The Momoir Project

By Cassandra Rodgers

The tiny brunette whirls across the stage in her costume – a pink poodle skirt with saddle shoes, crinoline, white blouse and pink scarf tied around her neck. With her heavy stage make-up and hair tied back in a pony tail, she looks like she just stepped out of a1950’s diner. It takes me a moment to recognize my daughter. She and her dance group are performing a routine to songs from that era – doing the twist and celebrating Johnnie B. Good. I have seen this routine many times over the last few months in rehearsals and competitions, but sitting in the darkened theatre, the sight of her performing takes my breath away.

Until my children came along, my life had been an exercise in managing expectations. I grew up in an abusive household. My mission was to prevent my father’s volatile temper from being triggered. My mother was preoccupied with protecting herself from his rage and could not protect me or my sister. We often became the targets of her anger and frustration. My parents often joked about the number of wooden spoons and hairbrushes broken in the “disciplining” of their children. My home was not a safe place — emotionally or physically.

In order to keep the pain of my childhood at bay, I learned to close off my emotions and build a wall around myself. (Note: This is actually the result of fifteen years of therapy. I did not figure this out on my own!) As I grew, my wall served me well. I excelled in school, had a career, married and made many friends. Along the way, I also taught myself not to expect too much – expectations, from anyone other than me could only lead to crushing disappointment when they were not met. I was able to function in the grown-up world but all of my emotions were muted – as if a strip of cellophane covered my heart.

And then I had children. I did not know what to expect from motherhood when I first learned I was pregnant with my son. His was a surprise pregnancy and I had complications from the beginning. When my doctor first confirmed my pregnancy, her next sentence was a warning not to get too excited as there was a strong risk of miscarrying. I had to try and manage my expectations right from the start. But I learned, just a few hours and one ultrasound later, that I couldn’t – the intense joy I felt when I saw the little beating dot that was his heart was my first indication that I had lost any ability to manage my emotions.

These strange feelings continued with every moment of motherhood. The first time my children rolled over on their own, took their first steps, their first day of school — all their achievements have touched me in ways I could never have expected. So did the first time someone hurt their feelings, threatened to exclude them from a birthday party (or worse actually did) or didn’t make a school team.

My son is now sixteen, a tall, handsome teenager. He is very smart, kind, sensitive and sometimes, a little stubborn. When he began high school, he moved from our small town to live in Toronto with his father. While he comes home every other weekend and throughout the summer, I miss him so much and this, also, exceeds anything I expected. For Mother’s Day, he wrote me a poem which remembers the things I did for him as a child and assures me that, while he knows how hard it was for me to let him go, that he will never be far away. I sobbed when I read it (thus blowing my chances for more poetry) with relief, joy, and sadness – again with a force that never ceases to surprise me.

My daughter is thirteen. She is stunningly beautiful, loving and funny. She can be a little moody (she is thirteen but that’s also what I said when she was two!) and has a quick temper. For her Mother’s Day gift, she made carrot muffins from scratch (grating the carrots and everything else), made me an omelette (swearing quite a bit in the kitchen), served it all to me in bed and generally made an extra effort to be kind. Again, my expectations were blown away and I was overwhelmed by her love and generosity.

I love them both with such power that I cannot manage any expectations or mute any emotions. I never knew I was capable of experiencing such joy until they appeared on this earth. With this joy comes a wide range of other emotions – sometimes anger and frustration, often anxiety, self-doubt, and guilt – that I am unable to curb and “manage” within the realm of motherhood. And once the wall was knocked down, brick by brick by my children, I was able to experience everything else more deeply and completely – love for my second husband and his daughter, gratitude for our life together and the sheer happiness of just waking up every morning in a world where my family exists.

My children showed me a life beyond the wall I had created for myself and for that I am enormously and forever grateful. While the wall kept out the pain, it also kept out everything else. My children have allowed me to fully experience all that the world has to offer and to truly live, and that was beyond any expectations I could ever have imagined.

Writing Start: Expectations