A Really Good Place
BY LESLIE YEARY
Photo Courtesy | Leslie Yeary
I am in a really good place right now.
I linger on this realization as I post (I’m not biased) the cutest picture in the entire world of my mini-mes and their dad.
We are at The Kentucky Horse Park. The fields have those itty-bitty lavender flowers crawling up from the dirt, and the Bluegrass gently floats underneath a spring breeze orchestrated by paint-brush tails and whinnies so sweet you’ll melt.
Luckily, we aren’t melting. It is 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and I’ve got my t-shirt tucked into Old Navy shorts with a dainty belt slipped easily through the loops. I’m feeling confident(ish?) in my flat(ish?) stomach for the first(ish?) time since kids?
Well anyway, we head to the playground. Josh catches my eye as the boys sprint ahead. We have this thing where we silently make fun of our kids through facial expressions. At four and two, they’re adorable and extremely adamant about only wanting to play at playgrounds. Only. Ever. Always. Explore what we actually came for? Never.
“Mom! I can do this, no hands!” Our oldest squeals with delight as he crosses a swinging bridge with his arms wide. He is scoring so many risky-play points lately. It’s not scary at all! Truly though, I am learning how important it is to let kids linger and explore their bodies, so I am not eager to move on. (Especially not eager to rush a four year old across a swinging bridge.) Nonetheless, we are here for the horses, so we finally pull the boys out of the playground and up toward the barns.
The rolling landscape eases us. Lighthearted and laughing, we point out the majestic beasts grazing in the pastures. Picking our favorites, relishing Kentucky – our home away from home.
Y’all. It is a movie moment as our youngest stares mesmerized by the 18-hands Clydesdale: satin muscles, coat the color of caramel. He clops regally through the Breeders’ Barn following his handler. We make our way to the Champions’ Barn and subsequently capture the sweetest little video as our oldest feeds a mint to a slobbery three-million-dollar champion named Mr. Muscleman. ($3M?!!)
I post the videos as we drive home – Josh at the wheel and I lounging with my knee kissing the passenger window.
I tap through my stories again. A hit of dopamine (so I’m told) courses through my already relaxed limbs as a few more hearts float up the screen. I smile,
hesitantly.
I am in a really good place right now. And yet.
. . . . . . .
I am not sure if I am the only one who feels strangely about her past failures and the people who’ve seen me in those ugly moments, but every time I post a batch of photos highlighting the beauty of my own present state of motherhood – like these snapshots from our heavenly day at The Horse Park – I fret a little.
I worry that I am somehow not allowed this good place, as if I am only worth the bad.
Can I tell you about the bad?
. . . . . . .
It was May of 2018. I pushed the baby stroller carrying my son up the busy sidewalk of downtown Lexington. He was nine months old, my first and only at the time. Accompanied by my mom and dad, we made our way into Rupp Arena, home to the University of Kentucky Wildcats, to watch my little sister graduate. The crowd bottlenecking into the atrium began to suffocate me. I pulled the stroller hood over the top of my little guy’s head, gratefully noticing him nodding off for a morning nap.
I took a breath, each shake in my body hitting the inhale like a car with bad brakes. Another breath, and I pushed my way out into the hall. We found air in the back corridor of the arena and, soon enough, found Section 104.
My little one’s brief nap was quickly exchanged for happy “hellos”’ from his other aunt, my elder sister, and his favorite older cousin. We watched as his Aunt G walked down the aisle between classmates and colleagues to receive her diploma. We whooped and hollered! “GO AUNT G!”
And I made a hasty exit to relieve my bloated breast before the drive north to the restaurant.
Suddenly, I couldn’t find a safe place to nurse. The women’s restroom? Crowded and yucky. Mom’s Camry? Locked and she’s congratulating her daughter. This random side room with the door cracked? Empty? Round conference tables and a buffet of leftover fruit?
Dimly lit, the room seemed safe enough, and I found approval from a security guard standing nearby who nodded his head toward my awkward search.
My son, in all his baby excitement, barely drank. And I couldn’t keep the stream of tears from flooding my heated face any longer. The ache in my left breast became a heavy brick.
I wish I could tell you this moment ended swiftly and the day returned to my sister’s joyful celebration again. But, of course, I cannot.
With visible tears staining my cheeks, my anxiety was quite clear to my sis as I tucked my arm under the side of her waist for the last family picture outside on the plaza of Rupp.
“You okay?” She gave me the look.
“All good.” I lied, breathlessly. “Congrats, Sis.”
I tried to hide my tremors as I tickled my son into smiling for the camera.
The family carpool drove north to Cincinnati for a celebratory dinner. We passed the lush green fields of The Horse Park; my Dad at the wheel exclaimed, as he always does, how Kentucky is the actual Garden of Eden.
Again, I wish I could write a happy ending, but alas.
I botched it even more severely when, in the height of absolute panic, I raced out of the restaurant, mid dinner, fleeing tension, potential (or imagined?) illness, the build-up, the breaking point, everything I could NOT possibly handle in all of my new-mama weakness. Especially when my husband was not there.
And I drove home. My windshield blurred beneath a torrent of tears. I ignored Dad’s angry calls, furious voicemails, threatening texts. My sister was devastated.
I had ruined her day. All her hard work, and only a disaster to present to her.
. . . . . . .
She forgave me. In all of her graciousness, she forgave me. Dad did too, eventually.
. . . . . . .
The bad is empty
like a barely eaten bar
of granola. We cannot imagine
what another human feeds herself—
a crumb of stale crust / a lick
of squash / a swallow
of rotten memories
and I’ve all but felled myself
off the ledge
of this sturdy sloping cusp.
. . . . . . .
I recently read an article published in Romper in which author and mother Miranda Rake writes as her title, “It Feels Like Every Mom I Know is Medicated” (2022). While it certainly helps to know I’m not alone, the irony is this: Miranda Rake reasons that Zoloft has become this “little helper” that has taken the place of what used to be a village.
I certainly have helpers in my life: my husband is gentle. My parents are steadfast. My sisters are forgivers and forever friends, and thank God for this family of mine.
But a village?
Never had I felt so fragile, so alone, so misunderstood as I did on the day I ruined sisterhood. (Spoiler, I have done damage to plenty of other friendships, too.)
But then again, never have I felt so loved as I do right now.
. . . . . . .
I started taking Zoloft. My sisters and I now have a group chat in which we share our daily Wordle scores. My breath only catches the choppy waves of anxiety for a second or so before they’re gone again.
And I’m really loving being a mom.
It is my sister’s circular icon I see from which a series of hearts floats upward as I scroll once again through my story of our sunny day at The Horse Park.
And now, I know grace and gratitude overwhelms me.
We humans have found ourselves in a new kind of village in which we witness highlight reels and snapshot stories. And we are sometimes too distant to extend a hand, but we offer a heart instead – a love for the good stuff and a care for the mess we know was (and still could be) underneath.
. . . . . . .
Referenced: It Feels Like Every Mom I Know is Medicated by Miranda Rake | Romper
LESLIE YEARY is a writer, boy mom, and preschool teacher from Cincinnati, Ohio. A lover of the great outdoors, she draws inspiration from the many adventures she has with her two young sons. In her poetry and prose, Leslie explores the joy that can be found in simple mothering and in taking life gently one day at a time. Leslie is published in Motherscope’s Issue 4: Generations, The Mum Poem Press Anthology, Songs of Love and Strength, and she has self-published her first collaborative poetry collection Dear Sister.