Maybe every mom sometimes feels like Everymom
This is so odd. Searching for some tax info and came across this outrageously prosaic "Everymom" stuff written in 2009.
No matter how many dishes you do, they're never done, no matter how many meals are prepared, someone's still hungry, no matter how many clothes you pick up off the floor, it still looks like a group of 1st-graders went tearing through your house with a costume parade. The things that always used to fit into the in-between, never-think-about-it, this-doesn't-matter-at-all moments, that minutiae, has become the center.
I don't remember feeling that, really, or at least not in a despondent, is-it-noon-yet-so-I-can-have-a-vodka-tonic way? What I do remember feeling (and still often feel) is how odd it is that I think about things now like: grocery shopping, laundry, errands. I make To Do lists. I wonder what we'll have for dinner tonight (not that I usually go much further than that). I sigh at the dishwasher being clean again. HOW SPOILED CAN YOU POSSIBLY GET IN LIFE? I mean really. Really. That is appalling. But I often find myself thinking--I just unloaded that thing. It's so friggin' annoying to unload and Wally alternates between climbing on it or yanking the bottom shelf out as hard as he can so he can hear a big, loud, crash and me going "Oh Sh----". Most people turn sh*t into shoot or I remember "sugar" was popular when I was young but I do this annoying thing, "Shikes". Hate it. It annoys me so much when I say it.
How did I live nearly 32 years without ever ONCE thinking about when I'd do laundry, shop, cook, eat or clean? Never once. It just happened or didn't or I picked up a slice of pizza on the way to the studio or whatever. And now how is it like a daily, hourly concern? I mean it's not hard to figure out why but I remember a few years back how some friends with kids had the "laundry on Tuesdays" thing or weekends spent putting Christmas ornaments away or Sundays dedicated to errands and housework. And I was always like, "What on EARTH is going on?" And they had to leave early from drinks nights. And you're like -- come on, you can't you spend one night away from your kids? Would it really kill you? But maybe it wasn't even the kids they didn't want to spend the night away from, maybe it was themselves. Maybe they got so little space to themselves, just fifteen minutes or less every day, after the kids had gone to bed, maybe to give even that up was too much of a sacrifice. (Also hangovers are one thing in an office but they don't work with dishwasher crashing.)
It’s the old don’t judge someone before you’ve walked a mile in their Birkenstocks, I guess.
On the back of that page in my journal is a rather amusing list..banana slugs, annual hot dog eating contest, length of intestines, waterbugs, cockroaches, dust mites. It was a book proposal. I don't know if anyone ever ended up taking it.
Sometimes you really just nail the most appropriate way to put something. For us, the only time we get alone is that hour or hour and a half after bedtime when i can just be in a comatose state without anyone asking me to do anything or insisting that I direct my attention towards them....it does get easier when they're a bit more independent but I still spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about the labors of everyday life with kids!
ReplyDeleteLuckily Josh thinks about all the stuff for me :) Although I will say that emptying the dishwasher beats the alternative - not having one!
ReplyDeleteThe other reason to leave drink nights early is that you know you're not sleeping in the next morning.
ReplyDeletexo,
d
Tessa's comment is nearly a non-compliment. I love it!!!
ReplyDeleteI think if you took away "really just" it'd maybe be a non-compliment. I took it as a compliment and was so grateful for the understanding. "insisting that I direct my attention toward them" is great--yes that alone can be SO AGGRAVATING. The mom job ca be so isolating at times that you're desperate for that resounding "me too".
ReplyDeleteRhonda-I completely agree and it's so embarrassing that I even ever think that. D - I never think of you as a leave-drink-nights early person, but I guess I don't associate you with being out drinking in the first place. But the fact that you're not sleeping in the next day, or the next or the next or the next or the next until...I guess when they're in middle school or something and start sleeping a little later?
Umm...this might just be a sign of aging. As a kidless 30 something, I think about the minutae of dealing with life organization a lot more than in my 20s - i can only imagine that kids aggravate that but you can't discount the aging phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 10:05 - great point. It might have started happening anyway - health insurance, savings plans,
ReplyDeleteI just say "shit." I am surely going to hell.
ReplyDeleteJess
I have to admit I only say "shikes" when other people are around. We were always allowed to do swear in our house. My parents thought kids had enough rules to follow without worrying about accidentally saying "f*ck" at the dinner table. They were very clear on big and little. Big-- make sure your kids aren't smoking crack or driving drunk. Little -- messy rooms, swearing, etc. In fact this makes me think that I shouldn't worry about it, even in front of others. Why do I? I'm gonna stop.
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteLove the mile in Birkenstocks line, and my boys would love to read a book that used that list including the dust mites and intestine length. So I fear "dating" myself here, but I have to admit I left a poetry slam early one night because...I was just too tired. I thought, what's wrong with me? But, time alone is so rare, that often I'd rather spend it with a cup of tea and my journal getting a grip on any thought that doesn't have to do with above minutae. Maybe when all three kids are in school my social self will reappear. Netflix is my idea of "getting out"...I know...sad...
or just right for being a writer?!