We are sitting in the lobby, watching our kids play at a train table. The mom across from me seems like a neat lady. I am fascinated by this woman who has adopted at least one child from overseas and is enough of a storyteller--or at least has a loud enough voice--that she is prone to wax poetic about the joys and traumas of raising a child from another country. I admire her. I want to be her friend. She seems really cool. Who else but someone who is really pretty cool goes overseas and adopts a child. How brave. How smart. How...
And then she says it. "We have struggled with allergies since we moved to Louisiana last year."
Thud. It's a small thing, I know, to pay so much attention to philology, especially among fellow stay-at-home-moms, when our numbers appear to be dwindling based on a nonscientific notation that I run into the same mothers almost every place I go. But still.
Because it is the linguistic representation of my biggest fear. That this job I am doing, this role I am fulfilling will become me. That these beautiful, huggable, almost always good smelling and sweet creatures I birthed will overcome me. And I, fair readers, will become a WE.
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2 comments:
It bugs me, too. And I don't have all those issues about losing my identity! Though I have to ask, did you ever say "We're trying to get pregnant?" Is there a difference there?
Then again, people who give me the age of their kids in months when the kid is over 2 bug me too. But that's mostly because I'm bad at math.
I fight this tooth and nail: the overcoming. It's a constant struggle, really. You're with your children so much, and so much of your daily existence and routine is linked to them. It's hard to create that boundary; where they end and you begin.
Hey, mind if I link to your blog from mine? It's wonderful.
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