Why I haven’t written in a few days
< div>Hint: He’s 21 lbs, refuses to nap, and likes
grabbing at keyboards from my lap
Born:
My children cause me the most
exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of
ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged
nerves, and blissful gratification and
tenderness…
Sophia Raday, in an
essay, Mirror,
Mirror on the booksandbabies web zine uses the phrase “astonishing
joy and profound deprivation.”
I
thought I was given to extreme mood swings before having children: this was
before experiencing a scene of near-domestic bliss, a home-made lasagna in the
oven, a sudsy sink full of dishes that one child stands on a step stool to help
me wash, the other child helping with measurements at the mixer with a cake mix,
the baby gurgling and chewing on a rattle in his baby seat in the middle of all
this activity, all of us connected, happy. I am übermom. Cut to 15
minutes later, when we’re sort of settled at the table, only Aodán is
crying because the lasagna has zucchini in it, Xander is putting his hands in
the milk glass (I can’t explain this, but it bothers me), and Søren is
screaming. I am not sure why I’m a mom at
all.
The contrasts can be
overwhelming, the surge of creative energy and the exhaustion that leaves me
unable to write my own name, the pride in my darlings, the embarrassment when
they’re less than perfect, my desire to pour myself out entirely for them, my
panic at losing myself. I will be self-righteous in my conviction that I’m
doing the noblest work on earth, raising my babies, and then feel hideously
inferior eating dinner with a table full of mothers who are lawyers, doctors,
professionals. Ambivalence here is not being able to take it or leave it, it’s
craving something and being terrified of it, rejoicing in it and recognizing the
terrible losses it entails.
Maybe one
of the hidden blessings of going through this for the third time is that when
I’m just despairing of ever being able to complete a thought again, there’s an
underlying recognition that this passes, quicker than it feels like it’s
passing. And until then I may not be the most prolific blogger, but I will keep
blogging away.
