separate spirits.

by postscriptgirl

as much as i love my son…  love him enough to spend 24/7 taking care of him.  playing with him.  changing him.  bathing him.  laughing with him.  keeping him as one of my highest priorities.  living life alongside him…

i also love myself.  

i love myself enough to recognize when it’s time to carve out space for myself.  for my partner. and have fun and live life apart from my son at times.

i know this is a hard thing for so many moms (and dads) but i think it’s essential…  not in a showy, weird ‘let’s have a date night’ cliche kind of way where you sort of hate it the whole time but ‘hey!  we went out!’…  i’m not a proponent of that bullshit.

i’m talking more about figuring out what moves you and what you love and then making sure that stuff happens for you a lot.  not just once or twice a year.

i was watching a t.v. show yesterday where two sisters were chatting about how one was ‘not interested in socializing’ now that she has kids.  she said, ‘i go out to dinner and after thirty minutes i want to go home and see my kids.  i just don’t know how people do it.’

i, at once, both empathized with this sentiment (i own the fact that i miss mo after about two hours away from him…) and pitied it.  it’s such an amazing gift to love your children and to HAVE children and to enjoy being with them.

it’s also an amazing gift to love yourself (you’re a person worth loving too!).

everyone knows the couple who has kids and never gets time to go out – just the two of them.  excuse me…  never MAKES time to go out…  just the two of them.  of course you

–have to get a sitter

–don’t have anything to wear

–miss your kids while you’re gone (it’s not worth it…)

–can’t afford a sitter

etc. etc. etc.

but what happens when your kids get a little older and they start to see you as a separate person — one with beauty and flaws — and they look to you as an example for how to live life?  what happens then?

are you boring?  routine?  an individual?  in love with your partner?  trying new things?  spending time by yourself?  creative?  interesting?  open?

who are you for them?  what will they see?

this isn’t some kind of checklist for you to get all worked up over.  not one bit.  you don’t have to check off, ‘spent time by myself for 15 minutes today while making tea.  check.’  this is just a ‘who are you for your kids?  who are you for the world — apart from your kids?’

i’ve often heard it said that one of the healthiest and most powerful things you can do for your kids is have an amazing relationship with your partner.  i would add to it that it seems important also for you to have an amazing relationship with your self.

are you working out?  are you reading?  are you inspired?

it’s ok if you’re not.  there doesn’t need to be judgement…  just a sense of noticing.  like an observer of your own self.  be the witness to who you are and how you are perceived by your kids.

what do you want your kids to say about you someday?

for me {currently} it’s, ‘my mom was so much fun.  she was always laughing when we were together.  she was there for me when i needed her.  she practiced yoga and had a lot of friends and liked to cook and she and my dad are best friends.  i remember them going out together all the time and coming home happy.’  i could go on and on but that kind of sums up the basics.

i don’t want my son to think that being a parent means being stressed.  or overweight.  or never having time for yourself.  or cleaning the house constantly.  or never going out.  or losing all of your friends.  or watching a lot of television.  i also don’t want him to think it’s living in chaos and filth or never having time to cook or bake something delicious.

i would really love for him to want to be a parent because we made it look REAL and sometimes messy but often beautiful and fun and that creating a family was a joy and made us all feel alive & not bored & tired & grumpy & stressed………………

your kids deserve the best of you.  and so does your partner.  and so do YOU.  and if you aren’t getting the best of you then neither are the people around you.

one of my greatest fears about becoming a mother was that i would lose myself.  i feared i would only have the ‘mom’ identity and the rest would be blown to pieces the instant i fell in love with my baby’s new, bright spirit.

i’ll tell you what.  i can totally see now how that happens.  i get it.  i get how the mom identity can take over your whole world.  it’s amazing and it takes a lot of time and energy and women (including myself) pride themselves on doing it well.  it can become an obsession.

i would argue (and some may disagree — there will always be those who disagree…) that ANYTHING — even working to be a great mom — when it takes over EVERYTHING else — can lead to feeling out of balance and out of power and ultimately lead to burnout and resentment.

i know that’s a hard pill to swallow but i do think it’s got some truth in it.

as mat and mo and i reach the 6 month mark, i find myself feeling more and more like myself.  i’ve heard this is pretty common for a lot of moms.  after 9 months of pregnancy and a childbirth and a newborn phase, i kind of feel like i’m emerging from a haze.  a beautiful, dewy, sun-shining-through-the-clouds-like-morning kind of haze.  but a haze nonetheless.

my hormones have settled down a bit.  i don’t feel like i can’t leave mo for an hour or two here and there or something bad is going to happen.  (i think that feeling is fairly evolutionary.  moms are meant to be close to their tiny babies all of the time for survival!)… i feel like i actually want to leave sometimes.  i want to go to yoga.  i want to go to the grocery store.  i want to have dinner with mat.  i’m o.k with mo not being there.

{whoa.  i just said wrote that out loud.}

am i alone in thinking this is o.k?  not just o.k but actually kind of great?

i used to nanny for a family — who i LOVED — with two little girls.  the mom was a lawyer and she was someone who also had a life of her own.  she went to yoga and she was part of a roller derby league.  she was someone i looked up to.  she told me once that going out made her a better mommy.

i see it now.  she felt she could be fully present to her kids – without resentment or feeling depleted – if she gave herself the things that made her feel alive and happy.  it makes sense, right?

i’ve noticed this thing in mommyhood where women compare with each other and like to share battle stories and prove how hardcore they are {‘i haven’t slept in 3 years!!!’ or ‘we haven’t had a date since 2010!’ or ‘going to the grocery store is like a vacation for me!’}.  they’re saying it as though they’re complaining or sad about it — like, ‘how pathetic is this???’ but there’s also this hidden pride like, ‘i’m really devoted to my family.  i’m really selfless’.

have you heard this stuff before?  maybe said it yourself?  i know i have.

i’m declaring right now – for myself – that i’m not impressed.  i’m not impressed with moms who’s whole universe is their kids with no space for anyone or anything else.  i’m just not.  and when i find myself only having things to say about mo and nothing else then i know i’ve gone a bit over the deep end and need to reign it in.

mat is fond of saying ‘people who’s jobs are the most important thing about them — are not very interesting people’.  the same could be said of motherhood.

if it’s the ONLY thing you’ve got going then maybe you’re selling yourself (and your sweet little family) short?

go out and play!  spread your wings.  breathe a little in a space that’s only for you.  leave your guilt and your baggage and your ‘i shouldn’t be doing this’ sentiments at home & explore who you are for an hour or two.

…

mat and i have been out quite a few times since mo was born but we always rushed home to mo — leaving our half-finished dates at the sushi restaurant or wherever we had gone for an hour.  last night we took mo to my sister’s house and went out to dinner and then to a favorite bar and we laughed in the freezing cold while we clipped along the sidewalk in our open coats and we remembered things and we connected over things and we felt like us.  the us who exists separate from (yet still connected to) moses.  the adult us who isn’t cooing or cuddling or changing a little bum.

so.  we we dressed up and went to luxe and i chewed on the cherry stem from my drink and we polished off a pizza and we talked to the bartender about movies and we thought about going to the capitol theater and then we changed our minds and we wished we had dressed warmer and we whispered about a girl at the happy dog who mat used to have a huge crush on and we ran to our car in the freezing snow and we listened to our favorite music on the way home…

and…

it felt like us.

and…

us is not something i am willing to sacrifice.

not even for the sweetest-little-man-to-ever-rock-my-world who’s smile alone has an addictive quality that is challenging to leave for the night…

no, no.

there will be no sacrificing here.  there will just be love on love on love.

love abundant.

love for me.  love for mat.  love for mo.

and no one is getting ripped off.

xxx

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