Thank you “Girls and Boys”

Dear Ingrid Michaelson,

Thank you for your music.  The girls in our family love your CD "Girls and Boys".   I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to find your website.   http://www.ingridmichaelson.com (so complex, I know!) YOU HAVE SO MANY MORE CD'S!!!  And your jukebox, COOL!  I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve heard the song “Maybe” so many times.  I had no idea it was you!!!  So sorry, I promise to be a better fan.

When i first heard you sing "The Way I am", it was on...Ellen?  You were newly nationally discovered.  I was laying on the couch, with pain that I assumed would end with my 4th pregnancy.  I fell in love with the song.  I made my TiVo repeat your performance again and again.  I love it, I cried, I connected.   On my next trip out of the house (rare due to pain) I got your CD.   If you knew how few CD’s I owned, you would be honored.  

My now 8 year old daughter loves "Overboard".  She sings it with such gusto and love and drama.  I think it's just the lines about, "I could write my name by the age of 3; and I don't need anyone to cut my meat for me, I'm a big girl now, see my big girl shoes...."   She likes those growing older feelings.  But I really hope I have a decade before she really falls "overboard" for some guy. 

Oh, and I love, "The Hat"  and love "I want to tell you, that you were my first love".   Yes I've been married for 10 years, but that first love, that first crush, that first mutual falling in love sure marks the heart. 

Marks the heart...Mark...My baby Mark.  His birth song is "The way I am".   If I was healthier, i would have held him and danced every time I heard that song, the way I did my other kids birth songs.  I chose this song because I really wanted the baby to love me, "The way I am", knowing that I would plunge into post partum depression after his birth, and not come out for a year.  I had no idea that my whole body would break.   I was overwhelmed how that broke my mind also.   

I still had no idea that as I hear him run around at 17 months, chanting, "too, too" (like a train) I would not be able to pick him up.  That I would have 5 surgeries since his birth to put me back together.  And that the doctors would finally say, sorry, this is all we can do.  You will be in pain the rest of your life. 

So the words make even more deep binding from my heart to his.  I really hope he can take me the way I am.  The way his first year was.  The way that he was my first one to do so many firsts for a nanny.  Not me.  The way that I wasn't able to hold him for....(pause, doing math)   7 1/2 months of his life.  That he would reach for me, climb up to me, but I had to push him away. 

I had to push him away.  

I don’t expect that most of you will understand why I cry when I write that.  I wanted with every fiber of my heart to be close to him, to comfort him.  Yet I knew if I lifted him, I would break the doctor’s careful work.   So we both cried when I had to push him away.  And away.  And away.

I've never been so glad for the forgetfulness of childhood before.  Even though he won't consciously remember this time, I know it will be part of him...part of us.  

He is growing older.  His sisters are growing older.  His big brother is nearing the 10th year since he turned me into a mom.    All of them have missed me, have learned to handle me like glass.  Have learned to be extra grateful when I'm strong enough to dance in the kitchen with them again to their songs.    Dancing in the kitchen is a joy that I know will come and go, depending on the day...for the rest of my life. 

I am broken.  I am not the same mom I wanted to be.  I am not the same mom I intended to be as I learned my limitations with each new birth.  Now that no new babies will bless this house, I am learning how to be a "laying down mom".  Learning how to play, how to teach, how to love them from an inclined position.  The goal now is to work with my pain management doctors and figure out how to work with this new body.   How to redefine mom.  Soon, I hope my mind can also redefine broken.  That someday (I really hope soon) that I will be okay

Dear Reader,   I really hope you check out the links to her songs.  I took much time to find just the right ones, just the right sound, just perfect to share.

If you do nothing else, listen/watch “Be Okay”.   My new favorite, and so perfect for this moment.