While driving my friend Chelsea to the airport today, she said something to me that shed some light on my recent identity crisis. I was doing the usual bitch and moan routine, filling her in on the details of my life she had missed from so much travelling. She listened thoughtfully, then said, "I think part of the reason things are so hard for you, is that it seems your life was so different before the whole baby-marriage thing." Thunderbolt strikes, the ground opens up, the undead begin rising from their dusty graves...
In a more roundabout way, I have considered this fact. I do a lot of comparing my current life situation to my peers--a game that only gets me into more trouble. I also find myself thinking longingly of the days of yore--of late nights and blurred vision, of holding hands with handsome strangers, of entire days spent in bed, of travelling to distant lands, of independence, of coffee and cigarettes with my best friend. Sure, perhaps I idealize the past. Perhaps the rock and roll lifestyle really wasn't what I wanted... but I think that before I was able to really figure out what it was I DID want, I ended up here. Life took me in this direction, and now that I've come out of the new-mom haze, my thoughts are...WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED??
I'm married, with a baby and feel like I am stuck. One thought I've had is that Jared and I have very few role models. Most married people we know are middle-aged. So we've been copying that scene, and I feel like a bitter housewife, who gave up her dreams to roast chickens and do laundry. However, I have learned that roasting chickens and doing laundry are important-you gotta eat, you gotta be reasonable clean. On the other hand, I'm sick of both of them. What does a young married couple look like? How do THEY cope with the stresses that this life brings? Are they happy? And if so, how the hell did they pull it off??
I feel like I've been telling myself that there are ways for me to still accomplish my dreams as a mother and a wife. I know this is true. BUT HOW? I want to travel, I want to have adventures... are these just the unreasonable ramblings of a nieve and unrealistic babymama? This is where the identity crisis comes in. I'm not really happy. Okay, I've admitted it. What am I unhappy with? That I'm a stay at home mom? In theory, I should love this. I get to not work, I get to make whatever kind of breakfast I want, I get to do all sorts of things that many only get to do on the weekends. BUT. I do it with a soon-to-be-toddler. I once thought, "This is great! No boss to tell me what to do...ahh!" But, now I think... I don't have a boss, but I have a child who demands most of my attention, and a husband with high expectations of me to keep our Kombucha business afloat. So, I don't have a job, but I have many responsibilities, most of which I kind of was tossed into. Is it wrong of me to want to walk out? Really, this all just happened so fast. I might be having the freak out that many thought I should have had months ago.
I have been really hellbent on finding a community for myself--finding creative endevours, making new friends, trying new things... however, I still come home to the same people. I am still a mommy. I am still a wifey.. I can't make those things go away. I ultimately feel trapped. I am stuck with these two dudes for the rest of my life. Its a hard call. I love them, but I have sacrificed what feels like everything for them. It could just be a melodramatic episode, but it sure feels like hell to me. How can I be a mom/wife, and still feel like me? Part of the trouble is that I will never again feel like "me" or the "me" I was before I ended up a stepford wife. Too much has changed--I mean, I became a mother for christsake.
I've been told and I've learned through hearsay that close friends and family have trouble identifying with and relating to the person I've become. Who is she? they ask. Who did she used to be? And... What has she become? What happened to that old Amanda spunk? My response to this is...I've been asking myself the same goddamn questions. I think it is important for me to take some initiative... but, christ, its hard to get anything done without real childcare.
babushka, if you're feeling this it means you need to feel it, so first off: embrace it for all the uncomfortable melodramatic spiraling that it is. then i will say, not as your closest friend, and not as someone who has known you your entire life, but as someone who has seen you as the self you are mourning and who has seen you in frustrating and emotional situations before: you are someone who feels and reacts intensely, and someone who is also very critical. your intensity, sensitivity and brilliance have always, it seems, combined to become bravery, which has manifested itself to move you to and from each stage of your life - including exactly where you are now. do not discount the incredible and radical fearlessness it took, and takes every day, to be where you are, doing what you're doing. it's fucking hard, and most people would have had 10 times the crises and breakdowns you've had - if that is even what you want to call this. i call this questioning - this blog - as something that is essential Amanda. indeed i knew you before, and i've seen you in your life now, and you, my dear, are still, if not a more enhanced and shining version of the strong and wild, wise and free spirit you will go down in history as.
ReplyDeletein reading this i feel a storm brewing that could move you towards a next, necessary stage in your life. but really my only advice is that you don't let these emotional westerlies out of your hands and cause the kind of unwanted destruction such is capable of. most importantly is that i hope you know how fiercly you are loved, and will be supported whatever you do/decisions you make, and that you should call me, or better yet - come to NY next time you're out east. maybe i can take you out on the town and help you get some things out of your system / show you what you are not missing.
XO, c
oh girl. you know just what to say. consequently, i'm feeling much better and more clear about the world, my life, my place in the world. ... but hey! alright, moving on.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think of you as an inspiration! I think it's amazing that you have done what you instinctively wanted. You've made some really,really good AND really, really courageous deciscions in the process. Lev and Jared seem amazing but I'm sure the responsibility you have is exhausting. And from what I can tell, ALL new parents, not just young ones, take a long time to adapt to their new roles. So I think your friend has a point, though, parenting and marriage is a huge enough change to throw anyone for a loop--no matter when they do it.
ReplyDeleteBrad and I are trying to be long-distance and everytime we think about out future together, things get really tense. I feel stifled by what I will have to do to be with him (and I take it out on him), he feels confused about why we have to look so far into the future(which is another expression of the same complication--it's hard to take other people into account when you've just taken yourself into account for a long time--but it hurts that he hasn't taken that step). When I told my parents about this my dad laughed and acted like he had heard this story over and over again. It's a fact of most peoples lives--we transition from depenent to more independnt to more interdependet, he says. Though some people put off being interdepedent for a little longer, they will have to confront it's difficulties no matter what and it won't necessarily be easier or a better decision because they planned further ahead for it.
Your brain has to look ahead in totally news ways now. It has to take so many more factors into consideration. It's honestly computing on a higher level than it was before. You are only going to get better at this. You will find new ways to do things that may have seemed impossible at first. You will find new things you want to do. I look at pictures of your amazing family and I think you are doing a great job. It sounds very hard.
I love you and I am so proud of you.
P.S. And darling, there is no reason you should love being a mother. Though I hear it's very rewarding, no mother ever, ever said that it was fun.
i know i'm super late on this front, but hey. soooo... i gotta tell you i've been more than a little jealous of you and your little family since just before you got pregnant. sure, i've always joked about wanting a sham marriage but in all honesty, a real one sounds pretty good too. and if the person i married could roast a chicken half as tasty as yours.... hoooo!
ReplyDeletei've missed getting to feel like i'm marginally a part of your clan. hopefully we can all live off the land together someday, and i can be that guy who lives in the barn and fixes things and shovels poop a lot.
sometimes i pine for the rock n roll lifestyle but then... other times... i realize that i'm pretty happy reading books, tucking in early, watching movies and making tasty dinners and breakfasts for myself and being more accountable than i was then. maybe it's not super exciting and i don't feel edgy anymore but i'm pretty content.
and for those people who think you're different and are having trouble relating to you... f 'em. you're just as amanda as ever, maybe even more amanda-y, and if their relationship with you is purely situational, they weren't really relating too well before.
xo
ted