I was raised in a black or white world, and I’m not talking about the color of skin.
Before children, my perspective on life only had two sides: black or white, right or wrong, up or down. There was little “in between” and I always avoided it. People who couldn’t chose one way or the other were indecisive and wishy washy. Successful people made a choice. They took a stand!
Then I became a mother. Suddenly there were no clearly defined lines. No boundaries. All the perfectly defined boxes where I neatly placed the parts of my life spilled open into a congealed mess.
It’s ironic, really. Ethnically speaking, I’m neither black nor white. I’m an “in between,” a blend of two cultures for certain – Black and Japanese – with a splattering of Haitian and Irish to make it interesting. It’s funny to look back on my life before children and see how fervently I worked to create divisions in my life when my very being was a blend.
Motherhood has taught me that life is a hue, a perfect shade of “in between” that integrates the life that defined me before children with the life I’m creating today with children.
Intellectually, my brain is fixated on black or white. It longs for the order that the perfectly defined boxes of pre-motherhood offered. But, when I move past my intellect and get to the heart of motherhood I realize the joy that comes from just hanging in the hue, and I’m growing to love it.
