Motherhood: State of Grace

Everybody loves a list.

I couldn't resist peeking at the two most recent newsworthy compilations on line the other day: the ten happiest states to live in and the ten unhappiest ones. Shockingly, Hawaii is number one on the happy list, and has been for some years. I was hardly surprised to see Colorado in the top five (everybody loves a mountain) but then again West Virginia made it to the bottom five, proving that not all peaks are created equal. John Denver notwithstanding, of course.

None of the states I have lived in made it to either list. Mediocrity has always been a way of life for me, so I am hardly surprised to learn that I have always resided somewhat unremarkably among the middle thirty. Not that it matters anyway. Statistics show (this was a very scientific study) that the happiest states are populated by greater numbers of employed people with relatively high median incomes; unless they're happy and stupid I doubt they're gonna move any time soon. And it's not as if the folks in the unhappy states can afford to pick up and relocate, so it seems to me people are pretty much stuck in the state they're in.

I don't know where this latest study puts the rest of us who didn't make it to the top or bottom ten. We're neither happiest nor saddest, which could mean we're just perpetually confused. Sounds about right, at least in my case. Chicago's my kind of town, but I've always got a bit of a New York state of mind and I'd love to come to Boston for the springtime. Sometimes I don't know where I am, and more often than not I have a hard time figuring out who I am. Until recently, I've thought of myself first and foremost as a mother, but kids get older, life gets complicated, and, as my friend's daughter recently pointed out to her  when she wondered why she was not entitled to the same sorts of courtesies as everyone else, "you don't count." Yes, it certainly seems that way sometimes. But if I'm not, first and foremost, a mother, who the heck am I? If I'm a daughter or a wife, I'd like a redo on both. Same with my various careers; I am still struggling to figure out which letters should get top billing after my name on a resume.

Desperate times often call for desperate measures. Calling my mother credentials into question (along with everything else), I emailed my own mother this morning. I rarely confide in her these days; I still live in abject fear of the occasional I told you so, even though I have not heard one from her in years. I shut her out, and she leaves me alone, but when I need her, really need her, she hits it out of the park. It's what mothers do, and they do it best, and if I know my mother the way I think I know her, she's having a really good day today because I looked for her and she was there. And a really bad day too because she knows I was confused.

She told me what, I suppose, I have always known. Mothers (at least mothers like us) have an amazing capacity for unconditional love, and an equally amazing incapacity for letting ourselves off the hook. At eighty-two, she still worries about the time, when I was three, that she didn't realize I had a terrible ear infection and wouldn't let me sleep in her bed. (I assured her that she has done way worse things since then, but then again, so have I.) It sucks sometimes, but as "they" say when there's nothing else intelligent to say, "it is what it is."

Sometimes I couldn't even tell you what state I'm in, but motherhood stays at the top of my list wherever I go. It is what it is.