I’m a mother now, but I’m not Mommy. The gap is tremendous

I have a vivid memory, superimposed over a hodge-podge of hazy childhood memories:

I’m sitting with a group of children in our playroom, and we’re dreaming. Fantasizing.

“When I grow up…” we chant. And every kid takes a turn, sharing her vision of adulthood. We’ve got aspiring principals and artists, photographers, hairstylists, pianists.

I deliberate. There are so many things I want to be when I grow up. Probably a teacher, definitely a writer. But when my turn comes, the truth trips off my tongue. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a mommy.”

My friends tell me it doesn’t count, duh, of course we’ll all be mothers. “But what will you really be?”

They don’t get it. I don’t want to be a mother. I want to be Mommy. My mother. The woman who is so awesome and wonderful, there’s nobody in the world like her.

I grow up, and I try.

But the woman who raised me is inimitable, and my rosy childhood dream remains forever out of reach.

I can’t be my mother. I can never reach her level of talent and perfection, her thoughtfulness and selflessness, will never have her endless energy. I’m a mother now, but I’m not Mommy. The gap is tremendous.

Still, at every opportunity, I try.