Mother (in which I do not reference Danzig)

I watched Juno again Saturday evening and it struck me as poignant and wonderful as the first time I watched it. Many would agree that it is a great film that treats a sensitive subject with an element of humor and respect that is often hard to find. It is more than that for me, though. This movie has a profound impact on me each time I watch it. I experience some strange combination of every known emotion and I'm exhausted as the end credits roll. I need a few minutes to myself.

I too was a cautionary whale. A swollen, sassy, quirky but wonderful pregnant teenager.

Juno tells a part of my story that many of you do not know. You may know some of the facts of my teenage pregnancy. You may be able to do the math and, knowing that my 30th birthday is upon us and Jordan is already 12, put 17 and 12 together. But the moments that none of you could have experienced with us, the moments that shaped me, as a woman and as a mother were often too private, too lonely, too fleeting to have shared.

My story is admittedly a bit different from Juno's. I didn't consider abortion. I didn't give my baby up for adoption. I didn't return to a normal teenage life at the end of the show.

Jordan watched part of the movie with me Saturday and at one point as Juno shoves her belly down the crowded high school hallway he said, "Wow. It must be really scary to be a teenager and pregnant and like still have to go to school and have everyone look at you". I just looked at him and said, "Yeah. It is really is."

And I am reminded that only certain people know that particular fear. That particular trauma. That particular courage. The mark that that long walk down the hallway leaves deep within you. The mother that you become in those moments and the hundreds that follow.

I once read an essay called "You're Just Not the Type" about a young, lesbian, feminist, rocker who became a teenage mother. She wasn't the type to become that most dreaded statistic - teenage mother. Maybe she wasn't.

Neither was I.

And yet, here I sit, typing away as my twelfth Mother's Day draws to a close. And I carefully examine just how far we've come.

There is a beauty in the life I chose that others cannot see. There is a heartbreak and ache in remembering the fear, the uncertainty, the shame, and the determination to make it.

We've more than made it. My boy has just 20 days of 6th grade left. I am no longer a teenager. Though I will always be a mother. And I watch from the kitchen window, scrubbing dinner dishes, responding to texts from clients, and smiling at that baby boy, riding his bike, laughing and growing, just this very moment, into an incredible young man.

Even those who love us most cannot know what it was like to walk through those days. To sit behind the steering wheel crying and screaming and then soothing that giant belly that thumped and flipped and ached. Whispering "you and me, kid" long into the darkest nights.

And so Mother's Day is a strange day for me. I listen to my babies snore, I kiss their aging cheeks and I can't not reflect on what this motherhood means. There is a carefully carved place, a rich, private history of my becoming. This love of mine, this story of ours.

As it turns out, I am just the type.