A No Mud Puddles Mama

Last night I was at the lake, walking to the beach at dusk, after an afternoon of rain.  My good camera clutched firmly in my hands as I was on a quest to not miss sunset.

There was mud and standing puddles all along the way.  I was diligently tiptoeing here and there in a little dance dodging and skirting around all the water, my eyes firmly glued to the ground.

And then I happened to look up, and I saw a little girl ahead of me who was busy jumping and stepping in every puddle she walked past. She was barefoot and her pants were wet up above her knees. The back of her shirt dotted with little brown spots of varying sizes. Her dad was walking beside her, slowing his pace to allow her the time she needed to adequately and completely touch ever droplet of water she could see. My eyes got big and I’m sure I grit my teeth a little. My hands and gut tightened, I inhaled deeply.

I looked back down and continued slowly behind them, carefully watching my meticulous and careful placed steps as to not get dirty myself. But I soon gained on little puddle jumper girl and I found myself watching those little bare feet wade through dirty puddle after dirty puddle. She smiled, she laughed, she turned around and hit a few of them more than once.

And then at some point, it all completely struck me, as if in slow motion, and I almost had to stop. My felt my heart began to beat a little heavier in my chest and I had to blink a few extra times as tears burned the corners of my eyes.

I have never allowed my children to jump in mud puddles after the rain. They could maybe verrrrry carefully, verrrrry slowly, walk through them, but only if they had their boots on, and certainly no splashing… I have never allowed my children to walk around outside without shoes on. Like ever, cardinal rule number one, with no riding bike if not wearing tennis shoes a very close second. No riding bike in flip flops, absolutely no riding bike bare foot!  (Helmets however, have been a bit more negotiable for some reason apparently.)  I have never allowed my children to mix the playdough colors. I have never allowed my children to sleep in bed with us at night. I absolutely cringe when it comes to decorating cut out cookies and making ginger bread houses. Oh Mylanta people!! The sprinkles, the sparkles, the sticky fingers and faces, the flour from floor to ceiling…. I can about give myself an ulcer from the stress of just thinking about it. I hate broken crayons and scribbling outside the lines.  Messy bags, desks, lockers, backpacks, and bedrooms can give me a migraine.

Yes, I am one of “those moms.”  One of “those moms” who apparently just doesn’t do well in the tension of mess, the chaos of interruption and unscheduled change, the mayhem of carefree living . I hover, I oversee, (but I swear to you I am not a helicopter parent!) and I find myself with personal anxiety from the innocence of their “creativity” because I want to control, confine, conform them to my standards and my wishes.  And I am a perfectionist, and I want them to remain clean, concise, careful, controlled… Which unfortunately I fear, does not exist on the same spectrum as carefree and creative.

How much stress and bondage have I instilled and enforced in the lives of my children as they have grown and attempted to live in the careful expression of their joy and creativity while completely under the iron fist of their rigid, unwavering, unachievable perfection complex of their mother?

Oh yes, I want the colorful staged pictures of our lives, their lives, to show off and share, to forever mark the memory with… But, the physical un-staged reality of the moving objects and emotions surrounding some of those captured moments that have been magically burned into each snapshot, is not always as “picture perfect” as portrayed. I think of several different photos over the years, filled with smiles and joy, and still remember the absolute nightmare of emotions and words before and/or after that magical “snap” of the camera. The captured photos may be stunning and awesome and vibrant, but the overall activity in the actual heat of that moment I know for a fact wasn’t quite so much so.

And then I thought about myself - how I know that I am one that I feel is personally always in an inner battle with my own crazy creativity.  I always felt a little off, a little different from my parents and family.  I’ve chosen to be organized and responsible, but something is always wanting to be written, something is always wanting to be photographed, something is always wanting to be read and processed, something is always wanting to be sought, found, captured, expressed, shared, which sometimes fights against the to-do lists, the job responsibilities, the controlled obsessive organizational overdrive also surging through my veins.

To say I live in a constant state of internal discourse is an understatement of epic proportion.  The fight of the crazy that is always going on inside my brain often leaves me absolutely exhausted.

So, why the cleanliness, why the control, why the micromanagement? Why is it that I myself have never jumped in mud puddles, hate going outside in the rain, have never walked outside barefoot (heck, I can’t even walk through my house barefoot, like ever!), and have never discovered the magic hues of mixed play dough creations? Why do I fight with my own inner creativity on some aspects, and completely deny even entertaining the idea of embracing any kind of childish behavior either from myself or from my own children?

I have denied some of the most basic childhood childishnesses to both my children and to myself. For my entire life I have tried to fight for rigidity and demand control over things I have no right controlling. I’ve battled the losing battle of unattainable dreams and unreachable goals in my own life for so long that apparently I at some point began channeling that same infliction towards my children.

Am I the only mama that lives in this crazy tension between letting, allowing, encouraging over controlling, demanding, enforcing? Somehow I don’t think I am alone in this discourse. Granted I know there is a fine line here somewhere between my responsibility as a parent when it comes to safety, protection, and the teaching of basic life skills to my children, but the spectrum between those two ends is very very vast, and are two extremes I rarely entertain, appreciate, or tolerate.

How do mamas like me learn to open our hands and say “go freely”… open our minds and say “live fully”… open our hearts and say “embrace wholeheartedly”?

How do we as women learn to do this very thing within our very own lives, and how in the world did we even get to be this way in the first place?  Of course I know finding the answer to these questions is at the core of this whole mud puddle jumping issue - the starting point to tackle - the freedom needed to finally overcome.

All that which junks up the insides of my own self needs to be cleaned and taken care of first before I will ever be able to allow and grant the freedom of un-abandoned puddle jumping to my children.

So perhaps I need to start praying for a little more rain in my life… a few more showers and storms of opportunities to continue to grow me, to embrace me, to just force me to step into all that mud, into all that mess, into all those wet and dirty puddles of life… And also continue forcing me to figure out how to start jumping in without the clenched fists, the gritted teeth, the stomach aches, the desire to ultimately be in control… 

And perhaps... even forcing me to jump in without my shoes on!

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