Mother, Uninterrupted: A List of Things I Want to Do During My First Weekend Alone Since Giving Birth

My weekend alone has officially begun. Cedar and his baba are off to stay with Grandma in Olympia, and I have the good part of two days and one night to do ANYTHING I WANT. UNINTERRUPTED. Without a ticking clock at my back counting down the minutes until I will need to be on duty again (at least not yet, anyway). And so what WILL I do exactly? The choices are abundant. I know I will not get to do everything on my list, but I will be satisfied if I manage to accomplish a key few. Here are the possibilities:

1. Clean. Okay, this obviously should not belong on this list, much less be at the very top, but it must be mentioned (especially since it is the first thing I proceeded to do once they walked out the door). I did the dishes, wiped down the counters, took out the garbage, swept the kitchen floor, picked up clothes, put away toys, wiped off the dining room table, organized some mail, and made the bed. All in a normal day’s work. It only took me 45 minutes probably. And worth every minute. I cannot relax, much less settle into a weekend of writing and personal indulgence in the midst of a messy house. I am not a perfectionist (there are layers of grime beneath all my surface cleaning), but I DO enjoy uncluttered surfaces. And the beauty in this cleaning session today is that: IT WILL NOT IMMEDIATELY GET MESSY AGAIN. For the rest of the weekend, I will only need to pick up after myself—and since I am generally a fairly neat person and do not throw my food nor dirty underwear (well, okay, sometimes underwear) on the floor, that means that I will not need to clean again for two days.
2.  Halfway into my cleaning session, I turned on some music. Angus and Julia Stone is my most recent beloved discovery. I will continue to remember to listen to music all weekend long, and really listen, not just have it on in the background in short bursts and starts.
3. I WILL WRITE. This requires the use of capitals, for it is the most important goal on my list. I will write this short blog post, and then I will work on my Epilogue and Introduction and line editing for my Searching for the Heart Radical manuscript which I am slowly gaining on, inching towards completion with a capital C. And then I will plan for my Writing Motherhood workshops. Sink into the syllabus again and finalize some choices for prompts. (Although lesson planning is very different than writing, I will keep it under the same category here because it draws from the same creative energy and sustained focus of presence that my writing needs). I will attempt to do all of this in two or three good sessions. Right now, maybe tonight, and definitely for the better part of tomorrow morning and afternoon. The idea that I can actually sink in for more than 2-3 hours is absolutely delectable. I’ve gotten so used to working in short hurried bursts that I have almost forgotten what it feels like to work for an entire day (or 5-6 hours, which is about what I used to consider a “full day” of writing before the brain would burn out and need to go outside and move the body).
4. I will drink coffee. I have stopped drinking coffee again because it still gives Cedar gas, even though I seem to have forgotten this fact for several months (because I’ve needed my coffee … which leads to more gas and poor sleep… which leads to a heightened need for coffee… in an endless cycle). Well, I finally went off it again and lo and behold, Cedar’s been sleeping way better! But today, I will drink it again. And it should help my foggy brain that indulged in a bit too much wine last night, knowing I’d have the ability to sleep in today (thank you, dear husband), or even take a nap!
5. I WILL SLEEP WHENEVER I WANT, UNINTERRUPTED. This also needs the use of capitals. I have not had an undisturbed night of sleep since my early days of pregnancy. Yes. You heard me right, it’s been about two years now. And although Cedar’s night wakings are less frequent and disturbing than they used to be, I still cannot emphasize enough how crazy strange wonderful it will be to actually sleep all night long without waking (if this even happens; perhaps my body is so programmed to wake now that I still will). Yet even if I still wake, I am quite sure I will get a good night’s rest and wake with a near euphoric feeling in the morning-- whenever my body deems appropriate. (But hopefully not too late so I can still make good use of the early morning hours to write).
6. I will shower and shit, uninterrupted. Um, there is not much more that needs to be said about this. Moms, you understand.
7. I will go outside and enjoy the sunshine and our yard. Maybe rake up the last of the leaves (that are currently killing our moss), relishing in this simple, hearty chore that I used to quite enjoy, but that I don’t so much now because when it’s a choice between chores and everything else that there is never enough time for, it is hard to be all zen and enjoy chores. And it is extra nice that we happen to be having this warm, sunny weather in February! In Seattle! Right after a snow storm. Inspiring gentle feelings of mild, sweet euphoria to rise inside...
8. Perhaps I will call one of my dear friends whom I have not been able to have a proper uninterrupted conversation with in way too long. But if I don’t, I know they will understand, because enjoying my time alone is going to trump any desire to be social.
9. I will stay up as late as I want, and do whatever I want at night, and make as much noise as I want. This might look something like: an open bottle of wine, blasting music, lit candles, and me ripping out pictures from National Geographics for a collage (which probably won’t get glued down for many weeks or months, but that’s okay, because the ripping out stage is an important one, that is: simply feeling which images resonate within, right now, for whatever reason, without analyzing or discriminating. Then later, you can sift through them, weed out the weaker ones, and start to arrange them on a page. They will begin to speak to each other of their own accord; there is no need to try and influence or dictate).
10. OR, perhaps I will be tired at my usual 10 or 10:30 and decide instead to just crawl in bed with a book. Did you hear that? CRAWL IN BED WITH A BOOK. Another long abandoned primal pleasure that I have not gotten to indulge in since I was pregnant (and truly, not much since getting married since my husband used to always complain about the light). It just so happens that I’m sinking into a good love story novel right now too. Ahh… in many ways this choice feels even more sinfully delicious and subversive than the idea of drinking wine and making art.
11. I’m not sure if this time will fly by really fast (because, let’s be real, it’s only a day and a half, and truly, I deserve a week of this kind of retreat). But I suspect that because of the way I have been living—that is, in perpetual service to another, “instantly interruptible, responsive, and responsible" as Adrienne Rich once put it, and with a dogged, yet often disappointing determination to carve out for myself the basic minimum of time and space that I need to feed my soul, my passions, my mind—because of how hard I work, and how much I have sacrificed in the name of motherhood and unspeakable crazy love for my son, I suspect that I WILL ENJOY EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF THIS TIME ALONE. That I will not be able to do otherwise, even if waves of melancholy come over me, because this gift of this weekend truly is that overdue and appreciated.
12. And as I write this now, still listening to Angus and Julia Stone, I already feel those first stirrings of tears that very likely will be released this weekend. Because tears have always been a natural part of my cycle, but since becoming a mother, I do not have the time to sink into that part of myself enough to cry, it seems. And I wager there are some tears in there that are long overdue. Tears of gratitude, tears of self-compassion, tears of reckoning, and tears of prayer.

If I allow myself the gift of crying, you can bet that I will also be crying for my baby, for my son, for my huge huge love for him, AND for my huge huge gratitude to have this time apart from him, if only so I can experience my love for him from another perspective. That is-- from the perspective of also honoring how much of myself I have offered to him, how much of myself I have poured into him, how much of myself I have let go of, re-birthed, and allowed to be molded and reshaped by this transformational experience called motherhood.

Motherhood is a blessing, and yes, it is a sacrifice. It is a hero’s journey, a path of responsibility, resilience, and passion like no other. It is hands down the hardest AND the most amazing-illuminating-rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

So here’s to motherhood, here’s to me, and here’s to ALL of the mothers out there, working their asses off and deserving a whole lot more recognition and rest than we get.

Mothers: may you keep asking for those elusive yet so deserved pockets of time and space that you NEED-- whether it be a moment to breathe at the end of the day, or your own personal weekend retreat. And everyone else: may you bow down and conspire to aid in this task. May you remember to honor your mother.

Tears and Decaf

This has been a hard couple weeks, maybe the hardest since Cedar was born. All of his gas and allergy problems, plus me being run down with a cold, plus health issues in my extended family, all compounded by my lack of sleep and rest, has resulted in a swelling of my emotions, all of my worry and exhaustion coming to the surface in tears.

I have always been a fan of tears, however. That is, I am usually relieved when I finally come around to crying again, especially if I can really have at it in privacy and let out those wailing sounds of desperation. Because then, usually, I feel better, even if there are still more tears that need to be let out. For tears are always inside of me, dormant, waiting to build up enough that they finally must be released. So when they do come, I welcome them with a degree of relief. Oh, yes. You again. What took you so long?

I’ve cried a few times in this last week already. The last time was on Monday morning when I was finally going to get my long-awaited date with myself and my journal at a café. Only since I am on an elimination diet now, I could not have my usual coffee (much less dairy or soy). So I ordered a decaf, which was lukewarm and sour. I drank it down nonetheless in the midst of chattering parents and noisy children at Top Pot, and tried to begin a new blog post about finally visiting a naturopath for Cedar’s allergy and gas issues. But I gave up after a few paragraphs. Not only did I not feel like rehashing the ordeal that we’ve been going through right then (especially since that morning Cedar’s red cheeks looked even worse than the day before, right when I thought they were getting better which left me demoralized and sad), but I also was not getting that usual caffeine kick that I’ve come to depend on to get me started with these blog entries. Normally, I can quickly overcome a bad night’s sleep, sit down, focus, and crank a first draft out in an hour or two, but not this day. Instead, I gave up after half an hour and drove home in tears, proceeding to bury my head in my husband’s chest. “What’s wrong?” he asked (he later told me he thought it was something awful, like I’d gotten in a car accident). “I’m too tired to write,” I cried. “And I just had the worst cup of decaf.”

I decided I just needed to sleep, forget about writing today. Matthew left to take Cedar on a walk, I got in bed, cried a little, then lay there for almost an hour, unable to go to sleep. Finally I got up to eat and resume the thus far disappointing day. Later on that day, I tried to sleep with Cedar three times while he napped, but every time my mind wouldn’t turn off, especially when fueled by the knowledge that I needed to fall asleep quickly if I wanted to get in more than a few minutes before he woke up again. No luck.

Later, at 9:30 in the evening, after Cedar had been down for a while and I’d finally managed to send off an important email, I decided to go to bed early, despite the fact that my husband was still home, the last night of his five-day weekend. Again, I lay in bed for an hour and could not fall asleep. So, I got up, took a shower, poured myself a glass of wine, and joined my husband on the couch. Slowly I felt myself begin to decompress. I guess I needed to unwind my mind, let out all this worry and exhaustion I’ve been carrying, even if it meant that I yet again wouldn’t get enough sleep that night. It was more important that I sit and be with my emotions. Sift through all those layers that were now churning in my chest where they’d risen to, more fluid and accessible than before. Still liable to spill out with the right word spoken at the right time, but easier now at least for me to sit with them calmly, breathe in and out of their pores.

I didn’t mean to write this blog entry today. I wanted to go for something more positive this time, about an aspect of motherhood that I’m grateful for, and have wanted to write on for weeks. I don’t want to people think that I complain a lot, or am depressed, or that I am not, at core level, enjoying motherhood, because I am. But I guess I still need to get this other stuff out of the way first. And there is a lot of “stuff” that builds up when you don’t have the time to properly take care of yourself.

Today, my mother is watching Cedar for three hours after returning from L.A., where she has been taking care of her mother. When she wasn’t here for three weeks, and right in the midst of a lot of my stressors, I realized how much I’d come to depend on this weekly Wednesday afternoon break, how much of a difference even just a couple hours to myself can make, especially when they are a scheduled into my life, and I can look forward and depend on them each week.

I don’t always write during this time. Sometimes I get a massage, and other times I simply do chores and run errands. But these days, even doing chores and running errands can feel like a break, if you aren’t trying to do them while still caring for a baby.

But I don’t want to end this blog now on a complaining note like that. It’s not that I always want to tie a Pollyanna bow on the end of every post or essay, but it’s more that I am striving to keep everything in perspective, to remember how good I still have it compared to so many. Things have been rough, yes, but I feel like I hit my low point last week, and now things are on the upswing. Things will get rough again, and again I will finally come to the point of tears, and then slowly, things will get better again. And it is only through reaching those low points that I can finally be blessed with my tears again, and start to realize how hard it really has been, and then remember that I can and should ask my community for all the love and support they can give me.  

I feel like during the first couple months of this motherhood endeavor, I was surprised and pleased by how good I was handling things, especially the single-mom for four days a week aspect of my arrangement. These last couple months have been more challenging. I still think I’ve been handling it pretty well, but I also now acknowledge how much it has caught up with me. It’s been hard. And no need to tell me “it will get better” or to “hang in there,” because I know it will get better, and then it will get worse, and then it will get better—and around and around—because that is how life goes. And I will hang in there, of course, because I have to, and because I’m still breathlessly in love with my son, and with this thing called life.