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emily p. freeman

Creating space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing.

The Long Myth of Growing Up

I’m not sure how it is that I get so lucky as to host some of the most beautiful writing on the Internet, but this is what keeps happening when I have a guest writer. Today it is my privilege to host Hilary Yancey. I didn’t realize how much I needed to read this. May it be true for you as well.

Two days before my wedding, my mom drove me through the winding streets of downtown Ipswich, taking the longest possible route to our Starbucks (I think we must all have this kind of place, this large but anonymous place that becomes our own). We ordered passion tea lemonades. We ordered cookies and those vanilla bean scones my mother always acknowledges are going to be dry, but eats anyway.

hilary yancey

We lingered for so long in the parking lot until there wasn’t any more time; my sister had planned a bachelorette dinner and so off I went, into the future – a future that I painted as full of new roles—wife, graduate student, Texan, mother—but somehow had left out the colors for daughter.

When my son was born, I reentered a need for my mother. She came to the quiet campfire of NICU monitors and again to bake blueberry muffins in a borrowed kitchen for Christmas morning brunch. She sat with me for hours as I pumped milk for Jack, she read and knitted and kept watch with me while I held him as he slept on me, time after time.

And then when the seasons had waved their spindly fingers and we were back in September, my son turning one and my heart learning that depression had been walking alongside me, unannounced, my mother came again. She came to drink tea, to sit with cheese and crackers on the porch swing in the fading October sun. She came to sit with me and puzzle the weight of such change. She found a Starbucks on campus to make our own for a day or two.

The Long Myth of Growing Up

Becoming a mother taught me to be a daughter again. To let the bones and muscles that had pulled and pushed my son into the world sink into her familiar mattress on a Saturday morning; to let the sun that streams through the ancient windows of the second story of my childhood home warm my face and lull me to sleep.

Almost three years from the frenzied weeks of my wedding and I went home for a few days alone. My mother and I took a long drive to our Starbucks and went back an even longer way, talking just fast and just slow enough.

We drank chai lattes and chose pumpkin bread over the vanilla scones. We stopped at Plum Island beach just because. We walked freezing along the edge of the country and saw the wilderness of water in its misting, grey-blue activity. The wind cut at our cheeks and we both needed a hat. We thrust our hands in our pockets and my Toms filled with sand, the hours fading in the brightness of being who we are to each other: mother, and daughter, friend and friend.

Is it a long myth of growing up, that we cease to be children? We cannot be anything without first being someone’s child; we cannot outgrow that first and softest skin; we need not.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34, NRSV)

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Hilary Yancey is mama to Jack, wife to Preston and in the midst of getting a PhD in philosophy from Baylor University.

When she isn’t chasing an idea, a busy toddler, or learning the first few steps in her adult beginner ballet class, you can find her writing at her blog The Wild Love or on Instagram at @hilaryyancey.

***

One more thing: there is a photo that was taken moments after Hilary’s son Jack was born and it’s one I will never, ever forget. I remember where I was when I saw it for the first time, that is how powerful it is. (Okay so I scroll back through her Instagram from time to time just to see it, sue me.) Whenever I see it now, even though I know it’s coming, I still tear up because her face and that moment, well. It is exquisite.

Filed Under: family, motherhood

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy says

    April 21, 2017 at 11:34 AM

    Beautiful.
    I found that becoming a mom and growing into motherhood has made me feel a deeper longing to connect with my mom.

    Reply
  2. Caroline Starr Rose says

    April 21, 2017 at 12:04 PM

    I read somewhere that the mother carries cells from the child for decades and decades in her body (I know I’m not getting this exactly right, but it something like that). This made such an impression on me as a mother and as a child. We carry a child and then we continue. And we need to be carried far longer than we realize.

    The picture Emily shared says every beautiful thing. Thank you for letting us into that moment.

    Reply
  3. Paris Renae says

    April 21, 2017 at 12:26 PM

    I am the older of the mom-daughter now. My mom gone 6 years and still I miss her, need her. And my daughter is my friend – no children of her own yet, still she tolerates my tugs for time with just her. She is me, I am her, we are my mom. Knit by the same Creator, called by the same love, someday together in perfection.

    Reply
  4. Carrie says

    April 21, 2017 at 12:52 PM

    I always find that I have grief spikes for my mom when my kids are going through difficult phases. No one else gets it like my mom did and no one else gives me the same kind of pep talk.

    Reply
    • Amy says

      April 21, 2017 at 1:03 PM

      Carrie, I lost my mom very suddenly 9 years ago. I understand a little of how this feels.

      Reply
  5. Jeannie Reid says

    April 21, 2017 at 1:02 PM

    Thank you for this, Hilary and Emily. I literally grabbed a notebook and copied a couple lines – so beautiful. Now I’m going to go text my Mama. 🙂

    Reply
  6. Valerie Eskelsen says

    April 21, 2017 at 1:23 PM

    Sometimes, the mom you needed is found, rather than the one who raised you. And your soul lives on the tiniest of connections after she is done loving on her own. And there is room for you, too.

    Reply
    • Marcy says

      April 21, 2017 at 10:36 PM

      Yes!!

      Reply
      • Suzanne Pichon says

        April 22, 2017 at 4:24 PM

        This is beautiful!

        Reply
  7. Jennifer says

    April 22, 2017 at 7:55 AM

    My mom died a few months before I became pregnant with my first. This has such truth to it, because I didn’t realize just how much I missed her, wanted her, needed her until I became a mother myself. I wish often that I could tell her that.

    Reply
  8. jenn in GA says

    April 22, 2017 at 2:44 PM

    as the mother of a 22-yr-old, almost graduated from college son who married almost a year ago and has told me my innocent text requests for connection–what did you have for dinner? what do you think of this picture of a sunset? i thought of you when i saw this white chocolate Reese’s Easter egg–were demonstrating my lack of understanding that he had grown up, i am grateful for this post. i have worked hard to recognize the truth behind his words, and your words, Hilary, offer HOPE. thanks for sharing them.

    Reply
  9. Suzanne Pichon says

    April 22, 2017 at 4:23 PM

    This is bittersweet to read for me because I cannot relate to this picture of a mother. So thankful for those of you who can. I do know how beautiful it is to be a different kind of mom for my two kiddos. My kids have made my
    life richer.

    Reply

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