Days of pageants and dance routines and tiaras and bobby pins.
When we are living in them, the stress can dull the sparkle.
The Momma Knot in the pit of your stomach and the un-asked-for chills up your spine and down your arms as you wait to watch your child take the stage is blinding.
More blinding than the thousands of rhinestones under stage lights.
That, my friends, is ultra- blinding.
I am very happy that I made one binding choice many years ago. As a Dance Studio Director, I decided and declared (loudly and repeatedly) to my clientele that, when my daughter was on stage, I was NOT Director. I WAS her mother.
I did not answer tugs on my sleeve or pause mid-run-to-catch-her-perform to discuss another child's hair or costume trauma. I did not reply to anxious whispered questions or irritating texts.
I focused on my Momma Knot. I embraced it. I enjoyed it. I bathed in it and I engraved it on my heart and in my brain.
Madi will be 18 this week. Eighteen years filled with sequins and tap shoes. With hand held microphones and squeaky speaker systems. Eighteen years topped off with me sitting in the Clayton Opera House last night as she represented her platform and her ideals and her undeniable beauty in the Miss Thousand Islands Pageant.
The knot was HUGE. The tears were welling. My heart was pounding. Not for The Sparkle. Madi doesn't need a crown on her head or a sequin studded gown to glow. It was just the Momma thing. That's My Girl.
She walked like a model, she showed her spunk and intelligence. She sang with fervor and beauty. She was undeniably wonderful.
So, after... when she did not take home the crown nor the sash nor even a certificate-- I reevaluated that Momma Knot. The one I have felt inside so prominently for almost eighteen years. I examined its twists and turns and strong, unyielding bond. I realized something momentous. Perhaps, just perhaps, that knot wasn't fear for her. It has never been about my fear or my fear for her. It has always been this growing mass of pride. Pride for her strength and talent. Not pride that comes before a fall. Not pride that blinds... pride that makes me see. See that my daughter is more than I could have ever imagined. She sparkles so bright... And, in that moment, the knot lessened just the teeniest bit.
Just enough for me to exhale.
