Dreaming of Me

I’m sure I used to have loads of time on my hands before I had children, but I can not fathom what I did with all of it.

Oh sure, there are vague memories of making scrapbooks of my nieces and nephews, working on my novel (no, it still isn’t finished), and watching some now long-canceled, favorite tv shows, but really, how much time could that have taken up?

I’m sure I visited with friends, but what on earth did we talk about before we all had kids?

It is bewildering to me that such a large portion of my life was somehow sucked into an invisible vacuum.   After all, I waited ten years to have a child, so we’re not talking just a few weeks after the honeymoon here.  Oh, did I say honeymoon?  I meant, those few days we took off work, but that’s another sob story entirely...

I wish I could simply go to the file cabinet, and pull out all the receipts of life, that would tell me in their faded black and white, and occasional pink-striped imprint, where I was and how I spent my time.  But that file doesn’t exist.   

That time is simply gone.  Vanished from Earth.  Erased from memory.

Oh how I wish I could stick my hand into a coat pocket and magically pull out all the time I had stored there, like some forgotten ten dollar bill.   Better yet, it would be wonderful to learn that I’d deposited all that time into an account somewhere, and it had been multiplying ever since.

Now that I do have kids, there doesn’t seem to be a free minute anywhere.  Not to write (until they’re sleeping, like now), not to even remember my nieces and nephews names, not to watch even a five minute sound bite of television let alone an entire favorite show, and certainly not to scrapbook.   And even if I could visit with a friend, I’d be interrupted ninety-two times and by the day’s end, all I would remember is thirty-seven different trails of conversations that were never finished.

But then there are other times, when a sudden windfall of extra time is a startling, scary prospect.   For as much as I complain that I can’t get everything done, there are those brief, rare moments when I look around and everything is as caught up as I care to make it at the moment, and the kids are occupied elsewhere and I think, what do I do now?

Those five words - what do I do now - which of course, if challenged, I’d swear I would never utter, hit me in the face like a sudden gust of wind.   It is the wind of change, sweeping through quickly, just to serve as a reminder to my complacent world, that it is always just over the mountain top, around the corner, waiting in the shadows. 

For surely, times will change, just as they have since, well, the beginning of time.   There will come a day when the children are grown, when they are the ones complaining,  “There are never enough hours in the day!” and I will be left to figure out what to do with all my time.
Once in a while, I am faced with that decision, and I am shocked to find that I have no answer.   In those moments when I am eating a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie and I think, What will I do when this cookie is gone?  Eat another one? And then another?   Or, exercise? Surely not!  And yet to find that without my children commanding my every movement, I am somewhat lost, adrift, is rather frightening.

When did I lose myself?  When did I cease to be able to fill an hour with something I am passionate about?  When did I forget what I used to be passionate about?

What is this mystery that is motherhood?  How do we go from intelligent, fun-loving, social people to an entire-package-of-cookies eating, uninspired, undefined outline of a person, no longer even knowing how to fill in that blank?

Because for far too long we have filled in that blank with, I am Jessie’s mom, Sam’s mom, Brandon’s mom.  Somewhere along the way we ceased to define ourselves as anything other than what our children’s playmates call us.

And yet if we could peer back into that vacuum, the one that contains the shadows of our former selves, what would we say about ourselves?   I am... what?   A painter.  A musician.  A writer.  Or perhaps it would be a history-buff, bookworm, bird-watcher.    Maybe you’d find yourself saying, I’m a student, a church choir member, a community activist.   A crossword puzzle enthusiast, a doll collector, a blue ribbon bake-off winner.

Who did you use to be? Who would you be now if you could snatch up time like handfuls of pennies and wish them into something more?

Are your children at school?  Napping? Playing with friends?    Put down that cookie and look around.  Look past the stacks of bills and laundry, the mine field of toys that litters the floor.   Look out the window into the vastness of the sky.  Watch the trees.  Look for the breeze.   For it is surely coming.  

See your reflection in the glass.  Peer into your own eyes and search.  Who are you?  If you could direct that wind, where would it take you?   And then ask yourself this.    Why are you waiting for the tickling of the leaves, the brush of cool air on your cheek, the blast of wind in your face?

Your hair blowing at your back doesn’t make you less of a mom.    It gives your children the gift of the reins, to see life’s possibilities from heights of the undaunted.   By filling in your own outline, they will see the vast array of colors and shades with which they can paint their own image.   And when they feel the first feathery touches of air at their brows, they will raise their eyes with excitement as they welcome the next adventure.

If it all seems too challenging, too overwhelming, too grand a hope, don’t worry.   You can take a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie along for the ride.  But just one.