Before I had kids, I didn’t know what May was. I thought it was a nice month right at the end of spring that helps usher in summer. May was flowers and beautifully colored trees. It was shorts during the day and sweaters at night.
That’s what May was then.
But if you ask a mom what May is, she’ll tell you what it really is.
May is everything.
And by everything I mean graduations, and recitals, and concerts, and performances, and tests, and kids who want to always be outside, and training wheels, and big girl scooters, and Mother’s Day teas, and parents’ nights, and softball/baseball/soccer season, and teacher’s gifts, and awards ceremonies, and planning summer activities, and fall previews, and around here, birthdays.
If there is some big event that is going to happen, the odds are overwhelming that it will occur in May.
Maybe that’s why they put Mother’s Day right in the middle of the month – it’s a bribe to get us to keep going.
I’d like to say that the list above is an exaggeration, but we know it’s not. It’s just how it is. May is waking up early and being the last to bed while you sit up sewing sequins onto something or another.
It’s rough. Most people I know cry during May. Multiple times. Most of us feel like we are failing. And I think that’s because in some ways we all are. It’s hard to keep all the balls in the air, and if some are going to fall, odds are it will be around this time of year. Right now I have a huge load of laundry all over my dining room because I took my only free ten minutes and I sorted it all out and I forgot to tell the kids to put their piles away when I was running out the door. That meant they just trailed it all over the room and left it, like a carpet of pink socks and shirts.
But the thing is that I think we could all handle May if it was just about these activities. But in the midst of all the excitement, I think for moms, there’s a hint of sadness or at least rawness at this time of the year. I think that’s because May brings about endings, and endings are always hard when it comes to your kids.
There is absolutely nothing I want more than for summer to come. I’m ready to shut the door on this school year and hibernate with my kids for a few months. I’m ready to get back to just being us. But as much as I want them home, this time of year reminds me that fourth grade, and first grade, and preschool will never come around again for these kids. Time moves us forward, and we are mere passengers on the ride. We cannot stop time. We cannot bring back days gone by. We cannot stay in stages that we were not meant to stay in.
And man that is a tough pill to swallow.
So while we are running around doing everything for everyone, a little part of our hearts is raw and it’s mourning. It’s standing in awe of all that is going on around us and trying to capture still images in a world that moves at a speed faster than we can process.
May is hard, Mamas. For so many reasons.
But I was listening to the radio this morning, and they had a psychologist on air talking about gifts mothers can give themselves at this time. And one of the five he mentioned was grace. He said , accurately I believe, that as mothers we have unbelievably high standards. We want the best for our children, and such we hold our ourselves accountable for giving it to them.
But I think we also need to give ourselves a little space to be human. We can’t hold all the balls in the air all the time. We have to sometimes put some down and accept that they will have to wait. And we have to remember that when we place some of those balls in the corner, it gives us a little more opportunity to stand in awe of the little lives in front of us.
So good luck mamas. We are in this together.
And Happy Mother’s Day!