Today a friend divulged to me that she thinks she is losing herself. "I have no hobbies, no interests of my own. I know you think I'm smart, but the job I used to do I don't think I could do anymore!" After years of raising children, she is feeling her edges wearing off. The silhouette of herself is dulling, those sharp poignant lines that separate her from the rest of women are rubbing out.
My response was pretty typical I think. I told her that's ridiculous, that she is smart, that it's silly to think otherwise. Recalling a quote I had read about love, I told her that she is loving her children by sacrificing herself, and that is what matters. I assured her she is not losing herself.
I think I should have said otherwise. In fact, I should have said, "Good!" Go on girl, lose as much of yourself as you can. After all, Jesus did. He poured himself out "like a drink offering" and while I don't know what a drink offering is, I know what it looks like to drain a glass. Nothing left, even the residue in the cup is evaporated momentarily in this North Carolina hot summer.
The beautiful thing about motherhood, and for that matter any kind of service wherein we are giving up ourselves to take care of someone else, is this very thing. We empty ourselves, and as we mourn the loss of the science journals we no longer read or the blogs we don't have time to write or the high heels that used to look so sharp... we are missing the ugly stuff. As for me, I am finding that as my language skills evaporate like water from my glass, so goes my pride. Now, when people raise their eyebrows when they hear I am fluent, I inwardly sigh and let it go instead of wrapping myself in the isolated hug of accomplishment. Early on after having children, I was embarrassed, felt guilty even, that I hadn't watched a Spanish soap opera of late or traveled to South America to do missions work and utilize my college major. Now I am letting it go, like Elsa's cape on the top of that snowy mountain.
Interesting hobbies are quite fun to talk about, and surely fun to do, but I wonder how many of the greats have had time for hobbies. Surely Lincoln and Washington and FDR at some point said, "Good grief, there is none of me left. All I do is government work these days." Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa... did they ever think to themselves how sad it was that they no longer had time for movie night, knitting, cricket, or soccer?
I recently turned thirty, and have been meaning to write about what getting older means to me. Perhaps that will be another blog, but I do know that I have learned something pertinent. The person I am has changed a lot. When I look back on who I was and what defined me at the age of 6, I am surprised both by the things that have stayed the same and by the number of ways in which I have changed. For the next thirty years I imagine it will be the same. The things that have made me better, the things that have given peace and made me feel more comfortable in my own skin have always been the things that have emptied me of what I thought I was and filled me with Jesus.
Once a friend was teaching me how to do a dance. She is very natural and I am not at all. She said to me, "Dance like you're bigger than you are." I tried it, imagined what it would feel like to have some more shake to my hips and junk in my trunk. I imagined throwing my weight around... and it worked! My friend laughed and pointed at me and said, "That's it!"
There is a formula for beauty and even a formula for being interesting. Yet the world offers no formula for being alive. Jesus did, however, and it was simply, "Empty yourself of you... then there will be room for Life."
