Monday, July 29, 2013
Won't You Come Dance With Me?
So sing the Commodores and so I listen. Listen to the upbeat tunes that I so miss after a full afternoon of organizing, of tossing things aside, recatagorizing, wondering if I can ever I can find the emptiness I search for, I long for, as I keep keep keep so much. But I am trying. Forever trying. I think of my son Kennedy and his Elmo Potty Time DVD. There is a song that I myself remember from the 1980s watching Sesame Street. Trying trying again, the tune goes. It is part of the video to show children clips of children learning how to do things, how to have their own rites of passage. So too, I continue to try to create my universe of mindfulness, of writing, of creating, or letting go. The dance of being alone, of neither being in denial that the song has actually ended or of dancing in a sad, alone, mourning state. Here I find myself. On the brink. On the cusp. But sometimes feeling so deep in the weeds. Maybe I am perched on the top of a cattail in the weeds of a beautiful swamp with the sun shining down. One things feels certain: I am beginning to see the light and gain perspective from my perching point.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Evergreen
We welcome you to Evergreen,
We're mighty glad you're here,
We'll send your song reverberating with our cheer,
We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out.
Two ways, a mighty shout.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
Welcome to Evergreen....FIGHT!
The victory song. The cheer song. The welcome song. The song that I remember as I think back over the summer that rocked my universe and changed my world. The worst summer of my life. The summer that would somehow forever define who I would become because I would grow up so much and appreciate life outside that summer so much more.
It wasn't meant to be the worst summer. My parents had sent me to camp because Lois' daughter Marcy went for years. She was going back this summer. She loved camp. She had special camp friends. They all returned every summer. Tears of joy swept over the girls like a momentary sugar high and with the same intensity tears of sadness drowned out all other emotions and final hugs were given when the summer came to a close.
Why did I hate overnight camp?
1. There was never enough food
2. There was never enough personal space
3. I had no friends
4. I felt so different.
5. I felt so young and not ready for the world of boys
6. I was so homesick
7. I felt all this and more every day for seven weeks.
My first time away from home. This was it.
But where does the humanity come in? What is the (positive) desired end result that warms my heart when I think of this summer? The never-ending, felt-like-it-never-even-began summer?
1. It was the summer of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park!), of my all-time favorite book Catcher in the Rye, of painful self-awareness and stark brazen alone time.
2. It was the summer of countless acts of kindness of my friends and family from far and wide. Lynn wrote to me. My dad wrote. Mom send words of encouragement ever day. "If you want to go back to Evergreen you can, but I vote for you to be a CIT next summer." Dad: "I hated overnight camp, I only went for a few nights and then went home. If you don't want to go back you don't have to." Lauren Pappone and I had lots of correspondence from Casco Me to Andover NH. My cherished friends. My friends I had almost forgotten about. My friends who I somehow have lost that connection with but who nevertheless are still my life and still so important and special to me.
3. The letters now serve as relics of a time in my family's life that I would not otherwise have. Strange to say, but it is true. Without those letters, we would never remember Dad starting his company almost exactly 20 years ago. WIA has its first client and the fee is only $1000 but we have to start somewhere. We wouldn't remember Mom, Mike, and Danny McShane going to the beach house for the week or coming back early because of the rain. We wouldn't remember Lauren's synopsis of her day with an illustration of her bunk and common area, or Lynn's date with Peter who "is nothing compared to the lifeguards and how hot they are but he is a sweetheart. We are going to the movies Saturday night." Michael at Camp Academy. Dad taking a course at Yale and going to the Yankee Doodle every day with Nanny Lila. Can anything surpass the extreme passion and intensity of the every day mundane, in retrospect?
4. I was never homesick again. I was never afraid of boys again. I would never feel sad away from home. Or scared to take a leap. It was the summer of counting down the days until I could leave camp. Of making a mix of the songs from the summer and gleefully playing them as others wept, knowing I would be free soon again. It was the summer of rejecting this boy, the idea of dating that one, but ultimately surrendering to the nice, not so popular, not to so tall Ryan and getting an end-of-the-summer kiss. The kiss to tell everyone about back in eighth grade. The kiss that lasted a second and barely touched my lips. The kiss that marked my advancement into womanhood so much more than the training bras or monthly cycle visit that seemed to be less dramatic and more of a nuisance every time they came up.
I think back to the summer often. The changes. The elation at making it to the top of Mt. Washington in a pair of off-white canvas high-top keds. Little 7-year old Marie who became my friend and we smiled at one another, perhaps both feeling the newness of being in a strange place over the summer, even though we were six years apart. The ecstasy of putting on my dad's old blue pajama bottoms and jumping countless times on my bed at home while listening to my camp mixes in my old stereo on my bureau. Back in my bedroom. At my house. In my world.
Less than a year after that summer, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with my eighth grade class for a week. I traveled to Costa Rica with my eighth grade Spanish class for almost two weeks. Although nervous and a bit scared of the homestay in Costa Rica, it was nothing compared to surviving the summer at Evergreen. Five years after that summer, I traveled to Barnard College, Columbia University where I stayed for four years as a student (including a semester at the University College London as an exchange student and as a a Washington DC Senate intern for Hillary Rodham Clinton). Shortly thereafter I became a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years in Ecuador after which point I moved back to the United States and after a brief stay at home in Boston, I moved to Washington DC where I stayed for almost five years, earned a law degree and met my husband.
We are home now, back in Boston, back where I started. I think back to camp. To the hate. To the fear. To the elation at being home, forever grateful to have my life back where I left it. To the following summers where I became a counselor in training and then a full counselor at the day camp near my house and experienced all the summer madness the Evergreen girls had so lusted after only with my friends, with people like me, with people who went home at night and attended camp parties after hours on Friday and Saturday nights.
Would I send my little one to summer camp overnight if he wants to go? Yes. It's the process that matters. The end result that matters. The fear and pain and angst and ecstasy and rejuvenation and exploration that matters. What I couldn't see then, I can see now. I can see how to truly become who we are we have to experiences that shape us. Thank you, Evergreen. Thank you, everyone. The gang's all here.
We're mighty glad you're here,
We'll send your song reverberating with our cheer,
We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out.
Two ways, a mighty shout.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
Welcome to Evergreen....FIGHT!
The victory song. The cheer song. The welcome song. The song that I remember as I think back over the summer that rocked my universe and changed my world. The worst summer of my life. The summer that would somehow forever define who I would become because I would grow up so much and appreciate life outside that summer so much more.
It wasn't meant to be the worst summer. My parents had sent me to camp because Lois' daughter Marcy went for years. She was going back this summer. She loved camp. She had special camp friends. They all returned every summer. Tears of joy swept over the girls like a momentary sugar high and with the same intensity tears of sadness drowned out all other emotions and final hugs were given when the summer came to a close.
Why did I hate overnight camp?
1. There was never enough food
2. There was never enough personal space
3. I had no friends
4. I felt so different.
5. I felt so young and not ready for the world of boys
6. I was so homesick
7. I felt all this and more every day for seven weeks.
My first time away from home. This was it.
But where does the humanity come in? What is the (positive) desired end result that warms my heart when I think of this summer? The never-ending, felt-like-it-never-even-began summer?
1. It was the summer of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park!), of my all-time favorite book Catcher in the Rye, of painful self-awareness and stark brazen alone time.
2. It was the summer of countless acts of kindness of my friends and family from far and wide. Lynn wrote to me. My dad wrote. Mom send words of encouragement ever day. "If you want to go back to Evergreen you can, but I vote for you to be a CIT next summer." Dad: "I hated overnight camp, I only went for a few nights and then went home. If you don't want to go back you don't have to." Lauren Pappone and I had lots of correspondence from Casco Me to Andover NH. My cherished friends. My friends I had almost forgotten about. My friends who I somehow have lost that connection with but who nevertheless are still my life and still so important and special to me.
3. The letters now serve as relics of a time in my family's life that I would not otherwise have. Strange to say, but it is true. Without those letters, we would never remember Dad starting his company almost exactly 20 years ago. WIA has its first client and the fee is only $1000 but we have to start somewhere. We wouldn't remember Mom, Mike, and Danny McShane going to the beach house for the week or coming back early because of the rain. We wouldn't remember Lauren's synopsis of her day with an illustration of her bunk and common area, or Lynn's date with Peter who "is nothing compared to the lifeguards and how hot they are but he is a sweetheart. We are going to the movies Saturday night." Michael at Camp Academy. Dad taking a course at Yale and going to the Yankee Doodle every day with Nanny Lila. Can anything surpass the extreme passion and intensity of the every day mundane, in retrospect?
4. I was never homesick again. I was never afraid of boys again. I would never feel sad away from home. Or scared to take a leap. It was the summer of counting down the days until I could leave camp. Of making a mix of the songs from the summer and gleefully playing them as others wept, knowing I would be free soon again. It was the summer of rejecting this boy, the idea of dating that one, but ultimately surrendering to the nice, not so popular, not to so tall Ryan and getting an end-of-the-summer kiss. The kiss to tell everyone about back in eighth grade. The kiss that lasted a second and barely touched my lips. The kiss that marked my advancement into womanhood so much more than the training bras or monthly cycle visit that seemed to be less dramatic and more of a nuisance every time they came up.
I think back to the summer often. The changes. The elation at making it to the top of Mt. Washington in a pair of off-white canvas high-top keds. Little 7-year old Marie who became my friend and we smiled at one another, perhaps both feeling the newness of being in a strange place over the summer, even though we were six years apart. The ecstasy of putting on my dad's old blue pajama bottoms and jumping countless times on my bed at home while listening to my camp mixes in my old stereo on my bureau. Back in my bedroom. At my house. In my world.
Less than a year after that summer, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with my eighth grade class for a week. I traveled to Costa Rica with my eighth grade Spanish class for almost two weeks. Although nervous and a bit scared of the homestay in Costa Rica, it was nothing compared to surviving the summer at Evergreen. Five years after that summer, I traveled to Barnard College, Columbia University where I stayed for four years as a student (including a semester at the University College London as an exchange student and as a a Washington DC Senate intern for Hillary Rodham Clinton). Shortly thereafter I became a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years in Ecuador after which point I moved back to the United States and after a brief stay at home in Boston, I moved to Washington DC where I stayed for almost five years, earned a law degree and met my husband.
We are home now, back in Boston, back where I started. I think back to camp. To the hate. To the fear. To the elation at being home, forever grateful to have my life back where I left it. To the following summers where I became a counselor in training and then a full counselor at the day camp near my house and experienced all the summer madness the Evergreen girls had so lusted after only with my friends, with people like me, with people who went home at night and attended camp parties after hours on Friday and Saturday nights.
Would I send my little one to summer camp overnight if he wants to go? Yes. It's the process that matters. The end result that matters. The fear and pain and angst and ecstasy and rejuvenation and exploration that matters. What I couldn't see then, I can see now. I can see how to truly become who we are we have to experiences that shape us. Thank you, Evergreen. Thank you, everyone. The gang's all here.
Monday, July 22, 2013
To Write or Not To Write?
That is the question plaguing me as I clean up the bedroom for the bizillionth time. The boxes, the bags, the memories of college, study abroad, even middle school. But especially the Peace Corps. It felt like a life-changing event at the time. It still feels like one now. But somehow for some unknown reason I don't really feel like writing about the Peace Corps. I don't know why. I even started a book about the Peace Corps...and sort of gave up before I got to the part about the Peace Corps. I do think there is still something there to write about. I mean, I have journals, notes, even notes on napkins all to illustrate...what? I have pictures, necklaces given to me from friends when I lived in Machala, and shirts that I wore when I was there.
But really what I am getting at here is the essence of memory. If we don't hold on to the past do we lose it? What happens to it? What if I want to write my book one day and I wish I had the artifacts? Those notes, those paper napkins from bars, those pictures that were taken of us at the time but now have a different meaning where we can see the bar stool in the background, or the menu and the table setting at Cafe Patecon. The people are still here with us (of course if the people were not still here with us the picture takes on a deifed quality, an inescapable essence where getting rid of it feels sacrilegious) but really, it becomes less about the people and more about the memory. The feelings, the emotions, the ability to go back in time that we don't want to lose. The fear that getting old really just means, getting unfamiliar, getting away from the essence, our own essence, whenever, wherever it was.
But what I try to remember and what does become more clear as I go through this process is that there only really is one true essence, the here and now. Yes, nostalgia, picture, places, people, paper napkin notes have their place, but if those become what we rely on, they are figments of our true self coming through, not our actually full-self in the moment. In other words, when deciding what to save and what to chuck, here is my adage to live by: I will have the right things to save just by feeling out what seems right to save. Ok, it sounds too fake to be true. But seriously, that helps me get through this organization process. I will have the right things. Maybe maybe maybe there will be something I miss someday, but those instances will likely be rare. Instead, I love the space I am opening in my life for new experiences, and new memories. So long farewell, old Peace Corps napkins. The memoir may have to go on without you some day...you'll be with us in spirit. And I, having thrown out my treasured napkins, like someone throwing out a napkin after a big meal, feel more full than ever.
But really what I am getting at here is the essence of memory. If we don't hold on to the past do we lose it? What happens to it? What if I want to write my book one day and I wish I had the artifacts? Those notes, those paper napkins from bars, those pictures that were taken of us at the time but now have a different meaning where we can see the bar stool in the background, or the menu and the table setting at Cafe Patecon. The people are still here with us (of course if the people were not still here with us the picture takes on a deifed quality, an inescapable essence where getting rid of it feels sacrilegious) but really, it becomes less about the people and more about the memory. The feelings, the emotions, the ability to go back in time that we don't want to lose. The fear that getting old really just means, getting unfamiliar, getting away from the essence, our own essence, whenever, wherever it was.
But what I try to remember and what does become more clear as I go through this process is that there only really is one true essence, the here and now. Yes, nostalgia, picture, places, people, paper napkin notes have their place, but if those become what we rely on, they are figments of our true self coming through, not our actually full-self in the moment. In other words, when deciding what to save and what to chuck, here is my adage to live by: I will have the right things to save just by feeling out what seems right to save. Ok, it sounds too fake to be true. But seriously, that helps me get through this organization process. I will have the right things. Maybe maybe maybe there will be something I miss someday, but those instances will likely be rare. Instead, I love the space I am opening in my life for new experiences, and new memories. So long farewell, old Peace Corps napkins. The memoir may have to go on without you some day...you'll be with us in spirit. And I, having thrown out my treasured napkins, like someone throwing out a napkin after a big meal, feel more full than ever.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
The Truth About Women: In betweeners
This title of this blog post is sort of a lie. Sort of. There is no truth about women here; just one woman, little old me. Taking my stab at representing all women, humanity. Or maybe just some women who might be struggling with the same stuff I have been. Here's what's on my mind. I was running around the kitchen yesterday getting ready to have two of my best girl friends over for dinner. I spotted a Georgetown Law Magazine, my alma mata, on the counter that my husband had likely left out for me. The cover showed a sheet of newsprint paper with ideas written all over it, everything in black marker in capital letters. The article was called a "special report" on revamping legal education.
What does this mean to me?
For a few years now, I have been trying to determine that. What did my legal education mean to me?
What did I get out of it?
Am I glad I got it?
Any regrets?
Would I change anything if I could?
If you are waiting for an answer-all catch phrase, don't. It isn't coming. I still don't have the answers to those questions without a thousand qualifications. But what I do have is this: I have an idea that is gonna blow your mind because it is so simple. Women are on the verge of something new *again.* We are on the verge of defining a new era in the workforce, motherhood; and everything in between. I am talking about women who are smart, happy, energetic, degree-seeking, career-wanting, but for whom traditional faces of the working world don't seem to work.
Let's take a step back for a minute to understand what I am saying the context of history.
We have the 1950s. The message to women was sort of universal: STAY HOME. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not collect anything, save groceries. Married, but no kids? No problem! All the better to look fabulous, smoke, socialize and blow more smoke around. No need to collect $200, husband will have it ready for you as an allowance if you are so fortunate. The one-size fit all model might have suited some but like all one-size models, it did not fit all.
Enter: the 1960s and 70's. This is before the "you go, gurrrl" era of the 90s, but still, that message seemed to be some of the changing face of women in the working world. You go out and go. Do it. Get out there. So seemed to say Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. So seemed to say many activists on both sides of the gender lines. Go out. Get that career. Law? Business? Well, chuckle, chuckle, sure why not? And then the chuckles stopped because it was no longer a joking idea. It started to happen. One fold. Two fold. Ten fold. [Today people still have that chuckle, chuckle over dinner with friends when the conversation about a female President of the United States comes up. Those chuckles will end soon too. But you get the idea of the chuckle with the new changing faces- let's laugh at the crazy new tide of women out there!]
Women were getting out and loving it. Not just college. Graduate school. But it didn't stop there. Traditional fields were no longer good enough for women.
"Do more than teach," the activists would scream. "Run your own company."
"Don't stop until you are a partner at the biggest firm. You can do it all!"
Hence, we are arrive at the beloved 90s. Go-go music, and truly spoken, "you go, gurrrl" era. Women were out in the workforce. It wasn't a question of if, the message was when. Nothing was too good. Nothing was impossible...or was it? What about the women who wanted to stay home and raise a child? What about the idea that raising a child was not a dying art, like say, bayonet-making, or carbon-copying? The idea that a mere three months maternity leave felt like the blink of an eye when raising a small human mammal who could not move on it's own and was still deeply, deeply dependent on its mother? Is it possible we (as women) overshot with our message? Had Betty Friedan anticipated that the women who might have been happy at home would not longer even consider staying home to raise their child because of the new(ish) cultura stigma against doing so? What about the women born to stay home and raise a child who always knew they would? Were they losers for not getting PhDs? Masters degrees? College degreses? High school degrees? Where were we drawing the new lines? What was the new message for what a woman should do?
I don't know. But what I do know as a high school graduate in late the 1990s, the message I received was decidedly one-sided: working was the way to go. Of course I would find time to one day raise a child, with nannies, babysitters, help from my parents, in scraps of time just like I found the ability to run a law practice, serve on a corporate advisory board, and teach as an adjunct professor of criminal justice to undergrads. Plus, I had weekends, vacations (that's what they were for, right?). How much time could it take to ga-ga, goo-goo, change a diaper, read a story, give a bottle? Why did I go out and keep going toward new education and career pursuits only to toss those things aside like they were nothing later on? I was a go-getter and I would continue to be.
Motherhood would not get me down!
But what if it had the opposite effect on me? What if being a mom brought me up?
What if the new love I felt for this little creature was more powerful than any force I had ever felt in my life and I was more passionate, excited, and compelled to stay home and raise him?
What if I felt like a knife going through my heart every time I had to leave my child only to come home and find he was asleep and we had missed each other, the small window of time he was awake that day?
What if I wanted to be a big influence in his life and for the first time ever, weekends weren't enough time to let me catch up with this little creature?
What if, after being away from my son for six hours, I felt like a person trying to exercise who had taken a week off-lethargic and out of sync?
What was going on here?!
Was I lame? Lazy? A loser? Who would ever chose mopping up apple juice (ah, the infamous apple juice reference!) over sitting in a plush office sipping a latte? Or entering my cozy cubicle at a nonprofit where I was transforming civil rights for gays in America? I wouldn't, or so I had I thought.
So what stopped me dead in my tracks? Life. Feelings. The same things that make me want to go window shopping when I don't have money for real shopping, or put on my makeup, or call my girlfriends and do a coffee date or a walk. Female instinct. Love. Being who I am. Call it what you will, but being a mom felt more right, more necessary, more full of love, and more logical than anything I had ever done in the working world ever ever ever.
Which brings me back to the first paragraph of this post and to the title, why in-betweeners? In a big nutshell, I think that is where our generation is headed. I think we are the in-betweeners. In between tthe must-stay-at-home-women of the 1950s and the go-out-and-make-difference women of the 1960s. In between the "you go gurrl" women of the 1990s and the current growing body of women who are happily higher-educated, and who want to partake fully in motherhood, but out of choice, not force, nor lack of options.
So what's the problem? End of story, right? "And we all lived happily ever after." Cinderella, of 2013: Her shoe fell off when she had to get home by midnight because she had a law school final the next morning. Prince Charming still found her, made her dinner while she studied for the bar exam, and got a $250,000 job when she got pregnant so she could stay home and raise junior. She is after all, Cinderella, the coveted beauty waiting for a prince. Does that sound right to you?
It didn't to me. I am none of those categories. I feel like an in betweener because I am in between the idea that I must forever utilize my higher ed. degree for 45+ hours of work a week, even though I greatly enjoy being a full-time mom. I am in between because I received the message growing up that working was basically the only route so I never thought of choosing a career path that might have been more mommy-baby-family friendly. I am in-between because even if I had been better informed about the joys and necessity of being home with a small child, I likely would not have heeded the advice anyways. In between because I love being in school, loved in then, love the atmosphere now, but seemingly am not using any degree and muddle through as a new mom with no idea and no guidance except for intuition many days. I am in between because, now, having made the choice to at least temporarily stop teaching, stop my criminal defense legal practice, and to stay home with my son, I wonder if I could have been better prepared to do so. In between, because as I write these words on the screen, I wonder how much time I have, before my most demanding, special client, howls in need of me again. In between, knowing and not knowing because I just don't know and no one was having these conversations when I was growing up.
I think this has come up with every generation. The idea that "nobody was having that conversation" and as a result people made decisions without considering all information.
"Mom, dad," I would ask in the 1980s, "why do you smoke? Everyone knows smoking is bad for you." " You are right, Megan," they would admit, "But nobody was having that conversation when we started smoking."
Same question and response for why did you drink whole milk? Saturated fats? Why didn't nanny (my grandma) finish college? How could anyone have thought it was a good idea for my great grandmother to drop out of school in 8th grade in 1916? Same answer: That was the trend.
It's hard to beat the trend.
So let's take a step in the future for a moment. What do I say when my son asks me one day, "mommy, why did some many women go to law school and then not have time/option/ability to take care of their little ones? Why didn't people see the connection between kids not being raised in warm communities and suicide bombers/terrorists/school-shoot outs? Why did people let their kids stay home after school with only a TV and computer, and no one there? Why didn't people see that family does matter? That perhaps one of the most important jobs, if not the most, is raising children to grow into mindful adults? Why did no one stop and meditate more?" You already know my answer and if you are similar to me, you have lived some of these moments so you can commiserate. This has not been the trend.
My argument is that we have overshot as a culture. No, not as far as giving women rights, but as far as the must-work mentality. It's time to take a step back and look at how far we have come since the 1950s as far as women working but to also acknowledge the the new one-size fits all approach of everyone working has the same issues of the any one-size-fits all approach: not every woman wants life in the fast, over-tired, over-stressed, rat-race, trying-to-do-it-all-but-doing-nothing-100%-in-the-process lane. Whoo, that is quite a lane. Hopefully, whatever your decision is, you are happy with it, and not in that lane that I have been in.
So, that leave me where I am now in my nameless in between-lane. An inbetweener.
In between the fast lane of doing everything and the slow lane of doing nothing because there were no options.
In between loving education but not sure what future degrees/certifications might be in my future.
In between message of feminism and being feminine (both are cool, right?).
In between the angry idea that somebody, somewhere along the way should have brought up that I had chosen a career path that was too challenging to do with full-time parenting on the one side and the idea that I myself should have done more soul-searching on the other.
In between the idea that I will one day tell my son that some of my decisions are based on "what people were/were not talking about then" that has influenced me and the idea that is a total copout and I should rise above that excuse now. Is that an excuse? Who knows.
But I do know that the truth is this conversation is not over. Whether you are at-home, at work, fulfilled, or still seeking, let's ask the questions that haven't been asked. Today. Let's see what the new truth of today is. Let's speculate as to what our page in history holds for us and what the new face of the in-betweeners will be.
What does this mean to me?
For a few years now, I have been trying to determine that. What did my legal education mean to me?
What did I get out of it?
Am I glad I got it?
Any regrets?
Would I change anything if I could?
If you are waiting for an answer-all catch phrase, don't. It isn't coming. I still don't have the answers to those questions without a thousand qualifications. But what I do have is this: I have an idea that is gonna blow your mind because it is so simple. Women are on the verge of something new *again.* We are on the verge of defining a new era in the workforce, motherhood; and everything in between. I am talking about women who are smart, happy, energetic, degree-seeking, career-wanting, but for whom traditional faces of the working world don't seem to work.
Let's take a step back for a minute to understand what I am saying the context of history.
We have the 1950s. The message to women was sort of universal: STAY HOME. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not collect anything, save groceries. Married, but no kids? No problem! All the better to look fabulous, smoke, socialize and blow more smoke around. No need to collect $200, husband will have it ready for you as an allowance if you are so fortunate. The one-size fit all model might have suited some but like all one-size models, it did not fit all.
Enter: the 1960s and 70's. This is before the "you go, gurrrl" era of the 90s, but still, that message seemed to be some of the changing face of women in the working world. You go out and go. Do it. Get out there. So seemed to say Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. So seemed to say many activists on both sides of the gender lines. Go out. Get that career. Law? Business? Well, chuckle, chuckle, sure why not? And then the chuckles stopped because it was no longer a joking idea. It started to happen. One fold. Two fold. Ten fold. [Today people still have that chuckle, chuckle over dinner with friends when the conversation about a female President of the United States comes up. Those chuckles will end soon too. But you get the idea of the chuckle with the new changing faces- let's laugh at the crazy new tide of women out there!]
Women were getting out and loving it. Not just college. Graduate school. But it didn't stop there. Traditional fields were no longer good enough for women.
"Do more than teach," the activists would scream. "Run your own company."
"Don't stop until you are a partner at the biggest firm. You can do it all!"
Hence, we are arrive at the beloved 90s. Go-go music, and truly spoken, "you go, gurrrl" era. Women were out in the workforce. It wasn't a question of if, the message was when. Nothing was too good. Nothing was impossible...or was it? What about the women who wanted to stay home and raise a child? What about the idea that raising a child was not a dying art, like say, bayonet-making, or carbon-copying? The idea that a mere three months maternity leave felt like the blink of an eye when raising a small human mammal who could not move on it's own and was still deeply, deeply dependent on its mother? Is it possible we (as women) overshot with our message? Had Betty Friedan anticipated that the women who might have been happy at home would not longer even consider staying home to raise their child because of the new(ish) cultura stigma against doing so? What about the women born to stay home and raise a child who always knew they would? Were they losers for not getting PhDs? Masters degrees? College degreses? High school degrees? Where were we drawing the new lines? What was the new message for what a woman should do?
I don't know. But what I do know as a high school graduate in late the 1990s, the message I received was decidedly one-sided: working was the way to go. Of course I would find time to one day raise a child, with nannies, babysitters, help from my parents, in scraps of time just like I found the ability to run a law practice, serve on a corporate advisory board, and teach as an adjunct professor of criminal justice to undergrads. Plus, I had weekends, vacations (that's what they were for, right?). How much time could it take to ga-ga, goo-goo, change a diaper, read a story, give a bottle? Why did I go out and keep going toward new education and career pursuits only to toss those things aside like they were nothing later on? I was a go-getter and I would continue to be.
Motherhood would not get me down!
But what if it had the opposite effect on me? What if being a mom brought me up?
What if the new love I felt for this little creature was more powerful than any force I had ever felt in my life and I was more passionate, excited, and compelled to stay home and raise him?
What if I felt like a knife going through my heart every time I had to leave my child only to come home and find he was asleep and we had missed each other, the small window of time he was awake that day?
What if I wanted to be a big influence in his life and for the first time ever, weekends weren't enough time to let me catch up with this little creature?
What if, after being away from my son for six hours, I felt like a person trying to exercise who had taken a week off-lethargic and out of sync?
What was going on here?!
Was I lame? Lazy? A loser? Who would ever chose mopping up apple juice (ah, the infamous apple juice reference!) over sitting in a plush office sipping a latte? Or entering my cozy cubicle at a nonprofit where I was transforming civil rights for gays in America? I wouldn't, or so I had I thought.
So what stopped me dead in my tracks? Life. Feelings. The same things that make me want to go window shopping when I don't have money for real shopping, or put on my makeup, or call my girlfriends and do a coffee date or a walk. Female instinct. Love. Being who I am. Call it what you will, but being a mom felt more right, more necessary, more full of love, and more logical than anything I had ever done in the working world ever ever ever.
Which brings me back to the first paragraph of this post and to the title, why in-betweeners? In a big nutshell, I think that is where our generation is headed. I think we are the in-betweeners. In between tthe must-stay-at-home-women of the 1950s and the go-out-and-make-difference women of the 1960s. In between the "you go gurrl" women of the 1990s and the current growing body of women who are happily higher-educated, and who want to partake fully in motherhood, but out of choice, not force, nor lack of options.
So what's the problem? End of story, right? "And we all lived happily ever after." Cinderella, of 2013: Her shoe fell off when she had to get home by midnight because she had a law school final the next morning. Prince Charming still found her, made her dinner while she studied for the bar exam, and got a $250,000 job when she got pregnant so she could stay home and raise junior. She is after all, Cinderella, the coveted beauty waiting for a prince. Does that sound right to you?
It didn't to me. I am none of those categories. I feel like an in betweener because I am in between the idea that I must forever utilize my higher ed. degree for 45+ hours of work a week, even though I greatly enjoy being a full-time mom. I am in between because I received the message growing up that working was basically the only route so I never thought of choosing a career path that might have been more mommy-baby-family friendly. I am in-between because even if I had been better informed about the joys and necessity of being home with a small child, I likely would not have heeded the advice anyways. In between because I love being in school, loved in then, love the atmosphere now, but seemingly am not using any degree and muddle through as a new mom with no idea and no guidance except for intuition many days. I am in between because, now, having made the choice to at least temporarily stop teaching, stop my criminal defense legal practice, and to stay home with my son, I wonder if I could have been better prepared to do so. In between, because as I write these words on the screen, I wonder how much time I have, before my most demanding, special client, howls in need of me again. In between, knowing and not knowing because I just don't know and no one was having these conversations when I was growing up.
I think this has come up with every generation. The idea that "nobody was having that conversation" and as a result people made decisions without considering all information.
"Mom, dad," I would ask in the 1980s, "why do you smoke? Everyone knows smoking is bad for you." " You are right, Megan," they would admit, "But nobody was having that conversation when we started smoking."
Same question and response for why did you drink whole milk? Saturated fats? Why didn't nanny (my grandma) finish college? How could anyone have thought it was a good idea for my great grandmother to drop out of school in 8th grade in 1916? Same answer: That was the trend.
It's hard to beat the trend.
So let's take a step in the future for a moment. What do I say when my son asks me one day, "mommy, why did some many women go to law school and then not have time/option/ability to take care of their little ones? Why didn't people see the connection between kids not being raised in warm communities and suicide bombers/terrorists/school-shoot outs? Why did people let their kids stay home after school with only a TV and computer, and no one there? Why didn't people see that family does matter? That perhaps one of the most important jobs, if not the most, is raising children to grow into mindful adults? Why did no one stop and meditate more?" You already know my answer and if you are similar to me, you have lived some of these moments so you can commiserate. This has not been the trend.
My argument is that we have overshot as a culture. No, not as far as giving women rights, but as far as the must-work mentality. It's time to take a step back and look at how far we have come since the 1950s as far as women working but to also acknowledge the the new one-size fits all approach of everyone working has the same issues of the any one-size-fits all approach: not every woman wants life in the fast, over-tired, over-stressed, rat-race, trying-to-do-it-all-but-doing-nothing-100%-in-the-process lane. Whoo, that is quite a lane. Hopefully, whatever your decision is, you are happy with it, and not in that lane that I have been in.
So, that leave me where I am now in my nameless in between-lane. An inbetweener.
In between the fast lane of doing everything and the slow lane of doing nothing because there were no options.
In between loving education but not sure what future degrees/certifications might be in my future.
In between message of feminism and being feminine (both are cool, right?).
In between the angry idea that somebody, somewhere along the way should have brought up that I had chosen a career path that was too challenging to do with full-time parenting on the one side and the idea that I myself should have done more soul-searching on the other.
In between the idea that I will one day tell my son that some of my decisions are based on "what people were/were not talking about then" that has influenced me and the idea that is a total copout and I should rise above that excuse now. Is that an excuse? Who knows.
But I do know that the truth is this conversation is not over. Whether you are at-home, at work, fulfilled, or still seeking, let's ask the questions that haven't been asked. Today. Let's see what the new truth of today is. Let's speculate as to what our page in history holds for us and what the new face of the in-betweeners will be.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Unglue-yourself
I can't write today. I know it is a cop out. That saying "I can't." When in fact, I have two hands, a keyboard in front of me, and an open heart and mind. But sometimes it is hard to decide what we do in the face of distraction. Distractions? Oh, you know, like a fugitive on the lose somewhere outside of the coffee shop I am sitting in that overlooks the Charles River. Somewhere out there while my son plays or naps at home with our sitter watching him. I can't focus, yet getting it out on paper does help. The act of forcing myself to do what I think I cannot. To write. To process. To plan. To move on. To unglue myself from the TV (in our case we got rid of cable so I am ungluing myself from our ABC news on the internet). And guess what? I did it. If that's the last motivational thing I did today, at least I know, for better or worse, for safety or not, for moments full of hope or (sadly) devoid of hope, we. can. do. it. Home I go. Boston in my heart and prayers.
Friday, April 12, 2013
To Sleep Perchance to Dream
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life
- Shakespeare's Hamlet
Having a new little one gives us all pause. Pause for the magic, the mystery, the mindfulness and preciousness of each moment. And there are the other pauses. The omg, what are we doing pauses. How is this every going to work? Will we ever go out again pauses. I can't believe how good we used to have it pauses. And there are the pauses that don't come. The sleep pauses. The totally necessary pauses to rest, rejuvenate, and jump back in the fighter's ring. Here is a little insight into our sleeping adventure with our son, Kennedy, and our attempts at no tears at bedtime as we transition him into his own big boy bed.
Looking back the beginning was somewhat easy. Kennedy was by my side each night, all the time. Snuggle snuggle snuggle. His little nose perches up near my armpit to get his full mama fragrance. I guess he needed to make sure I was close by; that's one way to do it- no one else has ever wanted to be quite that close! Flip, flip, flip. All night. Left side, right side. And sometimes right on my chest. It was different for me back then. All those new mommy hormones had me in a bit of a daze. It would take 12 hours of rolling and turning and nursing and left side, right side for me to get 8 hours of sleep, but it seemed to work. Somewhat. We made it through our son's semi-Scarface thrashing of 3 months, the sprints up the stairs while visiting friends or family at their homes when he started to squawk and was unassisted lying on a bed. And then the 9 month crawler days where he got close to the edge of the bed.
Bars went up on both sides of our king side bed.
Boxspring came down. "What happened to our adult bed," My husband asked, staring our our new kingsize cozy playpen. "Our new family bed," I corrected him with a smile. A nervous smile. But the same thought was on both of our minds: What if we want more kids? How would this ever work? We needed sleep; this pen wasn't going to be forever playing.
But yet, Kennedy seemed to so happy. Thriving even. No tears. Bedtime was a dream come true most nights. Sure, he had the occasional too-tired meltdown but a little nursing and a snuggle seemed to a be a cure-all. Mama nurse. Mama leave the bed and hang out in another room with daddy. We'd watch him on the visual baby monitor. Mama come back as needed until she lies down for bed too. The thought of doing the cry-it-out anything made me get nauseous and nervous and shaky.
But around 13 months times started to change. Kennedy started on more solid foods. Result: less breastmilk. Result: less breastmilk hormones running through me. Result: Less easy sleep-induced nursing moments. Result: Mom up all night as Kennedy continued to nurse through the all-night buffet.
Bedtime became torture. Even trying to move away from Kennedy for a few minutes was hard. He was teething, so constant sucking helped, I guess. Pacifiers and bottles were out of the question- he wouldn't consider it. So we took another step: added on to the king size bed. That's right, we took a twin bed from downstairs and put it next to the bed. "We have a kingle," my husband, declared triumphantly,"A king and a single." It was the biggest bed I had ever seen. Small countries and artisan colonies could have peacefully fit in our bed.
Night became a sort of hide and seek. I would nurse my son to sleep, escape with my husband in another room for a short time to relax and watch TV and then back to the Kingle.... It didn't take long. He would find me within 20 minutes of my lying down. The added space was nice if we ever did all sleep in our own space, but more often it involved my husband off in the east wing of the bed and Kennedy pinning me down on the west wing as I tried to roll away, gasping for air as my nose pushed against the mesh wire bar on the edge of the bed. No artisan colonies. No small countries. Such me losing in a sleep hide and seek to an infant.
Two months passed. Kennedy was 15 months old.
I was a sleep-deprived monster. "That's it," I declared one morning. We are switching things up.
That night, I slept downstairs. I took a sleeping pill to relieve the anxiety of leaving my little one upstairs with daddy. And down I went. The first night was hard for me, but Kennedy and daddy did ok. My body wasn't used to trying to sleep through the night. I kept waking up thinking Kennedy needed me. Was that a cry? Was it the furnace? Gosh, I hated being in the basement. After a few weeks of this arrangement, our basement was transformed. My mattress off the boxspring on the floor. That way when Kennedy woke up at 5am or 6am to nurse, daddy could bring him down to sleep next to me and he would be safe right on the floor. My life was the biggest state of limbo ever. My new room looked like a crack den with two empty box springs and bedframes on the floor (that we were no longer using) and my little corner with my single mattress. More sleeping pills. Different combinations (all breast-feeding safe). More nights of getting up in the middle of the night.
Oh, and the setbacks. Ski trips. Weekends away. Weekends to visit family where we all shared the bed again. And mommy back in bed. Back to not sleeping. Back to all night nursing.
But again, two more months went by. I took a course which mean my husband putting the baby to bed one night a week. I would come home at 9pm and serenity prevailed over our little home, my boys passed out together. So now Kennedy could go 9pm-6am without nursing on the good nights. Good, right? But not good enough or consistent enough to rejoice. I read baby books on sleep. I read books I swore I would never read because they conflicted with my attachments parenting philosophy. I read them anyway. I learned. Kennedy had earlier naps. Earlier bedtimes. I started sleeping in the baby's nursery upstairs, in a bed.
There were hair-pulling out moments. No sleep. The screams. The fights. But luckily, no screams from little one. Tim and I were at each other's throats. The "you take him, no you take hims" had a high frequency in our conversations, or rather, yell-ations.
Then a few weeks ago we had a life changing event that made it truly the best of times and the worst of times.
We had an awesome little 5-day trip to Kiawah Island with family. Two bedrooms for the three of us. But we all got a little stomach flu which set off our delicate balance. Some nights I was in with the baby, some nights my husband, and some nights he was alone for a while depending on who was sick. And???? It worked, mostly! Maybe it was the vacation. Maybe the fevers. Maybe the exhausted toddler running on the beach all day in the fresh windy salty air with his cousins. Whatever it was, Kennedy finally seemed to be content with long gaps without nursing. He even liked to snuggle near me without the constant suckle that kept me up all night. I was elated.
We came home from the trip. Kennedy was going to sleep in his big boy bed. Not with my husband, not with me. And most differently, not in our king size bed.
The days of the kingle were over.
I nursed him off to sleep, and then a few hours later put myself to bed, a little uncertain, a little nostalgic, very sleepy, and a little self-assured. And guess what? It worked!
Mostly.
My husband had to go in and lie next to him a few times to reassure him. Then at 6am I go in for the morning feeding and we both pass out until the majestical time of 9:30am (or get up at 6am and then go back down for an early nap). Are we out of the hole as far as him sleeping through the night on his own? Are we ready for baby # 2? Not yet, not yet. But getting there. Muddling through. Finding our own way. Our own way in the dark of the nighttime parenting.
The takeaway? Don't let anyone make you go to that place that just feels wrong to you as a parent, or a person. The wisdom will come, either out of desperation, perspiration, or just keeping a conscious curiosity about a situation. Many fail-proof situations fail. Many parents who claim to have the easy solution don't as it turns out later. So don't give up on your dreams to give your child a gentle transition, day, night, anytime.
Postscript note: As of the date of this publication, Kennedy has been successfully sleeping in his big boy bed for almost 2 weeks. He is happy, we are thrilled, and he and I still get plenty of snuggly time during his naps and getting him down at night as he falls asleep. Daddy is still lying with him at night in the bed. It's a process and we are not "done" yet, but as I like to joke with my husband, hope is on the way!
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life
- Shakespeare's Hamlet
Having a new little one gives us all pause. Pause for the magic, the mystery, the mindfulness and preciousness of each moment. And there are the other pauses. The omg, what are we doing pauses. How is this every going to work? Will we ever go out again pauses. I can't believe how good we used to have it pauses. And there are the pauses that don't come. The sleep pauses. The totally necessary pauses to rest, rejuvenate, and jump back in the fighter's ring. Here is a little insight into our sleeping adventure with our son, Kennedy, and our attempts at no tears at bedtime as we transition him into his own big boy bed.
Looking back the beginning was somewhat easy. Kennedy was by my side each night, all the time. Snuggle snuggle snuggle. His little nose perches up near my armpit to get his full mama fragrance. I guess he needed to make sure I was close by; that's one way to do it- no one else has ever wanted to be quite that close! Flip, flip, flip. All night. Left side, right side. And sometimes right on my chest. It was different for me back then. All those new mommy hormones had me in a bit of a daze. It would take 12 hours of rolling and turning and nursing and left side, right side for me to get 8 hours of sleep, but it seemed to work. Somewhat. We made it through our son's semi-Scarface thrashing of 3 months, the sprints up the stairs while visiting friends or family at their homes when he started to squawk and was unassisted lying on a bed. And then the 9 month crawler days where he got close to the edge of the bed.
Bars went up on both sides of our king side bed.
Boxspring came down. "What happened to our adult bed," My husband asked, staring our our new kingsize cozy playpen. "Our new family bed," I corrected him with a smile. A nervous smile. But the same thought was on both of our minds: What if we want more kids? How would this ever work? We needed sleep; this pen wasn't going to be forever playing.
But yet, Kennedy seemed to so happy. Thriving even. No tears. Bedtime was a dream come true most nights. Sure, he had the occasional too-tired meltdown but a little nursing and a snuggle seemed to a be a cure-all. Mama nurse. Mama leave the bed and hang out in another room with daddy. We'd watch him on the visual baby monitor. Mama come back as needed until she lies down for bed too. The thought of doing the cry-it-out anything made me get nauseous and nervous and shaky.
But around 13 months times started to change. Kennedy started on more solid foods. Result: less breastmilk. Result: less breastmilk hormones running through me. Result: Less easy sleep-induced nursing moments. Result: Mom up all night as Kennedy continued to nurse through the all-night buffet.
Bedtime became torture. Even trying to move away from Kennedy for a few minutes was hard. He was teething, so constant sucking helped, I guess. Pacifiers and bottles were out of the question- he wouldn't consider it. So we took another step: added on to the king size bed. That's right, we took a twin bed from downstairs and put it next to the bed. "We have a kingle," my husband, declared triumphantly,"A king and a single." It was the biggest bed I had ever seen. Small countries and artisan colonies could have peacefully fit in our bed.
Night became a sort of hide and seek. I would nurse my son to sleep, escape with my husband in another room for a short time to relax and watch TV and then back to the Kingle.... It didn't take long. He would find me within 20 minutes of my lying down. The added space was nice if we ever did all sleep in our own space, but more often it involved my husband off in the east wing of the bed and Kennedy pinning me down on the west wing as I tried to roll away, gasping for air as my nose pushed against the mesh wire bar on the edge of the bed. No artisan colonies. No small countries. Such me losing in a sleep hide and seek to an infant.
Two months passed. Kennedy was 15 months old.
I was a sleep-deprived monster. "That's it," I declared one morning. We are switching things up.
That night, I slept downstairs. I took a sleeping pill to relieve the anxiety of leaving my little one upstairs with daddy. And down I went. The first night was hard for me, but Kennedy and daddy did ok. My body wasn't used to trying to sleep through the night. I kept waking up thinking Kennedy needed me. Was that a cry? Was it the furnace? Gosh, I hated being in the basement. After a few weeks of this arrangement, our basement was transformed. My mattress off the boxspring on the floor. That way when Kennedy woke up at 5am or 6am to nurse, daddy could bring him down to sleep next to me and he would be safe right on the floor. My life was the biggest state of limbo ever. My new room looked like a crack den with two empty box springs and bedframes on the floor (that we were no longer using) and my little corner with my single mattress. More sleeping pills. Different combinations (all breast-feeding safe). More nights of getting up in the middle of the night.
Oh, and the setbacks. Ski trips. Weekends away. Weekends to visit family where we all shared the bed again. And mommy back in bed. Back to not sleeping. Back to all night nursing.
But again, two more months went by. I took a course which mean my husband putting the baby to bed one night a week. I would come home at 9pm and serenity prevailed over our little home, my boys passed out together. So now Kennedy could go 9pm-6am without nursing on the good nights. Good, right? But not good enough or consistent enough to rejoice. I read baby books on sleep. I read books I swore I would never read because they conflicted with my attachments parenting philosophy. I read them anyway. I learned. Kennedy had earlier naps. Earlier bedtimes. I started sleeping in the baby's nursery upstairs, in a bed.
There were hair-pulling out moments. No sleep. The screams. The fights. But luckily, no screams from little one. Tim and I were at each other's throats. The "you take him, no you take hims" had a high frequency in our conversations, or rather, yell-ations.
Then a few weeks ago we had a life changing event that made it truly the best of times and the worst of times.
We had an awesome little 5-day trip to Kiawah Island with family. Two bedrooms for the three of us. But we all got a little stomach flu which set off our delicate balance. Some nights I was in with the baby, some nights my husband, and some nights he was alone for a while depending on who was sick. And???? It worked, mostly! Maybe it was the vacation. Maybe the fevers. Maybe the exhausted toddler running on the beach all day in the fresh windy salty air with his cousins. Whatever it was, Kennedy finally seemed to be content with long gaps without nursing. He even liked to snuggle near me without the constant suckle that kept me up all night. I was elated.
We came home from the trip. Kennedy was going to sleep in his big boy bed. Not with my husband, not with me. And most differently, not in our king size bed.
The days of the kingle were over.
I nursed him off to sleep, and then a few hours later put myself to bed, a little uncertain, a little nostalgic, very sleepy, and a little self-assured. And guess what? It worked!
Mostly.
My husband had to go in and lie next to him a few times to reassure him. Then at 6am I go in for the morning feeding and we both pass out until the majestical time of 9:30am (or get up at 6am and then go back down for an early nap). Are we out of the hole as far as him sleeping through the night on his own? Are we ready for baby # 2? Not yet, not yet. But getting there. Muddling through. Finding our own way. Our own way in the dark of the nighttime parenting.
The takeaway? Don't let anyone make you go to that place that just feels wrong to you as a parent, or a person. The wisdom will come, either out of desperation, perspiration, or just keeping a conscious curiosity about a situation. Many fail-proof situations fail. Many parents who claim to have the easy solution don't as it turns out later. So don't give up on your dreams to give your child a gentle transition, day, night, anytime.
Postscript note: As of the date of this publication, Kennedy has been successfully sleeping in his big boy bed for almost 2 weeks. He is happy, we are thrilled, and he and I still get plenty of snuggly time during his naps and getting him down at night as he falls asleep. Daddy is still lying with him at night in the bed. It's a process and we are not "done" yet, but as I like to joke with my husband, hope is on the way!
Friday, March 22, 2013
The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love: Jen Said it First
Are there times in your life where someone says something that didn't make sense at the time but then it later becomes all you can think about, precisely because it makes so much sense? If so, you might have had a similar moment to what I have had when I think of my dear life long friend Jen and some of her wisdom of the ages. She has said two powerful statements to me, both seemingly simple in nature, but nevertheless profound. The first was something she put on her facebook page underneath her name, where there used to be an "about me" section.
The statement was "I am over the moon happy." There she was with a husband and baby on the way, relating how good life was. And there I was, happily living out my days in D.C., finishing law school, happily dating a very special man, and all of could think of when I read her comment was, "huh?" Seriously? Life in the baby/husband/not-focusing-on-career-mode seemed totally out of interest for me. It seemed like a big huge train of mundane about to hit me in the face. But yet, I wanted that feeling. That "let's-be-done-with-law-school" (or any school for that matter), and just relish in ever lasting over the moon happy feelings.
Well, I can report to you that I got my wish. That special man I was dating? Yep, he's my awesome husband now. And that bulge in Jen's tummy that became her beautiful first born son? I am blessed to have one of those too. And my big fancy lawyer legal life? It's still there...but now I'm not. I'm home with my son full time. So naturally, I was eating humble pie when I thought of how surprised I had initially been to see Jen's comment. I'm embarrassed to say: I thought she was lying. I thought she was trying to convince people that life was better than it was or convince herself. Nope, nope, nope. A husband and a child were a dream come true. Hands down. But the story doesn't end there.
A few years later when I was on the phone with Jen and she commented on the stresses of life and babydom and making everything work. She said, "I'm just ready for things to not be so hard all the time." Um, what? My reaction was again disbelief. Jen now had two beautiful children, and the same great husband. Surely, whatever she is describing must be a case specific circumstance. It wouldn't happen to me. The total elation I felt every second wouldn't wear off, would it? Could it? This had to be a fluke. I remember nodding, but thinking, I won't feel this way. Ever. It's not going to happen to me. This parenting ship will be smooth sailing. I can differentiate my life and...." Pause. Quiet. Crickets chirping through the silence. My thoughts stopped there. And guess what? So did my reality. Jen said it first and she was right again.
It is so hard. Some days the word impossible comes to mind. I have made some changes I never thought I would (e.g. 10pm bedtime for myself, a night owl at heart) and so many countless others. And the all-day, all-night marathon of love, craziness, love, ecstasy, and many many parenting pitfalls continues...and the beat goes on and on and on.
These days I am still a mom to my one amazing son. Jen has two beautiful kids now. Next time she says something, my listening ears are on. They are perked up. And while I'm not waiting for premonitions of glory day or dooms day to come, I am taking the advice of those who come before me with a new level of seriousness. 'Cuz parenting can be totally fun or totally serious. It don't matter who says it when. But all the same, thanks for the insight, Jen.
It is so hard. Some days the word impossible comes to mind. I have made some changes I never thought I would (e.g. 10pm bedtime for myself, a night owl at heart) and so many countless others. And the all-day, all-night marathon of love, craziness, love, ecstasy, and many many parenting pitfalls continues...and the beat goes on and on and on.
These days I am still a mom to my one amazing son. Jen has two beautiful kids now. Next time she says something, my listening ears are on. They are perked up. And while I'm not waiting for premonitions of glory day or dooms day to come, I am taking the advice of those who come before me with a new level of seriousness. 'Cuz parenting can be totally fun or totally serious. It don't matter who says it when. But all the same, thanks for the insight, Jen.
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