I will be offering women the opportunity to explore their identities and where mother and self intersect through reflection and writing. There will be several ways to do this – including an interactive one right here on my blog – but my inaugural offerings will be local in-person events this month. I’d love for you to join me on this journey!
My last post, The Kids are All Right, elicited a lot of feelings and reactions. More than I expected actually.
I always view difficulties through the lens of mental illness vs health, but those I outlined last Tuesday struck a chord with many moms across the spectrum.
That doesn’t mean there is an epidemic of maternal mental illness – though there is an underreported and underserved population for sure. It only underscores what every mother already knows: motherhood is extremely trying.
Every age and every stage has its challenges, which usually present themselves directly after one set has been deciphered and conquered. But add in a post-pandemic, high-inflation, middle-age slump (at least for me and my contemporaries) and even getting out of bed seems like a monumental feat.
There are many systemic and cultural constructs that make up the fabric of our current constraints – and yes, there needs to be change at those levels. But what can one mother do as she looks at her own face in the mirror?
She needs to be clear on what motherhood means to her. What it looks like. What is non-negotiable and what falls under should. What has to occur/or not for her to be able to rest her head on her pillow at night and not toss and turn.
This does not preclude those around her from supportive responsibility. But the reality is, she likely will have to recruit this, too.
Self-care has been co-opted as a concept by the those who can make money off face masks and body poufs, candles and cocoa butter. But taken at its literal meaning, mothers need stop gaps to release the daily pressure of motherhood.
Mothers need stop gaps to release the daily pressure of motherhood.
In the everyday rush of responsibility and running on empty, however, caring for oneself can be just one more item on an already too-long-list.
Sometimes it is quiet and solitude. Sometimes it is community. Sometimes it is rest. Sometimes it is activity.
Surviving motherhood is a constant balancing act. Hopefully we don’t get turned around in the process.
No, this is not an account of my latest exercise endeavors. The only personal story I have about treadmills is my daughter’s run-in with one that ended in road-rash (see what I did there?). That still makes me giggle. Don’t judge. It was her own fault. I’m pretty much in love with OK Go’s endeavors on treadmills, too.
But me, no.
Which is ironic because I’m on one every damn minute of every damn day – the metaphoric treadmill of motherhood.
Maybe it’s unfair to blame all of my mania on motherhood. There probably is some part of my personality that would still schedule me to my utmost limit – but it’s hard to imagine what life would be like if I ‘only’ had to work without the constraints and constancy of mothering. And even pre-kid working me would binge watch Trading Spaces in a blob on the couch after a particularly hectic day of work.
Now, when I get the chance to step off the treadmill, I’m like that blob – but without the decision-making capabilities of any grey matter. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the grey matter used for ‘personal’ decision-making is so underused it has atrophied.
When we get off the treadmill so infrequently, our bodies and minds know not what to do without the cycle and incessant motion. Being at rest is so foreign, that part of ourselves we’ve shoved down for so long is like a salamander with a light shone on it.
That part that cultivates hobbies, interests, passions; rest, rejuvenation, relaxation. That little corner inside ourselves closest to our souls. The part that should be getting more play, not the least amount possible. Not so little that when it can come out to play, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.
By some stroke of luck and generosity, I find myself alone and stuffing my face with donuts. I’m also sipping on a caramel-sea salt-molasses-coffee concoction. The caffeine and sugar combination is already thumping in my veins and lining my blood sugar up on the cliff. BUT what else does one do when you can stuff your face with forbidden foods without little people’s pleading eyes killing your buzz? Yoga without a little person sitting on your head or smashing into your pelvis while you try to relax into savasana? A warm bath with the aromatic soaks your friend handcrafted!? Scrap some of the eight-thousand photos that would bring you into the last decade? Write that folktale you’ve been ruminating on? Or the several posts you’ve been marinating? Or actually get down ideas for the next big jump in your life?
Or you could stand in the middle of your living room floor, holding onto your phone with your atrophied little T-Rex arms and scroll Facebook on your browser – not the app because you took it off your phone for Lent so you wouldn’t go on FB so much – and not sitting down because that would mean it’s not just a temporary distraction to which you’re not totally committed. You could stand there and fill the void with more vacuous activity instead of plucking one valuable thing out of the myriad you haven’t had a chance for in so long. You can give in to the confounding paralysis that comes from wishing desperately for more time and then desperately wanting to do all that you’ve missed out on once you get a bit – that you do nothing. You could also invite your anxiety in so that even watching Trading Spaces or whatever binge-worthy show has replaced it is ruined because you can’t let go of the things you’re not doing.
The answer, I suppose, is to get more free time; take more free time. Part of that is impossible because – treadmill. Part of that is more difficult because of my ‘prepping for a sub is more work than a day of teaching’ theory. And a huge – perhaps the most insurmountable – part of it is breaking ourselves of the mental and emotional habits that have led to this. Yes, we can be angry at the treadmill, curse the unseen figures that keep turning it on and programming it to higher, faster levels, but we need to learn how to unplug it, unplug ourselves. So that even when we get some time, we don’t spend the whole time trying to unwind.
Now I face the insurmountable task of unwinding with a gob of caffeine floating throughout my system. I’ll let you know how savasana goes. Or maybe I’ll have an energized bout of writing. I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.
Chopping Potatoes 