In college, I read My Name is Asher Lev
for a class once. It’s this amazing and beautiful novel about a Jewish
boy that – from the time he’s a toddler – has an affinity for art. Long
story short – through the problems and the conflict between his passion
and his culture, he becomes a painter. A very successful and brilliant
painter. At one point in the story, the author (Chaim Potok) goes to
painstaking efforts to explain how it feels for an artist to work so
hard on a piece, and then to let it go. Basically how letting it go is
letting go of part of your soul.
I did a little math the other day and
figured something out. 24 hours a day, every day of the year for 18
years is 157,680 hours. Meanwhile, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year
for 18 years is 37,440 hours. That means by the time your child is 18,
you’ve essentially been working 4 full-time jobs non-stop. Four. That’s
twice as much as a lawyer working 60-70 hours a week. All the hours
teaching, playing, rocking, “shh-ing”, healing and kissing boo-boos,
building with blocks, singing songs, taking pictures, going on walks,
spelling, learning to ride a bike, talking, eating, taking baths, going
over homework, science fair projects, - and God knows that’s not more
than 10% of what we spend our lives doing. All the worrying and planning
- the sheer terror that is putting so much of yourself into this one
goal – the hopes and working toward creating this person. Making your
whole life the building of someone else’s life. All this – just so you
can let them go. Let that huge, massive, complete and continental chunk
of your soul…go out into the world, free to succeed or magnificently
fail.
That’s what we’ve chosen. That’s the life I’ve chosen. And I’m grateful for it.
Before this year, I understood what being a
parent was. I knew that my child would be amazing in my eyes and that I
would think he hung the moon. What I didn’t know – or rather:
comprehend – was how I truly, with every fiber/atom/neuron/thought in my
being, would believe he’s the single most perfect thing I have ever
done. I didn’t understand how despite going days without more than 30
minutes of sleep at a time, I would still lovingly rise from my bed to
come and rock my child back to sleep. How when I hate him, I love him.
And when he does even the infinitely smallest new thing, my heart soars.
Stretch marks are battle scars, exhaustion is status quo. And it’s more
wonderful than I really could have ever guessed.
