My Spanish professor always wears red; red shirts or red sweaters, red shoes, or bright red lipstick. She calls me Sue-bon. I am usually pretty cool about all the mispronunciations of my name but she is a foreign language teacher! Come on, say it correctly! Also, half my class speaks fluent Spanish. Did I mention it's a 101 class?
For the last two days we have been randomly paired up with other students. Each time I have been partnered up with a fluent speaker. Each time they have chuckled under their breath over my terrible pronunciation of Spanish words. Yesterday my partner was Israel, an 18 year old who didn't learn how to speak English until he was 7. While we were supposed to be working on telling time in Espanol he was texting his friends. However he did teach me the proper pronunciation of most of our vocab words. Also, he had the whitest teeth I have ever seen.
I sit in the third row from the door, five seats back. In front of me is a pregnant girl; behind me is another pregnant girl. I feel like they think I am a wise old lady there for the sole purpose of dispensing my parenting knowledge. Maybe they think I will offer them tiny nuggets of parental wisdom. They ask me questions about the kids, how old they are, did I have three kids so I could get a girl, do they fight, is it true that some women poop while in labor, did I breastfeed, where were they born, how long have I been married? They are fascinated. It makes me feel a little weird and really old. I think they are sweet though. I feel like I should adopt them and do their laundry and help them decorate their nurseries.
I wonder if they realize what they are in for; if they get just how drastically their lives will change. Do they know that soon their friends will be going to parties without them, heading out on Vegas trips, dating random guys, and that slowly their old group of friends will dwindle down to only the most loyal ones. That's what happened to me when I was their age. At the time I felt a bitter lonliness that was wrapped up in the most intense love of my life. Motherhood made me realize who my friends were. I'd like to see it as a gift instead of a sad loss of friendship. I have held on tightly to the ones that saw me through those early years of motherhood. It's always been hard for me to let people go so when my friends started letting me go it was really tough. I am thankful to the friends who stuck it out.
I feel like I should fill the pregnant girls in, let them know what it is like being a young mother. Maybe I should tell them how older women will stop you in the grocery store and correct the way you are holding your own child, how people assume you have no idea what you are doing, the countless strangers that will stop you on the street and tell you how proud they are of you for choosing life instead of abortion, and the people who will ask in a tone of utter shock "is that really your kid?! How old are you!?". Maybe I should let them in on the heavy lonliness that is combined with such great all encompassing love. I wonder if they have any clue at all what they are in for. I think maybe I shouldn't bother them with the raw truth. They will work it out. I did.
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