The lovers and the beloveds

Having a child is like having the ultimate unrequited crush. I am consumed with him, I am besotted with him, every single thing he does is the most brilliant thing any person has ever done in his particular age bracket, and as is the case with all unrequited crushes, he will never, ever love me back. Not the way I love him, at least.

There is no conceivable universe in which he can possibly love me the same way I love him because his universe, from now until he is in his 30s (probably) and has his own children (hopefully), is all about him. At this point, his egocentrism is absolutely a good thing, developmentally. I didn’t know that until most kids are 2, they engage in “parallel play” only – side by side with other children, but not with them. Every tiny man is an island, at least until the age of 2. And until the age of 5 or 6, true compassion is an abstract concept.

As Carson McCullers writes, there are the lovers, and there are the beloveds. I was going to say that I feel bad for my mother, because now I know how she felt, but I’m not sad for myself in this realization, not really. I'm not suffering, and hopefully she didn't with her sense of unrequited love before me, either. Even though we were and are as close as can be, really, and even though she has always been my best friend, I know now that the fervor of her love for me was and could never be matched. And yet, it’s okay. It’s how things go. With her unrequited love for me, she taught me how to love. She taught me to love my own friends and family and then my husband and now my children with this extremity, with this all-consuming passion.

She taught me to love with jubilation. It’s a gift I have seen pay off with my son in real time, over these past 20 months. He is a HAPPY little guy. He is DELIGHTED -- at every turn, by most things. He’s bowled over by the continuously unfolding possibilities of the universe, which is what I most wanted for him, as a human. He started out a rather serious baby – I mean, they all do, probably. We had a little inside joke when he was a few months old – he would just be in a state of quietude, either peaceful or grumpy, and I would say “WHY. SO. SERIOUS!!!!!!” in a mock angry monster voice, and his face would erupt in laughter. It then became our “thing” to get him out of a~mood~. I couldn't figure out how to upload the video to this tinyletter, otherwise I'd show you.

So much of me wonders if he had someone else mother him, how different he would be. Would he be as happy-go-lucky? Get bored and give up so quickly when he’s not able to do something (my bad)? Be as good at sharing? (I find any reticence to share in adults so truly repugnant that I’ve made it a real MISSION that he be chill with sharing. Whenever he says “MINE!” I love to say – “Nothing is yours!!!! We’re all borrowing ever

ything from someone or something else for a little while!!!!”) Would he be as obsessed with trains, if we didn’t live right near a train track? Would he be as affectionate to his new little sister, who he is absolutely wild about? I can only assume he’s absorbed the enthusiasm with which I greet every baby I see, but it isn’t as though he’s had much practice with other babies inside our house every waking hour.

And yet, he’s bonkers for her. He’s concerned for her. Every day before he leaves for “sool” (daycare), he insists on holding her. We place her in his lap and his eyes all wide, he enthuses “HI, DANNY!” (we think because he can’t say “Zoe”) and then covers her face in kisses, equally surprised by how fun each kiss is. Then without fail, he pokes a finger in her eye and yells “EYES!”

Zoe is probably the sweetest, easiest, most cuddly baby imaginable, but she hasn’t smiled yet, so that specific type of bonding that can only happen when personality begins to be displayed is still on the horizon. I’m in love with her, that I know, and I want to protect her and love her for the rest of her life and watch her grow up and be the impetus or audience for her first smile, laugh, words, and steps. I want her to dance around the house and play with the box of vintage gowns I have saved for her to play dress up in someday.

Knowing that this tiny baby warrior, who had been subjected to so much abuse already at her tender age, might someday be removed from our household – for reunification with her biological mother or some other bio-family member a judge deems more “appropriate” to live with is unthinkable, but a potential eventuality that we still do, somehow, have to think about. Have to wrap our hearts around. My mother-in-law sent an email today regarding a holiday event in Ohio next December 22nd, and my heart leapt at the thought of being home in the Midwest in the snow with Rowie and Zoe. It would be on the one-year anniversary since bringing her home with us. And she’ll either be there with us, or she won’t. There’s no way of knowing from here. Motherhood gives you some type of semblance of control over something – how you will organize your child’s life and development -- and yet this type of motherhood – foster motherhood – works against that semblance of control at nearly every turn.

I’m still trying to feel my way out of the ardent fanaticism of motherhood. I know I can’t stay in here forever, but it’s all I truly care about right now. I remember being at an audition when Rowan was 3 months old, and a couple of other actresses were fawning over him, and I said, “I truly can’t imagine ever caring about anything else.”

“You will,” one assured me. The other nodded. “It’ll happen.” I still can’t quite believe them and it’s 17 months later. I’m doing other things, sure. I’m working, when I can, and I'm auditioning regularly and I’m trying to be creative in other ways, but part of me just feels submerged in this haplessly, wildly, enchantingly lovelorn period of my life, and moreover, I’m happy with it. Genuinely contented.

In just a couple years, both kids will be in school and I might be pivoting towards a completely new career, or maybe I’ll still be acting and writing, and things will have shifted again, but for now? I’m in here, and I’m sure I’m terribly uninteresting to people without children and perhaps only marginally interesting to people with. But what’s better than teaching Rowan the word “DUDE” and hearing him say it to himself in differing timbres and decibels the entire 17 minute drive home, sometimes laughing in between efforts? He started saying his name last week, but pronounces it “Whoa-wan,” which is exactly how I feel when I say his name or think about him at all. Whoa. Whoa, dude, whoa. I’m Keanu Reeves, stoned, in love.

"Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself." -Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe