inner City Arts with 14 other amazing women and listened as they read stories they’d written about motherhood. I was truly humbled by the incredible talent – and proud, INCREDIBLY proud, to be part of this group.
Here is the piece I read.
My bare feet stick to the hardwood floor as I stop in front of the refrigerator.
I look down. Lift one of my feet. Juice, maybe. I love that my six year-old is pouring his own but his aim is about as good as it is in the bathroom.
That floor could probably also use a good washing. I’ll add it to the list. If I had a list. But at some point it stops being a list and just becomes more crap I won’t get done.
I shift the baby on my hip. He isn’t really a baby anymore, his chubby legs carry him everywhere, and yet his favorite spot is “up!”, where the view is better and he can clutch the back of my arm like a security blanket.
I kiss the top of his head, inhaling his scent of warm toast.
The sun streams through the window with the view of our back yard and the houses beyond and then the mountains farther still. The dirty wine glasses on the counter take on a more romantic glow, like they were hastily deposited after a romantic dinner between lovers too anxious for each other to bother with the dregs – instead of the last resort when all the other glasses were already in the dishwasher.
From the living room I hear Anakin Skywalker guiding Ahsoka in their latest adventure on the TV while Sawyer and Sage watch, transfixed.
I open the refrigerator. I see it immediately, through the clear top drawer.
Cheese.
A big block of yellow-orange cheddar, medium sharp.
It’s time.
It’s time.
I open the drawer. Grab the cheese. Put it on the cutting board. Unwrap a side.
Then carefully, carefully, with a knife made just for this express purpose, I slice off an edge.
And hold it, cool and smooth, in my hand.
I look at Xander. He gazes back, his brown eyes serious.
I open my mouth and place the cheese on my tongue.
Close my eyes.
Remember.
It’s more than 15 months since I’ve last eaten cheese. Or dairy of any sort. Or wheat, soy, oats, eggs and nuts among other food because Xander was sensitive and I wanted to nurse him that badly.
I always knew I would nurse my children. That was my job. To feed them. And when I had to wean my first at six months because of his allergy issues, when my body couldn’t give him what he needed, I was a failure. Completely devastated. When it happened again with my second after just two months, I was resigned. But Xander? He was okay after I took all those things out of my diet and I was determined to nurse as long as we could.
And that meant no crusty French bread, no hot gooey pizza that burns the roof of your mouth, no plate of pancakes and warm, salted scrambled eggs. No bite of birthday cake at my kids’ parties. Or my own. No late-night stress ice cream.
For more than a year.
The cheese? That creamy, tangy corner of deliciousness? Still as amazing as ever.
I stand in the kitchen, with the sticky floor and the mountain view and the sun streaming through dirty glasses and the whirr of light sabers and a softly breathing baby on my hip, and I roll that cheese around in my mouth and I think about how much I missed something so simple – and how I would give it up again if it kept Xander from cramping and crying.
Because that’s what we do, right? That’s what we do. We give up food. Or our jobs. Sleep. Independence. Having clothes without spit-up stains on the shoulders.
Nothing is too much, when it comes to our kids. Nothing. The questions of, “How can you do it?” are answered simply, “How can I not?”
We lose ourselves in motherhood. In what it means to us to BE a mother.
And this bite of cheddar is enough to make me feel a little bit more like myself.
I plop Xander on the couch in his second-favorite spot: between his brother and sister, with the top of his toes poking just beyond the khaki cushions.
And I get out the mop.
Tags: half-marathon, I'm so proud, it was a crazy day, listen to your mother, Remembe(red), the red dress club
Elissa Says:
Julie Says:
Cheryl Reply:
May 3rd, 2011 at 12:46 am
Thank you so much!!
[Reply]