Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

by Anne Lamott

I got the epidural immediately and decided that next time, if there is a next time, I will get the epidural upon registration.

People kept trying to prepare me for how soft and mushy my stomach would be after I gave birth, but I secretly thought, Not this old buckerina. I think most people undergoing chemo secretly believe they won’t lose their hair. Oh, but my stomach, she is like a waterbed covered with flannel now. When I lie on my side in bed, my stomach lies politely beside me, like a puppy.

He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion.

He said that I was just an opening for Sam to come into the world, that I wasn’t supposed to be a drug for him. I was just supposed to be his mother. Sam was meant to be born into the world exactly the way it is, into these exact circumstances, even if that meant not having a dad or an ozone layer, even if it included pets who would die and acne and seventh-grade dances and AIDS. He simply wasn’t meant to be born in the paradise behind the mountains.

Little by little I think I’m letting go of believing that I’m in charge, that I’m God’s assistant football coach. It’s so incredibly hard to let go of one’s passion for control. It seems like if you stop managing and controlling, everything will spin off into total pandemonium and it will be all your fault.

I thought, Boy, was that nutty old Mother Teresa right when she said that none of us can do great things, but that we can do small things with great love.