5.6.08
Musing on the Future
You know, the past two weeks have been so relaxing and nice, and aside from the random pregnancy complaints, which, admittedly are really not that bad, it makes me wonder if I ever want to be back at work.
I felt this way after Leila was born, too, for about six months. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't go back. And then by nine months, I was thinking, yeah I'll go back when she's 15 months, and then by 12 months I was pulling my hair and scratching my eyes with boredom by the end of each day.
This time could be different, I tell myself. This time I'm going to give a bottle a day so that I'm not so burned out of breast feeding by nine months and can continue until a year. This time, I'm going to make sure I go to a yoga or spin class in the evenings. This time I'm going to take Steve up on his offers of getting out by myself more often instead of refusing and then fuming when he did.
I've been asked to be on a couple of committees based in my hometown. Well, I'm already on one, which meets about every two months, and I've been asked (and said yes) to join another, which meets two of every three months. It means a lot of driving down to Nova Scotia, with two kids in tow, but they sound really interesting and fun. I tell myself that if I found the right play groups (translation: right group of women), or if I joined a couple boards, maybe for the Y or Food Bank, or I could volunteer around... then that might be enough stimulation outside of my children to be a SAHM.
And it would, I think. But it entails a four-hour drive every month, and it entails reaching out more into this community that not only am I not sure if we'll stay in it for long, but it just seems so... cold.
It's not about the money, we're lucky enough that we can afford for me to stay at home with our kids without too much of a financial blow. Being realistic, my paycheck covered Leila's daycare and little else, so I'm not even sure that working where I was with two kids in daycare will break us even. But it's more about the stimulation, the conversation with other adults.
I'd like the freedom of having time to drop the kids off at the gym while I work out, or to keep our house fairly clean, or to take three weeks as a family vacation each summer by the beach, and let's face it, no job at this point in the game is going to give me that freedom. But I wonder about my self-value. Just before I went back to work last fall, I felt like I had little to contribute to conversations with my friends. They all had jobs/careers and no kids. So not only was I not doing paid work, but they weren't parenting, which at times, leaves little common ground. And I think about the emphasis that is placed on careers in our society, how that often translates into "self." I don't want to be defined by my employment anymore than I want to be defined by my lack of employment.
I know in my heart that I am many things, and a mother is one of the most important and prominent. I hesitate to say "most prominent right now" because I doubt that the level of importance that my children have in my life will ever decrease.
It's a hard decision to make, with a lot of mixed emotions, and I know that how I'm feeling right now won't be the same way I feel once this baby is nine months, and I've been home with two kids for almost a year and the days seem to blur together in one big pile of laundry and cleaning the kitchen.
In any case, I've made myself some goals for the next year, and the two most important are to appreciate these days, even when they seem long and monotonous and to give myself time to take care of myself, to breathe. If that means a yoga class on Tuesday evenings, or a bike ride on the Trans-Canada Trail by myself a couple nights a week, or if it means volunteering at the local Food Bank. Because although I am a mother, I am not solely a mother, and I really don't believe that I can be a good mother unless I take the time to nurture myself, as well as my children.
wunderwuman at 7:03 p.m.