I am the Mother to a Six-Year-Old.

When I was six, we lived in a small house with a linoleum kitchen near the entrance, a family room on the right, and a 70’s carpeted hallway between the two that led to our bedrooms. Mine was at the end on the left, and my younger brothers shared the one on the right. On the wall between our rooms, there was a mirror.

I am the mother to a six-year-old.

I remember being six. One day, a friend at school shared her grape-flavored Bubble Yum with me – a treat as my mom had allowed only sugarless gum, and even that was rare.

“I’m going to sit here until I learn,” I said. I was determined. My friend Suzy knew how to blow gigantic bubbles that covered her face, her hair, and her giggles. I wanted to be able to do the same – maybe more than anything I’d ever wanted before.

I sat on the floor in front of the mirror, chewing and stretching, manipulating the gum with my fingers to achieve a more even distribution. I sat there for hours. My cheeks hurt, and I felt like I’d never blow a bubble, until I did.

I blew a bubble! A real one that reached my nose if not my hair. I’d done it, and I wanted to jump up and down, but didn’t. I didn’t want anybody to know I had sugar gum, and I didn’t feel any different on the inside.

Instead of jumping, I pressed my forehead to the mirror and stared.

I saw me. My eyes had rings and specs. I’d never noticed them before. I wondered whether it was true – that we are of the stars and of more.

***

Today, my son is six. He is the age when I wondered at eyes having rings and specs, and of being separate. Alone.

“I have to see!” he said, and ran to the mirror. My little boy had lost his first tooth. It wasn’t real until he’d seen it in the mirror for himself, in spite of the tiny tooth I guarded in my palm.

***

I sat in my crappy apartment after losing who I thought I was. I’d said goodbye to the home we’d saved for, the boy I thought would be the father to my forever family, my job, and my dignity. I sat, alone. I put my forehead to the mirror. I talked – to my past? my future? Probably both. I cried and gave up that night, until I didn’t.

I saw me. My eyes had rings and specs. I’d forgotten them. I’d forgotten being separate and alone, but also not, because of the stars, and of more.

***

I catch glimpses of myself in the car window, and forget how old I’ve become. I am shocked at wrinkles and sags and at age. I slump my shoulders, wishing I’d become a mother sooner than I did, and I know why the moms in this neighborhood do not embrace me the way that they might if I were 30. I get into my car, my husband next to me, my six-year-old in the back, and we drive.

“I used to be prettier,” I say. “My eyes were bigger, and more full of stars.”

“Shhh. You’re beautiful,” my husband says.

“I know this song, Mommy!” my son says. “What’s the name again? Let’s dance!” I tell him the name, turn to him, and bounce in my seat along with him, ageless, of no time.

We giggle, and I remember my earlier reflection, mourn my youth, and then see his flawless skin, and know that  if I am lucky enough to be in this body in 20 years, or in 40, that I will look back and see that today, I am young, and of now.

I am of today to my little boy who grips my hand more tightly at bedtime. “Stay here forever, Mommy.”

In his world, my wrinkles don’t count and my age doesn’t matter. That I can open water bottles and scare bad dreams away is my super power.

Looking in the mirror brings us all of the people we’ve been and they blur with the ones we hope to become. We blur because our focus is on another, like a photo that captures what’s important.

***

I look at this boy of mine, and I hear his broken words that I know he will one day feel less-than. I know that he already has.

And I know that he knows that I don’t hear anything broken in his words, or in him. He knows that I see him, and that he’s my favorite forever no matter what other people see, including himself. Tonight, I know that when he looks at me, and holds my hand in the dark, that he sees me, and that wrinkles and age don’t have anything to do with that.

I am the mother to a six-year-old.

I am his dance partner, and his reminder that he is perfect and unbroken, even when he feels as if he is broken and imperfect. I am his reminder that we are all imperfect and broken, and that we’re made that way on purpose, and are, therefore, perfect. After all, we’re of the stars, and of more. 

My little boy sees his mommy.

I am the mother to a six-year-old.

***

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence is “When I look in a mirror…”
Your hosts:
Me, (FindingNine.com) and this week’s sentence thinker-upper, April of April Noelle.