musings of a melancholic

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And my personal favorite:

Easter 2013 Easter 2014

Happy Spring and Fertility.

crm

More Easter photos here.

Even MORE Easter photos here.

It has been an unspeakable kind of Winter, but with new streaks of sun motivating me to scrub scary dark places and organize neglected pan cupboards, I think I shall endeavor to speak it.

I have been in hibernation for 22 months. Yes, I suppose I have always been unsatisfied as a stay-at-home-mom, this much is true. It wasn't that it wasn't meaningful work or even that I was unhappy, but that it was not enough to make me be the most me.

I had been actively looking for work for almost two years, and had all but given up on the search when my previous employer contacted me about a technical writing position (one I had, in fact, applied for several months ago, but they took me on as a contractor instead).

I jumped at the chance and for exactly the 15 minute ride home from the job offer meeting to arriving at Jess's to pick up Bowie, I was elated, empowered, and really excited.

Then something odd happened. I started feeling these chords yanking, these ties binding. They were not unwanted, and their presence wasn't entirely a surprise; however, their intensity surely was! The bond with Bowie had always been there, but without it being yanked on, I suppose I didn't realize how strong it was. For the next three weeks (to now, as I write), I have been decidedly heartsick. No one I knew could watch Bowie full time, so I was left with having to hire a nanny.

I realize so many people do this, and so many people have practice that I never had at leaving their kids with people they didn't know (and how I will become accustomed as well, building a necessary callous to the pain). I realize now how hard it is for people to leave their children, how many people we interact with daily are in a torn place, actively fighting guilt and confusion about how to maintain themselves, their work, and their families. Surely I wasn't carefree before kids (have I ever been carefree without help from gin?), but it's awfully tempting to remember it thusly. The freedom of decisions, the leaving the house easily, the simplicity.

I looked around me and began to notice that perhaps every parent feels these yanks when they are apart from their children. My thoughts further horrified me into realizing that perhaps these yanks NEVER STOP. When I wanted a baby, I wanted a BABY. I never thought fully about the fact that she would spend the majority of her life on earth NOTWITHME. Perhaps it gets easier, perhaps not.

These thoughts spiraled me into a pit of mud-soaked anxiety and deep weepiness. My heart began to feel bigger than my brain. Where once I had developed a logical distance from Bowie's crying, now every single time she cries I am flooded with horrible visions of abandonment and sadness. I cried during the singing time at preschool. I cried making her breakfast. I cried in my bedroom while trying to work from home and hearing her say my name desperately. This reaction bothered me, yes because I fancy myself an evolved mother who can see beyond her instincts (I KNOW she is not abandoned or traumatized, but feeling the transition deeply and doesn't know what to expect each day now), but more because it hurt. It fucking hurt.

I think I am more dealing with the truth of my long-term place in Bowie's life than I am about leaving her with a nanny for the next months. I will not know everything about her from now on, know everything she ate or said, know how much she slept, know her mood. My job is to raise someone to take care of themselves and in so doing extend themselves and their own resources out into the world. I cannot keep us in this bubble, this little stage of life where it's just she and I and we sit at home and read. Not only because I can't, but more importantly - because I don't want to, and that simply has to mean something.

I need help; I need work; I need my own thing. I need Bowie to see a woman pursuing herself and working outside of the home (or staying home) as an empowered, free choice. Not just because she has to financially (another nuanced question to wrestle with here. It's hard to think that we are all miserable because I wanted this change, not because life forced it upon us. It's my doing.), but because she is most fulfilled in this manner.

Oh, the shitshow that was finding a nanny. I thought I had one that was fabulous, but she took another position in a strange miscommunication. I then flew up my mom last minute, and she stayed with Bowie for two weeks while I interviewed and hired someone else. 15 conversations, 7 candidates, 5 interviews, 1 hired nanny from SPU (she's awesome! English Lit major!) and then all the logistics of training and care. So.Ex.x.x.hausting.

But then there was the work, the work that I wanted so badly, the work that would make the leaving her okay. Only it wasn't. It never will be. That sick little punch-to-the-gut lesson being learned, I began to enjoy the work immensely. I am doing more marketing technical writing than technical writing, and I absolutely love it so far. I get to be on the cutting edge of exciting technology AND get PAID TO WRITE. PAIDREALMONIESTOWRITEWORDS. It's magic. Each task feels almost tailor-made to my desires and strengths, and the work culture is fabulous. My manager is perfectly suited to me (former teachers unite) and I have the flexibility in scheduling I need. There are significant challenges in staying creative all day, but I welcome the use of atrophied brain muscles.

First day of work bathroom self-portrait

I want both lives; I guess I'm greedy that way. But I do feel severed. Heart-wrenchingly torn. Stuck between two shores of a lake like a canoe set adrift **. I am buried in it and holding on. It's harder than I ever imagined.

But I know myself, know what I need to be happy, and have done everything in my power to make sure Bowie knows she is loved and known. I've taken pains to ensure that this new person in her life will be just another chapter in the Bowie book, the same story I've been telling her all along.

Bowie, you are loved and love is everything.
Bowie, look up.
Bowie, you are worth attention and respect.
Bowie, you are independent and capable.
Bowie, you are a part of something bigger than yourself and you must contribute your passions to find meaning.
Bowie, you are not immune to the confusing conflicts of life.
Bowie, you are allowed to be scared.
Bowie, you are never alone.
Bowie, you have your own story and the power and support to write it however you desire.
Bowie, you have to learn to let go and are able to courageously adapt.
Bowie, dance it out.
Bowie, question everything.
Bowie, be courageous, but know that caution is not lack of courage. Be wise.
Bowie, live long and prosper.

It's the same story I read myself night after night.
It's a page turner.

crm

**my favorite song/band right now. sorry about the lude cover, but it makes me laugh.

Journal Entry

21 (or 20?) feb 2014

I sit at the new table Joel found for us. He and Tice went on a clandestine mission to retrieve it from a craigslist seller and then hid it in the garage until xmas morning. It's great, actually. Copper and wood. Circular and modest, though interesting. The last 4 nights, we've sat at it all together for dinner. Usually, we feed Bowie around 6pm in the kitchen. Then as one person bathes her and puts her to bed, the other makes grown-up dinner - having always horded that time alone together. She's beginning to enter the stage where it's better to eat with her in order to model table manners and family connection, and we've also noticed ourselves to be in a rut...making a late dinner and eating while watching Star Trek until 10:30pm or so. So this way, we are working to face each other again. It was awkward and unpracticed at first (surprising to us how quickly we'd lose the skill, since the majority of our marriage was spent at a dinner table), but now I feel deeply satisfied and fulfilled by the new routine. New routines always fill me, though not at first. Two weeks in, I'm inspired and impressed with the human desire and ability to change. Going on four weeks of keeping to a workout regimen has made me quite satisfied with myself.

I sit at the new table Joel found for us. I hear my music played in the living room. Ambient but full of movement and peace. The sound of black sky pushing stars to the front of the line. I hear my husband speaking praises to Bowie enthusiastically as he gives her a bath. I hear the shower gently pelting the bath water, a new routine of hers...to sit in the water but run the shower. Playing in warm rain. Closing the curtain and asking for privacy. Joel encouraging, laughing, instructing her, giving her little challenges. "Can you reach that soap bottle?" "Want to relax?" This is when she will lay back and he'll hold her afloat. She'll often loose herself in his eyes and quietly say, 'Papa.'

I sit at the new table Joel found for us. I'm purposefully neglecting the sound in my head that tells me I'm neglecting my duties. Usually, I would be cleaning the kitchen or straightening her toys or putting out pjs and turning on the space heater in her bedroom. We've made an agreement that if one person does bath/bed, the other cleans or cooks or gets ready for the evening in some way (pouring more wine, lighting candles, queuing up Star Trek), but Joel has told me he doesn't mind if I relax (what's new? I've NEVER heard him say otherwise) so I sit here at the new table. Dishes still uncleared, food consumed. These plates literally an empty symbol of the privilege I possess to fill the bellies of my family, aching as I imagine what it must feel like to not be able to. I made Ina Garten's meatloaf recipe and mashed potatoes with rosemary salt and sweet corn. I'm nursing a French Sav Blanc, Joel opened a Spanish blend (grenace/monastrell).

I sit at the new table Joel found for us and check in with myself. Yes, the familiar fatigue. The same nagging question. The eternal presence of discontent which asks too much of me; a lie that always wraps up the lives of others' into more beautiful packages. Motherhood keeps me so busy, though I couldn't tell you at what. I want something more, but I cannot conceive of a way to add or sustain anything else. Writing has been on the back burner in lieu of mirepoix and caramelizing onions and chopping garlic. Reading turned over a new leaf and now I exercise, making me too tired to read when I used to - at nap time and bed time. A new satisfaction, but an empty journal and neglected piles of library books.

I sit at the new table Joel found for us and marvel at our power and determination of connection, considering how different our lives are right now. The most divergent they've ever been. He, in a constant barrage of conversation, tasks, and stimulation as time bolts from his day. Me, in a constant barrage of shallow solitude, that is to say I am alone, but never quiet. Too much reflection, not enough purpose. Not enough of the tasks that make me feel important and too much of the tasks that actually are important. It's confusing.

Later, I'll clear the table and smirk at Joel's voice reading to Bowie. She has such an opinion quite suddenly regarding the books she wants to read. Smugly, I love that she prefers the BabyLit books (esp Wuthering Heights). I'm illogically proud, and then I remember that to be a good parent is to force your kids to like cool things.

After I leave this table, I'll sink into the hand-me-down couch next to Joel and watch Star Trek (Voyager. Our 2nd time through.) We'll finish off our bottles. We'll eat something sweet. We'll say goodnight.