My van has a flat tire so we three are stranded at home today.
The shop was full up today and tomorrow; the earliest they can fit us in is Thursday. Tomorrow I’ll fill the tire to get to a doctor appointment and back home again, but it will only stay inflated long enough for that one trip.
The house is covered in detritus of all kinds; the flotsam and jetsam of life with two children of disparate ages. Nude Barbies mingle, somewhat obscenely, with furry, stuffed baby chicks. Unread copies of my New Yorker magazine (back after a long hiatus, an anniversary gift) lay unread on the bathroom floor.
Last night I fell asleep thinking that today would be a fine day, indeed. We’d stay home and bake brownies, do crafts. Maybe take a walk if the weather held.
Instead I’ve spent nearly four hours trying to clean the kitchen in between meals. I ate my own lunch standing up, typing emails with one hand.
I’m restless. I didn’t envision this life. I know it lurked in the corner of my eye. In my heart of hearts, I knew motherhood would be mostly drudgery, interspersed with split seconds of blinding joy.
And it is exactly that.
Nights when I hold the baby and feel his sleepy heart beating the slow rhythm of bedtime. Stolen moments when my daughter looks up at me with my father’s eyes and smiles, saying, “I love you with all my heart, Mom, you especially.”
Then there are days like today, days my own mother told me about, as the song goes.
I want so much to want this, all of it. I want to embrace the dirt and the disorganization. I want to smile peacefully like Lady Madonna and subvert the desire to work for my own enjoyment. I want the constant push-pull of my life to subside.
I want to feel rooted, content, happy.
I am happy, mostly. I made the right choices for me and my family. My brain knows that. But content? Rarely. Days like today, I yearn for an office with a door.
In my mind’s eye I see it. It is yellow, bright and cheery. I have a plant. And a view. Sometimes when the phone rings, I ignore it. I write the novel in the back of my head, the one about a young teenage expatriate. I craft carefully researched feature stories.
At 5 p.m. I close—and lock—the door, and then I go home to my family.
The reality is much messier. Most days that’s OK. Today, though, I feel stranded and restless.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, I think you just summed up most days at my house. But with prettier prose than I could muster. (Makes me feel slightly guilty that I have a part-time job at which I can escape twice a week for 8 hours.)
Hope the tire-fixing day comes faster than you think!
Kerrie’s last blog post..It Feels Like We Were Just Marred
There are days I feel like that now. When I work till two in the morning and come home to a house still just as dirty as it was when I left. Where are the mice from Cinderella?
Jennifer’s last blog post..Female sexuality of the teenage persuasion.
Interesting.
I was a stay at home mom until my daughter went to middle school. My life was crazy and hectic with kid activities and messes and emotions. When I felt that my daughter was old enough and she was involved with great kids with great families and wholesome activities that were giving her opportunities to learn leadership and responsibility beyond her home, I went to work.
It has been 25 years since I joined the business world. I managed to rise to the top of an organization without too many bruises and overall, I am pleased with the decision I made to work outside the home all those years ago.
Today, however, I am tired of going to work everyday. I find being on call 24/7 to be an intrusion on my time. Managing staff can sometimes be harder than cleaning a house with kids underfoot. I live for weekends when I wake up in the morning when my body decides it is time to wake up. I am ready for a change. I have some work to do on my now sad retirement account and then…
I would love to spend my days with my pre-school granddaughter. BUT I am older now and getting down on the floor to play with Barbies is always followed by a painful journey back to the standing position. I also find that running results in painful knees for a few days afterwards and I’ll be darned if they haven’t made the swing set seats smaller since the last time I spent time at the play ground!
Get this album! http://cdbaby.com/cd/sister
One of my favorite songs when my children were little and I felt like I was in the thick of it, was “I asked for Rain”
I know it is hard to see right now, but it will get easier, or at least different. My kiddos are 10, 9 and 6 right now and it truly is easier than when they were 1, 3 and 4!
I knew there was drudgery, but it is still harder than I thought. It is hard to keep your eyes open for those blindingly wonderful moments some days. I think all mothers go through this. Perhaps it is like childbirth, and we forget it in a haze as we get older. I hope.
Life in Eden’s last blog post..She’ll be comin’ round …
Oh, I totally know that restless feeling. Not pleasant.
“I knew motherhood would be mostly drudgery, interspersed with split seconds of blinding joy.”
Perfect. That sums it up perfectly. I know the restless feeling and you have put it into words so perfectly. One minute I am holding one in my arms and feeling my heart so full and the next they are fighting and whining and I just want to escape. I have a part-time job teaching kindergarten, but escaping to a room full of 26 more kids is not much of an escape. But still, there are adults there and if they don’t behave, I can call their mothers instead of BE their mother.
In the Fall I may return to being a stay-at-home mom because I will be laid-off on June 30. I will have a 3 year-old, a 5 year-old and a newborn in September. Although there are many wonderful things about staying home, there are also many things I dread. The isolation, the monotony, the feeling that I am never good enough…
Thank you for giving words to the feelings that I am afraid to acknowledge. I think you speak for many of us.
Janine’s last blog post..Who Knew?
The only way I get to “read” The New Yorker these days is to listen to the podcast. Thank goodness for Audible.com. It’s not the same, but it’s better than nothing!
I’m going to have to ditto some of Kerrie’s post. My husband is the breadwinner, mortgage payer, etc but I still work weekends as a waitress. Why? Cuz it keeps me sane. I (not so) jokingly tell my customers that weekends are my “days off”. I’ve got one toddler that I love to pieces but dang do Monday-Fridays drag on. Throw in two partially trained dogs and three cats…guhh.
I think you’re in need of a high five. They always put me in a better mood.
*High Five*
Aww…sweetie…we all have days like that.
I have a shiny door and a big job and some mornings when I am bustling about getting Graham to the babysitter I think I would give anything to snuggle with him on the couch and emrace the chaos of the house instead of heading off to work…such is life.
Don Mills DIva’s last blog post..And the cute one’s will shall be done
I have something to warn you about. This is the detritus I am faced with, created by an 18 year old boy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/starxlr8/3497104301/
The only difference is the obscenity becomes intentional.