I've been down for a while, sorry dear readers (who have likely gone but ah well)...
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I have started a post about the being in the time of Mother about 20 times now. Frankly, it's hard to look at this objectively as I approach my 40th birthday.
It's no secret - I have no children of my own and I never wanted any. I'm not going to go rush out now and have some either. I'm in a loving, committed relationship with a man who has a wonderful daughter. She calls me step-mother, and that warms my heart.
I look like a mother. My body is soft in the way women who have given birth often have soft bodies. My waist is not tiny. My belly is not flat. My chest is not perky. I am nearly 40 years old and I have not had an easy life.
I have nephews and nieces, both biological and chosen, and they love me as I love them. I've comforted them when they cried or got hurt, and my body likely reminded them of their mother - soft and caring and warm. That makes me happy.
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To be in the "Motherhood" of your life means to know that you are now there for others in the way that once a woman older than you was there for you. It took me a little to get used to this, and I still rebel against it because "I'M NOT OLD, I'M NOT A MOTHER" but yes, I am. I am going to be 40 - that's older than 2/3 of the people in my company. I could be their mother, and not by getting pregnant at 16. Legitimately, I would have been in my early 20's. It's a thought that is hard to think, and it doesn't go away.
I mother many things - my plants, my niblings, my friends and loved ones when they're sick. I mother my office sometimes, in a "den mother" sort of way, and also look them dead in the eye and tell them to grow up and clean up their own dishes because "I'm not their mother" - which is what they need to hear.
I am the old woman in the office sometimes. I am the oldest woman in my office, by 15 years at least. It puts me in a weird position, but one that I'm coming to understand.
See, at my office I sit in a row of my own in the office. In the central area are all the general staff. Around the perimeter, in offices with doors, are the senior staff. And in-between is me - a wise older woman sitting and keeping watch over everything, not in either space completely, part of both but part of neither. People who come to my desk have to come here specifically. It's easy to forget my desk is here on their way to one of the senior staff's offices.
I'm the woman at the hedge, learning to be the wise old woman in the woods.
It's not just at my office either. When I look back across my path (and if this isn't something you've done I highly recommend you do) I see the transitions I couldn't when I was looking forward. I see the gentle curve of my path as it wound away from the Maiden, away from the wonder of being young, and toward a path where those who needed a mother figure could find one.
I didn't realize that by not having my own children I left myself free to be like a mother to many who needed someone like me. I'm the other sort of mother - I'm the Aunt.
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Aunts are free to be things that a Mother isn't - we're more mobile. Our schedules are freer for many reasons, not the least of which is that we have time to ourselves, and so can choose to share that with whomever we wish. Being an Aunt means that at a moments notice a Mother can call you can say "I need you here NOW" and you can drop things and run, because that's how your life works.
It is a liberating role, and not one to be taken lightly. To commit your time to being family to someone who isn't your blood is no small thing. It requires patience and understanding. It required giving up some things sometimes, and it requires saying no sometimes too.
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If you are an Aunt, treasure it. Be happy and love your niblings and be mother to those who need one.
