MamaBlogger365 – Change, About Me by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

There is change about me
flux around me
shifts beneath my feet

Parents get older
daughters move out
sons leave junior high

I busy with details
keep up a momentum of equations
stop myself from stopping to cry

They want to stay in their house
she mourns her old room
he thrills at his turn in it

I think of long-held mortgages
of fathers with Alzheimer’s
of mothers with strokes and Fiestaware

We talk (awkwardly) of new small houses
of downsizing soon-old homes
of purging the hoardings of long adulthood

I think of how I mothered them
of performances, laughter, camping
of busy careers, blended families, short tempers

We talk of new small apartments
of downsizing soon-old rooms
of purging the hoardings of childhood

We marvel at the brink of high school
I remember her pulling away and know
when he does they’ll be no young one for me

The tears they surprise me
the heaviness it slows me
the maternal loneliness it scares me and yet

‘This is the order of things’
I try to find stillness there
I don’t find stillness on shifting ground

BIO: Dr. Mama (Amber Kinser) is a writer, feminist mother, professor, and speaker who lives in Tennessee. Check her out on Facebook, follow her on Twitter @DrMamaWit, and see her webpage. Kinser writes for the MamaBlogger365 series each Thursday at the Museum Of Motherhood, Mamapalooza and Mamazina Magazine.

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Photo credit: Which Way? by Mike Coates