The Age of Innocence

Lately I have been grieving over things that I beat myself up for. When many of my friends cannot conceive children or have had difficulty in that area and have been through so many seasons of sorrow over the barrenness in their families, I still struggle with the fact that I have been a mother since before I graduated from high school. Well, technically, I was almost 8 months pregnant at my high school graduation, (who knew a graduation gown doubled as a maternity dress?) but by then, baby cribs, layette gowns, and the "womanly art of breastfeeding" (this is the title of a real book, I kid you not) had pushed aside college scholarships, college parties, a semester abroad, and the last summer after high school spent in anticipation. It isn't that I look back and want all those things--in fact, I sometimes feel I was spared from a lot of the college experience I probably wouldn't have enjoyed. But, there is something about skipping a "stage" in life that society not only deems important, but that I had deemed important when I had dreams of teaching, writing, and exploring independence in a new place away from parents and the confines of high school life.

I was still able to go to a local college while my parents helped me with my new baby, while I lived in their basement as a pariah of Christianity for "engaging in premarital sexual activities". True Story: I actually had a relative suggest to my parents that if they were going to "let" me move back in with them, that I shouldn't be allowed to come upstairs and out of the basement unless it was an emergency. Does that reflect the kind of God I loved? Where was the father to the fatherless and the husband to the widowed? Did single mothers not fall into this category because they were technically never married, and thus, never widowed? Was I in some "exception" category to those that God mercifully loved? Most churches I tried wanted to shoehorn me into a specific area. I tried the "single" groups only to feel like a freak because now I was hanging around people who were in their 40's and not married and apparently socially retarded (Jimmy, can I borrow the word "retarded" here?). I tried parenting/mothering groups only to feel like a freak because I didn't have a husband, a minivan (Now I can relate!), perfect acrylic nails, and a myriad of other mysteries I didn't understand. I passed out fliers at my church expressing interest in starting a playgroup/mom group for anyone who wanted to be a part of that, and I got a call from the pastor's wife that there were only very few times that would be appropriate for such a group as most of the mothers in the church had husbands and family time was very important to them. I couldn't be expected to understand these things.

Usually, the word "freak" is applied to marginalized people who may wear goth makeup, be into strange hobbies or practices, or just all around be crazy. But, as a middle class, Caucasian, 18 year old mother, I felt like the word fit perfectly. Yet, nobody was telling me that God still loved me. Why do all the "ministries" only minister to people that fit into a tidy box of weirdness? Now, as age 30 isn't so far away for me, I wonder how much has changed. Sure, now I have the husband, the minivan, the suburban house, and 2 beautiful children. I make dinner with organic chicken from Whole Foods, I try to expand my mind with art, poetry, and dialogue, I like to think I am moving towards pursuing some of my academic and emotional aspirations (basically just being normal is the emotional aspiration). But, there are moments--usually at night--when I still feel like I am grieving over the age of innocence lost, when I remember the letter my high school teacher wrote for my top pick college recommendation that is sitting in a dusty file folder in a dean's office somewhere, when I look at the itinerary for a semester spent in England studying authors and places and even gravesites I only know from textbooks, when I think about what life would be like to take a nap whenever I want, meet with friends without having to think about what the consequences of time spent away would be, or what time my presence is needed again. I am not wallowing or feeling sorry for myself. I am not living in the past. Do not feel the need to say "Get over it, already!" at this point. I made my choices, and my life is rich in different ways because of it. However, lately, there is this void and ache that I cannot push away and I must face. I have had therapists tell me that it is a grief that I may always experience, the grief of being thrust into a place in life long before one is ready--the "usurpment" of youth, childhood, discovery. Yet, we are all constantly being "usurped". We are all thrust into death, change, and circumstance without much control. My grief is not comparable to my friend's who lost three babies in one sorrowful day, to my other friend, whose wife killed their two children, stabbing one 37 times, to my aunt and two cousins, whose loving and wonderful husband and father died of AIDS because he was on the wrong end of a tragic transfusion, to a family dealing with their young child's recent diagnosis of leukemia, and to countless others who have suffered as I have not. Their questions of God and His mercy seem more legitimate than mine, and yet I know theirs and mine all reach heaven with the same sobbing desperation.

This season of my life is spent wondering why I am in a time of grief. What is wrong with me that I cannot move past the longing, the void, and the desire for the same life, just a different timeline? Perhaps God is trying to show me that I would never have had the same life, with all it has offered me, had I done it a different way. Only He could know that my answers may never have come in a traditional dorm room, a guided tour of Westminster Abbey, or a marriage without kids at the "ideal" age between 26-36.

If I take the paradox of the gospel--in order to find my life I must lose it--then maybe I needed to lose that transitional decade into adulthood in order that I might find myself a different and redeemed woman. I once heard that the definition of the word "redeemed" meant to literally purchase at a price, as in slavery--to "buy" the freedom of someone else. The loss of the time in my life that I ache for the most was perhaps the ransom for my heart's freedom. Though others around me thought I should have stayed in the basement with my baby and a scarlet letter, I knew deep within that I was invited to a banquet where I was told, "Sit. Rest. Feast." And I wasn't alone anymore. I was seated with all the other freaks.