Motherhood changes you. It shifts something in your core, tinges how you look at things. I never realized the deep fundamental difference it would make down to my soul.
I sat here, at my desk tonight, sobbing unexpectedly. A short scene on TV reduced me to tears in a brief 30 seconds. Even now, just the memory brings tears to my eyes.
I am not the person I once was. I could watch movies and TV shows without a second thought. Oh sure, things sometimes scared me or disturbed me. But I could distract myself (oooh, something shiny!) and move on.
Not any more.
I was watching Leverage on TNT. It’s new to us, but I’m really beginning to like it. There was a scene in which one of the main characters talked about his son, who died when a treatment was denied. Just them talking about it wasn’t too bad.
But when they flashed to the scene where he remembered his son dying, showed him running into the room to hold his son in his arms after the heart monitors flatlined? I broke down. I sobbed that ugly way when you’re so upset you can hardly breathe, your head pounding from the intensity of it.
Because I think of parents who have lost their children too soon, and then I get a little scared, worrying about my boobah. Wondering how anyone gets through something like that. And not wanting to ever, ever find out.
I’ve always been a little emotional. I cry at movies, poignant scenes, even those darn tissue commercials that were on for a while.
But this? Is something deeper. Something that strikes my core. I can’t bear to watch a child in danger, hurt, or killed. I can’t even read about it. I read Deep End of the Ocean several years ago. I doubt I could handle it now.
Does it ever get easier? This paralyzing fear? This crippling emotion that grips your head and your heart? Is there a way to get through motherhood intact? I don’t know.
