Mother, we meet again

Mother, we meet again

When I think of my mother, I immediately think of multiple women. Not that my mother hasn’t been enough, of course she has. But rather, I think of the idea of a mother – the guide, the nurturer, the comforter, to be a role numerous women have taken the title of over the years. The “mother” is thought of historically as someone who gives you life. Someone who brings you into this world. Personally, I think of “mother” as the person or persons who gives me reasons to still believe in life, at whatever frightful or fearless state I am in. She is collectively all the women who keep our fires burning, long after we take our first breath. She is the one who adds fuel to our fires when cruelty chokes us of our warmth.

A mother isn’t bound by blood, it’s bound by a maternal nurture, a selflessness sense of self. She knows being born is easy and living is harder. She thaws our hearts and shields us from the cold throughout our entire lives, doing so in the disguise of various women. We are surrounded by mothers, and thank God we are. Mother is a shapeshifter, and it’s a privilege to keep meeting her, in the most unexpected people.

I can think of countless mothers in my life who have kept me burning when I believed I was simmering out. I think of my nurse at boarding school who saw past my tough girl façade, the receptionist at work who makes sure I’ve had breakfast, my sister who stops me from accepting the bare minimum, my roommate who knows when I’m lying to myself and even mother nature, who fills me with comfort when I look at her sunset. They are all mothers. But if I was to pick one who has steered me away from the dark, or at least encouraged me to enter it with a torch and a way back home, it would be the one who brought me into this world.

My first encounter with this maternal shapeshifter was with my original mother. She is both a safe haven and a reflection. Maybe it is because I look so much like her, but I imagine more so because I can see her youth, teenage years, marriage, career and entrance into retirement as chapters I have unlimited access to. It’s rare to meet a woman, let alone be the eldest child of someone so open and transparent about one's life.

Having free roam into a person's suffering, pain, joy, regret, dreams and despair is a privilege. Through her eyes, I have lived and navigated countless versions of myself. All through the stories and debates shared with my mother over a glass of wine and an episode of the Gilmore Girls. Not all such debates however, have been filled with the “just keep going” or “keep dreaming” pseudo-encouragement mantras that are seen mainly in the home décor section at Target or printed on Lorna Jane crop tops. No, these are heavy, hopeful and often heartbreaking conversations about navigating a simultaneously divine and demonic world.

I can recall a dozen times over the years, conversations with my mother on the kitchen bench where I would be breaking my own heart about something meaningless to me now. Likely a tale about an arson type boy who was burning down my self confidence or a story about a friend who was politically disagreeing with me (a concept which was unfathomable to me up until about three months ago). However these trivial complaints at the time felt like life altering altercations, and perhaps they were.

I narrow in on these memories because my mothers response to my complaining would provide the foundation to which I would build much of my womanhood on. She would respond with “Teah, you’ve got to be in the world, but not of the world”, which to translate essentially meant, “Teah, stop taking everything so God damn personally”.

My mother has scaffolded endless life lessons while I’ve been constructing my life. Her warnings and wisdom have carried me when I have felt my confidence slip and my soul sink. Yet, to be “in the world, but not of the world” is the statement which has grounded me so much so, it’s stopped me potentially falling off the side of the world.

It must be acknowledged that this guidance doesn’t advise that one should act as if they are not that main character in their life. This isn’t permission slip to live in a state of denial or is a mantra about accepting that you have no say in the unfolding of your life, and hence have no reason to shape it. No, my first mother, like all the mothers I have met after, have consistently encouraged me to be proactive about the momentum and direction of my life. This advice is more to say, Teah, not everything is about you. A statement of which would have disappointed a 13 year old me, but relieves a 23 year old me.

To navigate this world and want to make it sweeter, kinder and brighter is all well and good. But as my mother cautioned, if you're constantly getting yourself into a state over the earth’s state and let the world’s madness consume you (a favourite hobby of mine up until the age of 21) - you’re going to be quite useless in saving it. Be too much in the world, and you will eat yourself alive, so take a step back and digest. It’s clear now, my mother understood that if you take the world off your shoulders, you have a better view of its problems, and may even find not all of those problems are addressed to you.