We’re like a herd of cattle lined up at feeding time. Actually we’re mothers standing outside preschool doors. And we’re hungry. Hungry for a break.

But what eats at me more is the vague sense that I’m out of place. I glance around quickly (so that no one will know I’m comparing body type and financial status and I.Q. like everyone else in this small space). There are neon gym shorts, black tank tops, slicked ponytails, chiseled calves…and I’m starting to feel like my 1 to 2 miles once or twice a week is looking severely inadequate. In my moment of unreason I try to suck in the slight overhang above the running shorts I will not run in today, while I think about how those gray and yellow stripes next to me look perfect over midnight blue denim.
There are gold earrings and tan arms that curl around toddlers whose hair is combed into delicate tendrils. There is lipstick and mascara and pedicured toes.

Then there’s me. I’m the girl who was a baby when I had a baby. I want a chicken coop and acreage that leaves me close enough to share sun tea and sugar with my neighbors but far enough to walk around without a bra under my shirt. I want a garden the size of my current front yard and a grocery store I can’t get to for 10 minutes. But less than 20, ’cause a girl’s gotta have a few things. I eat dessert every day and pour creamer in my coffee without figuring how many leg lifts I’d have to do to even it out. My hair tickles my shoulders and plays by the straps of a top from two seasons ago. I should have redone my nail polish two weeks ago. And I don’t want to feel lonely, which is how I feel in the morning line.

Until I look harder. There are also shades of blue that don’t go well with black hair. There are baby bumps and flip flops and whiny kids with breakfast still lingering on their cheeks. (If I had to bet I’d say they are a third or fourth child.) There are women who could be grandmas and some who could be high-schoolers. And there are plenty of us not yet showered.

My dad used to say, “They put their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.”

He is right. We aren’t so different. Beyond pants we share passions, duties, fears, frustrations, joys, a fierce love for our kids and the breaks we take from them.

We are mothers.