Handing Over the Reins
Yesterday I was helping my daughter pack for overnight horse camp. Packing for an intensive horseback riding camp is quite different from packing a kid for Jewish overnight camp. For my cowboy husband this was nothing new. He takes every opportunity to scoop up our kids and take them to Farm & Fleet where the plethora of leather equestrian goodies is endless.
I sat with my daughter after this most recent shopping expedition and helped her pack the required SEI (Safety Equipment Institute) certified helmet, riding boots, proper triple cotton knee high riding socks and Outrider riding gloves. The goal of this week-long camping experience is to send these campers home with the skills they need to independently tack (also called “tacking up”) and ride a horse with confidence, grace, responsibility as well as professional Western riding technique.
Today our daughter will literally be handed the reins of a horse that will be her very own large, gorgeous, and furry buddy for the next seven days. This got me thinking…
My mind was brought back to early March 2002. I was passionately, deeply into a lesson on character development with a classroom of sophomore high school students. When I say passionately and deeply, I am very well aware that this enthusiasm was not shared by all 22 students. I ran back and forth across the room flailing my arms in excitement about Atticus and Scout, begging the students to engage with me in the analysis on “person versus person” and “person versus society, in chapter fourteen.” I remember very clearly seeing glazed-over eyeballs; potentially all 44 eyeballs. This athletic pedagogical performance was a catalyst for what happened next. Sweat trickled down my neck, the chalk dust went flying and visions of me becoming the next Sidney Poitier in To Sir, with Love began to fade. I was then brought to my knees by the most powerful feeling of nausea I ever remembered feeling in my life! I quickly scanned the room, swallowed hard and said, “find a partner and discuss,” and I ran to the bathroom.
This memory serves as the moment when I first handed over the reins to motherhood. I had tackled most things in my life to that point with stubborn energy and impulse; often resulting in me achieving my goals (or driving people crazy). I can guarantee you that even if my students were bored, they were intensely (passionately) bored, AND they also knew I cared about them. Being interrupted while on the trajectory of completing a task was not something I was used to, until motherhood.
I talk about this concept with new mothers all the time. The postpartum period, though it is layered with beautiful mystique and miracles beyond our wildest dreams, it also encumbers us with the unknown. So much of what we learn and do as new parents are completely out of our control. Our new mother bodies change and do weird, drippy and sometimes painful things. Our babies sleep and then they do not want to sleep; they eat and then decide they do not want to eat; they cry FOREVER and then decide when to stop.
To amend a Yiddish proverb, “Mothers plan, and motherhood laughs.”
It’s okay. I promise. Hand over the reins to motherhood. She can be fickle at times, but she also bestows upon you the very best gifts you will ever possibly receive in your life; and then, the day comes when you watch those gifts become their own people chasing their own adventures.