While trying to decipher some of my recent journal entries, I started to wonder, "Is this Mom handwriting?" My mom, both my grandmas, and even my dad, all had/have perfectly even, symmetrical, flowy cursive handwriting, the kind that doesn't vary from one word to the next, so that any corn chowder recipe card or one sentence note is immediately recognizable. (As if the Post-Its that accompany my dad's mailed checks--"Here's a little spending money. Go out for a Mexican dinner with margaritas"--wouldn't be recognizable even if glued in cut-out ransom note letters. Thanks, Dad. I’ll be very popular at the bar with this $500!)
It’s yesterday’s news that cursive is a dying art, but as a member of Generation X whose elementary school devoted more time to cursive than to geography (hence my long-held belief that “New England” included all the original 13 colonies), I have no excuse for the way my handwriting has devolved steadily from its pinnacle around senior year of high school, when I exhaustively outlined my AP History textbook from beginning to end and kept the notes organized in my meticulous Al Gore binder. Even today, one half of my grocery list might look like it was penned by a completely different person than the second half, indicating that my identity is even more inchoate (less choate?) than it was in the days when I experimented with imitating the penmanship of every Baby-Sitters Club character. Except for overly flourishy Jessi and boring Mary Anne.
What I’m trying to say is, HOW THE BLEEP AM I GOING TO BE A MOTHER? Even seeing the word “mother” in this context (me) is weirding me out. I could barely contain a giggle fit a few weeks ago when the ultrasound tech squirted the gel onto my stomach and the bottle made a farting noise. Maybe my inability to form letters like a grown-up is just a symbol of a much deeper immaturity that will put our daughter (eek, the weirdness!) at a great disadvantage next to the children of professionals who lease cars, have investments, and bid on items at silent auctions.
Let’s examine this rationally. Virtually none of our friends here have children. My close friends from college and high school are just starting to have babies now, too, but that’s because they’ve been busy establishing impressive careers. So it makes sense that Ben and I are in utterly alien territory; while many of our unknown peers are well into (or beyond) the world of car seats and parties that end at bedtime, our social circles have continued to revolve around finding the cheapest happy hours, watching six-hour marathons of Deadwood and The Wire, and Sunday afternoons playing bocce and drinking wine from sports bottles. It’s like we’ve been in grad school for the past seven years (which we kind of have).
But then I think of something my mother said to me years ago, when I was still in college and she’d just had several serious health scares. One day, perhaps on a drive to Long’s Drugs, she mused that all her life, she had been living and thinking as if she hadn’t started her “real life” yet, and maybe it was time to reconsider this approach to life. This shocked me because of how similar it was to feelings that had dogged me ever since I’d realized the dreams of my adolescence (ending homelessness AND being a doctor AND an influential journalist AND a famous tap dancer) were not to be realized. And here she was, fifty years old, still feeling this way?
Looking back on this now as I start to dream about what kind of relationship I hope to have with my daughter, I admire the humility and candor that allowed my mother to share this with me, her selfish and moody mooch of a daughter, and the fact that she has never lost this childlike spirit, however grown-up her handwriting (and permed hair, and Rockport shoes) seemed when I would wish for a younger mom. I’ll try to remember this when I’m feeling anxious about being an Old Mom--that it’s never too late to change. Maybe I’ll add some daily handwriting practice to my schedule.
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