Funny what you are okay to let go of that which you feel is you for the people you love. Funny how they will never know at times why.
We recently had our first experience of swimming in a cenote, a natural pit or sinkhole.
There was a part where people could climb up wooden stair steps before stepping out into a ramp to jump off into the waters. One of our two youngest with us looked at me with surprise and asked why I didn’t go up to jump. Interestingly enough, while it would have been perhaps one of the first areas for me to take note in my younger years, I hadn’t even noticed this sector by the waterfall until he pointed it out.
My eyes were on my children.
I must say, there was this sense of humble honor for our son to question me, wondering why I hadn’t already gone up to jump, as if he naturally assumed I would.
I’m not sure if my husband has shared stories about me, mentioned my tamed character, or that no matter how simmered down I think I’ve managed to become, my son somehow still knew this side of me lurked within the crevices of my being.
I laugh back to a time where just last year, at the age of nine, he was talking to me about the kind of girl he probably would marry. He mentioned he likes the “spunky” girls. As a mother, I heard myself forewarn him to be careful to not go for the crazy ones. His sincere response, without at all trying to sound disrespectful or blatantly rude? “But, you’re crazy.”
Touché.
I just kept driving. I actually and wholeheartedly understood what he meant while laughing inside. He meant his words to be in every good way. Inwardly, I was smiling, realizing that children always have a way to see through and to the real you.
I was quietly honored to think he indirectly was suggesting finding someone like me wouldn’t be too bad. My honest response? Again, because I am his mother. “I’m hard to find.”
When he had that surprised look in his face again as we were in the waters’ edge of the cenote, I felt, this time, a slight pinch. My response was somewhat boring, “Not this time.” I felt I had let him down amidst the confused look on his face.
Some weeks later, upon one of our walks, I recalled that moment to my husband. I had enough time to reflect and thus, admit, I had given a brief answer to what would have been a long one for a young, innocent mind to fully grasp.
One who has not lived long enough is protected by blissful innocence. Not understanding, perhaps, is that protective shield we children were given before the world does everything to take it down.
The more children I have, I arrive to understand and accept even more that I am well, growing up. Like many, if not all of us, my innocence has slowly been replaced throughout time with utter realities of what follows after an action.
Choosing to react or not react leads to a response of the counter. We fight. We flight. We freeze. Still, our chosen actions are our reactions to own. Indubitably and subsequently, we face a reaction from the world.
We have faced natural occurrences where even when given time and opportunity to pack up and leave, there are those who choose to fight the storm.
We have come to times where we had a whisper in our ears to use our given power to calm the storm, but we chose, instead, to stir up the madness, careless and thoughtless of what would be ravaged to follow.
We have also had opportunities to utilize our unstoppable strength to push forward and pull through, but instead, we chose to drop all that was given to us, walk away, thinking elsewhere, we can just start anew.
There are parts in life where we are forced to react due to a natural happenstance before us. There are other parts in our lives where the culmination of an occurrence were surely due to our own choosing of simply doing without careful thought.
Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling some things in life voluntarily or involuntarily, growing up becomes inevitable. What used to be automatic choices to choose the adventure now has fixated itself on possible consequences within an instant in deciding.
There is that saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out the kitchen.”
As a mother and wife, two roles I hold myself to at highest level of responsibility to uphold until I am to be let go, I surrender myself for those I love.
Upon our walk, I laughingly mentioned to my husband how I was actually thinking about possibilities of getting hurt in another country, ruining the moment for everyone else and creating such a memory where I would have had to perhaps be admitted into a foreign medical center.
We had our share of laughter at that moment for at our age, we understood far more than our words could convey.
All that at an instant flash of thought.
These days, my grown up side is winning.
When you love, to be sound in heart, mind, body, and spirit is a devotion and thus, a responsibility.
My breath has been dedicated to my children from the moment I pushed each out into this world. My vow to love, nurture, and care for them until they trust themselves to spread their wings and fly has been unmovable.
Still, I have found myself facing the push and pull between jumping into an adventure versus holding back to call it safe.
I believe there will always be that child in us.
About a decade ago, the very same child who inadvertently suggested I’m “crazy” had hardly been born into this world. Our youngest daughter, a teenager at that time, had just returned back to shore from water inner-tubing.
Before she could even tell me, I could see how much fun she had. Her joyful expressions silently warmed my heart as I sensed how much having two brothers, one year after another, during perhaps a time where she finally could have us all to herself seeing that our oldest was in college and her older sister well on her way, was a lot to transition into.
Up until her brothers were born, she was our baby. Just like that, with twelve to thirteen years difference, she became the middle child.
To see our daughter in full spirit was a sight I never tired to witness.
There I was, standing peacefully at shore with my husband and our youngest two when both my daughter and I were asked to go out into the water together.
It was one of those moments where while I felt my mind had simply been soaking in the sun, relaxing its thoughts, before all of a sudden, upon the offer, my mind seemed to have quickly rose up and as if with dog ears, stopped in its tracks to once again listen to the question that had just been asked as if to make sure it had heard right.
Sure enough, the question for me to ride the lake waters next with my daughter was clear. A simple question that would have not need be asked twice if I had been around the same age as my daughter. Five children later, however, what my mind, heart, body, and spirit were all hearing was, “Are you willing to risk everything you have to prove you still have it in you?”
I looked at my daughter. Her eyes were widely open, sparkling under the sun, looking at me with so much hardly contained excitement.
It only took for her to say (in more or less words because honestly, my heart, mind, body, and spirit were all doing that clapping your hand and stomping your feet thing to get my attention while adamantly chanting, “Just say ‘NO’’!)
“Yes, Mom! You have to go!”
I felt all of me surrender. My heart, my mind, my body, and my spirit, all took a seat and just looked down. They all knew at the request of my daughter, they were all defeated.
I needed to do this- for my undying love of my daughter. I needed to be out in the water for the memory to clearly state I simply was- out there with her.
My husband stayed ashore with our boys and before I knew it, I was out in the waters, holding onto this inner tube.
Every time I looked at my daughter, I could see her looking at me, widely smiling, squealing loudly amidst the waters in pure excitement and joy.
I remember thinking, “I have given you me.” I breathed out joy upon knowing the moment would now be a memory that had been planted.
All of a sudden, I felt my neck snap back. Speed picked up and even with the forewarn and me giving a thumbs up, I was not prepared for my neck to jolt back the way it did. The rest seemed a blur. I’m not sure how long I managed to hang on or recalled holding onto the inner tube until the ride ended, but I can tell you, to no recollection of verbal admittance, I was relieved it was over.
My neck was hurting. It felt like I had been decapitated with just nerves painfully holding my spinal cord together.
My husband greeted us at shore while our daughter continued to laugh and talk away with how much fun it was again.
The plastered smile on her face and her endless joy would have made me do it again. Quietly in pain, hoping that any smile I managed and small gestures of laughter would hide away the fear that tried to just take me, I was relieved she didn’t ask.
I silently hurt for some time before I forgot how long I managed to just ignore the swelling ache and called myself healed already.
My spirit, however, has taken on a different outlook since then. I know I still have that crazy, fun and adventurous side in me. Since that inner-tubing moment, with absolutely no regret for having shared the wonderful memory with one of my daughters, returning back to shore to see the awaiting eyes of my husband and youngest boys, the real fear was thinking what could have happened had I not made it back the same.
I had our two youngest boys safe at shore, not even knowing what their mother had put herself in. What cheapened life would they have gotten had I not been able to return back to love and nurture them within all these years since then?
Each time I have an opportunity to take on an adventure, I have since felt a pull inside me. It’s as if, right away, what is before me speaks lesser volume than the voices within.
It wasn’t the jump at that cenote by that beautiful waterfall that held me back from easily conquering it. I would have thought nothing to climb up the wooden steps up high above others to jump down and into the awaiting waters.
It was my two boys with us. I dared not do anything to ruin the moment for them. I was fine in the waters , feeling and hearing the waterfall trickle upon us, my husband and I high-fiving each other to have completed yet another “must-do”.
One day I’ll dare again with not a second thought. For now, I have to be certain to be here for our youngest two.
This eagle’s not afraid to fly. Right now, I have a nest to watch over until two more are ready to spread their wings, too.
After all, even our youngest continues to fully hint he knows this much about me- I was never made to be a chicken.
This eagle has landed- just for awhile.
