I’ve been looking over my shoulder, frequently. I’m waiting for the parenting police to show up and take away my license. I know that they’re sitting around shaking their heads at this very minute wondering how I was ever allowed mom privileges in the first place.
They’re right, you know. I’m extraordinarily guilty. Guilty of crimes, guilty for crimes.
What have I done? Well, I’ve been selfish, I entertain the most selfish thoughts on a minutely basis (this being 60 times more frequent then an hourly basis), and I crave more selfishness. I want it to be all about me.
- I want to hide away in my bed and read whenever I can.
- I want to work 20 hours a day on my writing, weekends included.
- I want to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
- I don’t want to clean.
- I don’t want to make 20 construction helmets or motorcycles or excavators out of molding beeswax.
- I want to listen to my music.
- I want to yell, ‘FUCKING HELL!’ when my Blackberry implodes and not get ‘in trouble’ for it.
- …should I go on?
You know what this feels like? PMS, though it’s lasted way too long to be PMS. It reminds me of that special flavor of PMS where you can’t stand to have anyone touch you, talk to you or look at you. And everything just feels wrong. It’s like I need to be in a little room all by myself…(hmmm…one with padded walls?).
Of course, I’m being entirely melodramatic…I’m not to the point of needing a straight jacket. But, I need something. I’m going away next week for a few days to work with a client on a writing project, and I’ll have some time to work on my own writing…but will it be enough?
Though that isn’t the real question. The real question is, should I get to have everything that I want? When I signed up for this mom/wife thing, did I sign my life away? Do I get it back when they go to college? Or can I have it now. Or never?
Which reminds me. My mom, 66, is here for the summer with us. She retired in January…and she’s having a hard time reconciling her new retired life. She’s part of what’s been driving me crazy, by the way. I thought she was just annoying me, but as I write this post, I’m realizing it’s something else. Here she is with nothing but time to pursue her passions - nothing is holding her, she can be as selfish as she wants. And she’s just piddling the days away. She’s not doing anything, or more accurately, she’s not doing what I would do.
What the hell is she waiting for? What am I waiting for? Do I really need permission, am I really hogtied? Could I spend less timing being pissed and more timing doing what I want? And if so, why I am so hellbent on getting in my own way?
Anyone? Anyone?
Image credit: Txspiked
Julie, I think about this all the time. My kids are 10 and 7, so they don’t need me every second, but even so I often feel as though I could use a few hours, or days, or weeks, or even months to myself.
Some of that time I’d probably do nothing. And some of it I’d be writing. And some of it I’d be reconnecting with friends who are dealing with many of the same issues. But during none of it would I be leaving my desk for the 10th time to make sure all the shampoo was out of a child’s hair, or making three different dinners to satisfy picky eaters, or folding boy underwear, or even talking with my husband (sorry M).
You’re not crazy. It’s not PMS. It’s too little time, too many demands.
Also: I fantasize about the little house that’s just mine and no one else’s. Is this normal? My little house has a porch with a padded chair, a hammock in the living room, pink or red or orange or yellow walls, a mural in the kitchen. In my little house the A/C is on whenever the outside temperature goes above 75 and no one complains. And there are no huge piles of other people’s stuff.
Tell me this is normal….
I demand that it is normal! Thank you for your wonderful comment. I’d never fantasized about my own house - but now it’s all I can think about. Mine would come with a laundress, a chef, a personal trainer and a dishwasher (the human kind).
The other day I was shelving books in a new bookshelf I had built, and I came across a text of mine from college, Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.” Woolf writes about the idea that a woman must ave money and a “room of her own” if she is write like Shakespeare did. And while she might be talking about authors primarily, her words apply in a larger sense to the need for all of us to have some kind of personal liberty. Even (yes!) from kids. Or husbands. Or wives. Or dogs who need to be walked. Or whatever.
Woolf wrote “Room” in 1929… so clearly we’re not unique. Or alone. Thank god for that.
But now that I think of it, I rather like Erika’s fantasy of a whole house… really, why limit your mind?
Ann. I love this comment. If I’ve written about Virginia and her manifesto at least 1% of the amount of times that I’ve thought about it, then I’ve written about her a LOT. I love this connection. And I agree, go big, think big. Shit, I want my own village.
“Anyone? Anyone?”
Raising hand high…I’m mom to an almost one- and almost four-year-old. Coincidentally my husband was reminiscing today that our last real adventure vacation was, hmm, let me see, almost five years ago! We the later-in-life parents who were supposed to have all “that” out of our systems by the time we had kids. Turns out “that” was the satisfying, fulfilling adult lives - work, hobbies, community volunteering - we had built up over 35 years in my case, 40 in my husband’s. Balance that against participating in the umpteenth rendering of a crayon snowman or recitation of “Tikki Tikki Tembo.” Yeah, it’s out of whack. But I’m supposed to pretend it’s not, perpetuate the parenting fairytale I fell for.
Yes, I’m being melodramatic too, but not very much! Especially after a day of struggling with a two-thirds potty trained three year old. Your essay made my day. Thanks.
Cari