If I Only Had a Brain

(written on October 24, 2008)

There are so many ways as a mother that you can feel as if you’ve “lost” yourself:

• Nights of uninterrupted sleep and mornings of lying in bed with nothing to do? History.
• That rockin’ body you had in highschool? Ha!
• Having a conversation with another adult without having to constantly pause and yell, “Don’t eat that!”? Just a memory.

However, it is easy for me to look at these “losses” and see the “gains” that have replaced them.

• I may not be able to sleep on my own schedule, but those sleepless times are filled in with snuggling babies against my breast.
• That rockin’ body has lost all of its rockiness. Yet I wouldn’t trade every stretch mark in the world if it meant I would no longer have the memories of carrying precious life in my womb.
• And for every interrupted adult conversation, there are ten priceless conversations with curious and wonder-filled toddlers to make up for it.

But there has long been one “loss” that I hadn’t quite come to grips with. The loss of my brain.  I used to feel pretty dang intelligent:

• I could remember numbers and facts forever.
• Logic was second nature to me; Spock my idol.
• Deep, thought-provoking debates of all things spiritual, intellectual, philosophical were a way of life.

The post-pregnancy-me can still hold her own, but I often feel like part of my brain has gone into a coma:

• Rather than effortlessly remembering numbers and facts, I’m struggling to remember where we last saw the purple sippy cup with the green lid.
• Gone is logic and rationalization. Now I can barely hear myself think at all, much less a whole intelligent thought!
• Those deep, meaningful debates don’t stand a chance. I can’t even out-debate a three year old, for goodness sakes!!

Up until yesterday, I had yet to reconcile this loss. I constantly found myself apologizing to others for my scattered thoughts, flakiness, and seemingly stunted brain function. These apologies were a blazing neon sign of my shame and insecurity in this perceived hole in my identity.

Last night however, a little encouragement changed that all.

I had taken the kids over to my Dad and Step-Mom’s house to run off some energy. We stayed a little later than I had planned and the kids were at their crazy point of exhaustion by the time I was loading them up in the car. My Dad watched with an amused smile while I tried to wrestle all three kids into their carseats. As I had one child hanging upside down by the foot over the back of the seat, another turning the windshield wipers and radio on and off, and my “free” hand holding a pacifier in an infant’s mouth, my Dad teased that he could have driven to San Antonio and back in the amount of time it takes for me to load up my crew. I laughed and body slammed a few children into their restraints before shutting the minivan door. I was beat and so ready to get everyone home and body-slammed into bed. I grabbed for my keys. What? No keys. As I was talking to my Dad with intermittent scolds or reassurances directed towards the back seat, I dug frantically through my diaper bag. No keys. I put the pacifier back in the baby’s mouth as I looked on the floor. No keys. I was getting more and more frustrated the longer I looked, until finally I sat down in a flustered heap on the running board and shouted, “I USED TO BE SMART…just for the record!!!” This cracked my Dad up, but I was only half-joking! I said, “No, I’m serious Dad! I feel like I only have 10% of my brain left! I can’t even remember where I put the keys I was just holding in my hand!!”

My Dad chuckled a little bit more before he looked at me and said, “Amy, you don’t see it. You don’t even realize that you are doing ten things at once. In a way, you are using only 10% of your brain, but you are using 10% for ten different tasks. That’s pretty amazing.”

Simple words, obvious logic, and possibly just flattery, but it was as if that hole in my identity was filled by what he said. Yes. I AM doing ten things at once! I do ten things at once all day, every day! I mean, think about it; three kids ages three and under. Just focusing on keeping them alive is a minimum of three separate thoughts at one time! I’m actually doing complex multi-tasking!

PRAISE THE LORD!! I HAVE A BRAIN!!

I knew before my Dad comforted me that I was multi-tasking; it is fairly obvious. But my Dad is someone who works in a highly-intelligent field where he talks every day with people whose IQ is higher than the balance of my checking account. To have him then turn and acknowledge that my “profession” requires intelligence, too, was priceless. My Daddy is one smart man, and that is an understatement. Knowing that he doesn’t think I have “lost” my brain was needed, and very much appreciated.

I now have a gain for what seemed to be an irreconcilable loss:

It is true that I am no longer smart enough to spout out pi past six decimal places.

But I can make a pie while nursing a baby and counting to three and pulling a toddler off of the bookshelf and scheduling a doctor’s appointment and picking up toys with my toes.

Now THAT is pretty dang intelligent, if you ask me!

I have learned through this that there really is no true loss in parenting. For everything we sacrifice, every part of our identity that we shed, something more beautiful grows in its place.

My kids will grow up caring less if I know what are the correct usages of “compliment” and “complement.” They will always care, however, that I was never too busy to offer them a compliment, even amidst the chaos of my daily life.

My body has been changed. My experiences have been changed. My brain has been changed. My heart has been changed.

But my identity has not. There has been no loss. I am still Amy. I am just an ever growing, ever increasingly sanctified, ever changing version of Amy.

And I like this Amy even better than the one with the rockin’ body!

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

Philippians 3:7-9