Confession

This morning I told Graham that it's cooler today than it has been for the past two weeks, and then I asked him, "Is there anything more boring than the weather that I could tell you about?" And right after that, these dull cramps that I've been getting intermittently in my legs returned, and, thinking they might be growing pains, I asked Graham, "Do you think I'm still growing?" He didn't answer either question, but this post will answer the first one:  Yes, I can discuss something more boring than the weather. I can discuss motherhood ad infinitum. I can probably discuss motherhood ad nauseam. Maybe I have already discussed motherhood ad your nauseam. I have nearly discussed it ad my nauseam. Here's a ginger ale picture:

As you know, I have a full-time mom-job, and it's the kind of job that required no experience, qualifications or references to secure, and it's a job that's almost impossible to be fired from—this is an incredibly fortunate situation for me to be in, because the truth is that I'm vocationally unmotivated. If I had nothing but intermittent cramps in my legs, that would be a bad reason for me to first not finish school and next not job-hunt. But I have a good reason for not yet having finished school. Kind of.

My grandmother complains about her nephew, Matthew, who is my second cousin and whom I've never met—my dad's side of the family is like that:  strangers with my last name. It's sort of like how if I lived in an apartment complex called River Mill in Athens that wouldn't mean that I know the people who live in an apartment complex called River Mill in Birmingham. And if we met we might only have ten seconds' worth of anything to talk about. "Oh, that's interesting, I live in a River Mill apartment complex, too." But Matthew and I might have more to talk about than the fact that his last name is Laney and my last name used to be that. Matthew and I also have in common that we've been in college long enough to earn two degrees without even earning one. That's what Mimi's Matthew complaints are about, and when she complains about Matthew, I know she's really complaining about me. I wonder whether it's amusing or aggravating to Mimi when I agree that Matthew is a bum who needs to get his act together, graduate and get paid for something, anything.

Having a baby does not, unfortunately, excuse my life retroactively. It's not as if it's acceptable that I graduated from high school with a 2.2 GPA because I had a baby six years later. And I had already been in school for five or six years (I've lost count)—minus two semesters off—when Graham was born, and four years is more than long enough to earn a degree. But I do recognize the favor that Graham does for me simply by being mine and my responsibility:  he's why driving is scary, but he's also why my family can't criticize me directly. He's why we have to talk about Matthew the slacker instead of Amy the slacker.

It seemed necessary to confess that motherhood is not the inconvenient barrier to my dreams that I have sometimes made it out to be. I've called motherhood a rut. I've complained that it prevents me from cultivating my other interests. But because I am afraid of the real world and having a career, motherhood is actually more like cinder blocks tied around the ankles of a murdered body to make it sink. Mimi is the inevitable buoyancy of the human body. Graham is laughter and sunshine. I am bad at metaphors. I am grateful in a million ways for my baby boy, the most adorable excuse I've ever had for my slowness in building an adult life.