Posts tagged selfishness

There’s a line in the novel I’m writing where one of the main characters ruminates on the fact that when a woman becomes a mother all the previous versions of herself cease to exist. Poof, they vanish into thin air - the mother who used to be a child, a teenager, a girlfriend, a delinquent, a scholar, a dreamer, a teacher, a seamstress, a CEO. All people see when they see her is MOTHER. The rest is just curious tidbits, anecdotes from another time, fun little details or memories that don’t really matter anymore. The character finds relief in this - the fact that she has a clear-cut, definite role in life and will no longer have to strive toward impossible goals or ‘make a mark’ or prove herself. Of course, this is 1970s Communist Poland, so it kind of makes sense. It’s a relief, for the young girl - she’s twenty-one when she gives birth - to let go of her past, all her disappointments, all her secret ambitions and whimsical wants. 

Honestly, I had a bit of a hard time writing this part, but it felt like the truth.

This morning I told myself all I wanted in the world was to sleep in and spend the day not doing anything for anyone else. I wanted to unmother. I got up at 8:59 - and I suppose anything past 6:30am is considered sleeping in - but still, I felt betrayed by my body. I had imagined waking up at noon and sauntering downstairs to a clean kitchen and the boys quietly reading books or better yet, to an empty house. I think that’s the thing we sometimes don’t want to admit - that on Mother’s Day it would be terribly wonderful (selfish, indulgent, bizarre, appropriate) to stop being a mother for a bit. To be alone with your thoughts. To pretend to be another version of who you once were. To say quite happily and matter-of-factly “Just leave me alone.”

I then realized - after I had made myself some coffee and listened to my youngest son read me all the Mother’s Day poems he’d worked on in school just for this morning (you’re the most lovable person in the world, when you lay down with me you really want to unlike other mothers, I’m the luckyest person to know you, everyone thinks you’re amazing, fun facts; you wrote a book, you were in a movie, you’re in the PTA) and then retreated to my office, youngest son my heels “it would be an honor to do anything for you today, do you want some tea?” - I realized, that my sons would never know who I used to be before I became their mother. Neither would my fellow mom girlfriends, or the teachers at my kids schools, or anyone on the checkout line at the grocery store. 

It’s strange thought, but it doesn’t make me sad, or upset, or mystified. Then I decided that I would work hard to clue my children in. To remind them. I would let them know that mothers are human beings capable of being selfish, desired, confused, emotional, needy, pre-occupied, wild, determined. Why would I do this?

So they would grow up into men who don’t expect to be catered to. Men who will understand that a woman doesn’t stop being a person when she becomes a mom. It’s as simple and intense as that.

So. I will continue to burrow away in my office and write. And not just when they’re in school. I will continue leaving the dishes in the sink, for days sometimes, because I just don’t fucking feel like dealing with messes twenty-four-seven. I will continue going on dates with Patrick, and putting on make-up, and cracking inappropriate jokes, and saying what is on my mind. I will try to lighten up and lighten my load. I will show them my trove of old journals - as they grown into teenagers and young adults - so they can read what it was like to be me when I pined for boys, wished for praise, slept late, made mistakes. I will continue making chore charts, and leaving laundry unfolded, and hanging out with my sisters, and reading books into the night. I will continue to gripe about my period, and tell everyone how tired I am. I will go on auditions, and write blogs, and show off new tattoos, and cry when I’m sad and not feel guilty when I seek out private, personal space in a house that accommodates such longing beautifully.

(Now list all the stuff you do as a mother, the sacrifices! the love! the PTA meetings, school lunches, and the volunteering work, and taking them to doctors appointments and cleaning out the garage, and reading them stories and hugs! cuddles! List some of that shit so the readers won’t think you’re… - that’s the voice in my head right now but I’m not giving in to it.)

Of course, easier said than done. Truth is it’s very hard to look at my own mother as a girl who once wanted to open her own confectionary store, or who fell for the “wrong guy” or who had lovers, or who cried because she felt alone or scared, or who sits and recalls who she once was. I take care of my mother and I have for years and so there’re layers of deep deep history here - but still when I look at her I see MOTHER first - a mother who triumphed or failed, a mother who was in over her head, a mother, mama, mom. 

I have to work very hard to change my perception, to forgive, to see past the wrinkles, the smile. To see the girl, and not the mother. 

We can try though. We can try to reveal our selves in ways that will help our kids - our partners - our own mothers - see the parts of us that are complicated and flawed and full of want. To help them remember that we once had a life that had nothing to do with them; we were young once and we dreamed of so much. Those dreams don’t die. They change form, they fold up, they ease up, they take a break. They’re on call. But they are still and forever inside of us, in our fiber, in the recesses of memory. Let’s tend them to those dreams a little bit more. As a gift to ourselves.