Emily has been staying with us for the past couple of days while in town for last night’s reading, and it’s been wonderful having her here. Wonderful because I’ve missed her terribly since she moved to San Francisco, and wonderful also because while spending time with her, talking about books and writing and literary gossip, I’ve had a glimpse of my old life…a part of myself that has been necessarily set aside since the baby was born. He’s getting older now, wanting some independence, and I think that’s allowing me to become a bit more of myself again. It was strange, to feel like myself—simply myself—and realize I hadn’t felt that way in a very long time. I’m not sure this makes sense outside of my own head, but there you have it.
I’m not sure what I want to say here, except that I caught a glimpse of my old life and apparently it isn’t some past existence now lost, but just a part of me that I’ve had to put on hold. And that it is still there and still good. And I can be a good mother while still being that other person, that writer. It’s not a matter of still being able to go to readings and still being able to talk with fellow writer friends about what we do. That’s never been a question. It’s something else…it’s the way I think about myself, the way I feel about myself, and I’m doing a terrible job of explaining it. I guess it’s this—I’ve felt for the past year that my intellectual and artistic life had gotten drowned or muffled, necessarily consumed and muted by my role as mother to baby. It was reassuring yesterday to find that I’m still in there somewhere. I can see that as the baby gets older, that other part of me will be able to emerge more and more.
The reading was excellent, and completely packed. A lot of our friends from the MFA days were there, everyone doing well. My agent, who is also EmilyÂ’s agent, was there, so I got to introduce her to Billy and the baby.
Emily’s book is out but everyone else from our MFA class is revising their book for the umpteenth draft or have trashed their book and started another or, like me, their agent is still shopping their book around. It was a good reminder, that it’s really fucking hard to find a publisher for literary fiction these days. None of us are writing thrillers or romances or chick lit or what have you (nothing wrong with those genres, of course, but they are much easier to get published because they tend to sell more copies). We’ve all taken the harder route, because it just happens that that is what we’re moved to write, what we love to read. And it’s hard for all of us and we’re all still doing it anyway. It’s easy to lose sight of that in the face of Emily’s success–the first of our group to get published. I think it was good for all of us there last night to see each other, to ask, “So what’s up with your book?” and hear most of the answers were just about the same. We’re just all going through the process. And hopefully we’ll all be able to be there for each others’ readings in the future. (I do hope we all make it, though the odds are against us, aren’t they?) Another thing I was reminded of last night at the reading was how very much I like the people I did my MFA with, and what a talented group it was. Watch this space for announcements of other forthcoming books from that group in the years to come. I’m lucky to call some really gifted people my friends.
And now I’m getting a bit sappy and sentimental. Sorry to do that in public. But I’m getting ready to move away from them all, you know. I think I may be able to convince a few of them to move to Portland. Portland is the new Brooklyn. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling people.
I think any woman who’s ever had a child knows exactly what you mean. My kids are 7 and 10, and I have much more freedom now, but I remember with painful clarity the hammer blow to my identity that was my first child. (I was a diplomat, working overseas, and I left to have my kids, becoming a stay-at-home mom.) You’re right: you are still there, under the mom, but you’ll never be just yourself again. You’ll always be that mom-person, too. This is not a bad thing; it just means that you’ll always have this sort of divided identity. The challenge, I think, is to integrate the self you were with the self you are. I haven’t quite worked that out, myself.
Posted by: Suzanne V. (Yarnhog)
I think you’ve done a fine job of explaining how you’re feeling, and as someone who would like to be a mother to a baby one day, I find it reassuring. Of course “the real you” is still in there!
Posted by: alison
I wish blogging had been around when my girls were small. I remember having the same feelings and at the same time feeling very isolated, because I was different from that person I’d been before kids.
Your feelings are very normal, and it’s really important that you allow yourself those “me” times. Sometimes you feel almost selfish doing so, but in the long run it’s a healthy thing. I know women who said they never changed at all when they had children, but my feeling on that is they didn’t know themselves very well to begin with (or they are a little delusional – we all change, kids or not).
On a personal note (and with apologies for taking up space on your blog), I see that I didn’t allow myself enough time of the “me” time, and that has made the transition to empty-nester a little discomforting. But you have many years before that happens, so just enjoy these times – they are fleeting.
Posted by: Gaile
We are like onions — many layers to be peeled. In time, as Thumper grows, the “Old” you will not come back, but a new, better you with the perspective that only can come from being a mother. Before my daughters were born, I was a type-A, no holds barred litigator who was often referred to by my colleagues as a pit bull. Now, I am still a no-holds barred litigator, but I find I seek consensus more often than not – maybe its just a mommy thing. Best of luck on your incredible journey to Portland and with Thumper.
Posted by: Diana
My friend Dana from my MFA program visited last week, and I was so excited for all the gossip and writing talk…I moved away from my program to be with my husband, and its been a lonely business writing my book without my posse nearby…but I look forward to seeing the successes from my group and using them to keep motivated. Thanks for a thoughful post.
Posted by: Beverly
I think any woman who’s ever had a child knows exactly what you mean. My kids are 7 and 10, and I have much more freedom now, but I remember with painful clarity the hammer blow to my identity that was my first child. (I was a diplomat, working overseas, and I left to have my kids, becoming a stay-at-home mom.) You’re right: you are still there, under the mom, but you’ll never be just yourself again. You’ll always be that mom-person, too. This is not a bad thing; it just means that you’ll always have this sort of divided identity. The challenge, I think, is to integrate the self you were with the self you are. I haven’t quite worked that out, myself.
Posted by: Suzanne V. (Yarnhog)
I think you’ve done a fine job of explaining how you’re feeling, and as someone who would like to be a mother to a baby one day, I find it reassuring. Of course “the real you” is still in there!
Posted by: alison
I wish blogging had been around when my girls were small. I remember having the same feelings and at the same time feeling very isolated, because I was different from that person I’d been before kids.
Your feelings are very normal, and it’s really important that you allow yourself those “me” times. Sometimes you feel almost selfish doing so, but in the long run it’s a healthy thing. I know women who said they never changed at all when they had children, but my feeling on that is they didn’t know themselves very well to begin with (or they are a little delusional – we all change, kids or not).
On a personal note (and with apologies for taking up space on your blog), I see that I didn’t allow myself enough time of the “me” time, and that has made the transition to empty-nester a little discomforting. But you have many years before that happens, so just enjoy these times – they are fleeting.
Posted by: Gaile
We are like onions — many layers to be peeled. In time, as Thumper grows, the “Old” you will not come back, but a new, better you with the perspective that only can come from being a mother. Before my daughters were born, I was a type-A, no holds barred litigator who was often referred to by my colleagues as a pit bull. Now, I am still a no-holds barred litigator, but I find I seek consensus more often than not – maybe its just a mommy thing. Best of luck on your incredible journey to Portland and with Thumper.
Posted by: Diana
My friend Dana from my MFA program visited last week, and I was so excited for all the gossip and writing talk…I moved away from my program to be with my husband, and its been a lonely business writing my book without my posse nearby…but I look forward to seeing the successes from my group and using them to keep motivated. Thanks for a thoughful post.
Posted by: Beverly
Even though I haven’t experienced motherhood, I have had that feeling of rediscovering the old me, and liking her. I managed to get good parts of the old me back, but I also know I’m not the same person anymore. I’m glad you’re getting glimpses at all your parts.
Posted by: Sneaksleep
Just as everyone else has commented. Your feelings are like the rest of us mommies. I felt like I had completely lost the old me….well…not even just the old me…the whole me! After having 4 kids and slowly reclaiming some alone time, I’m feeling more and more like me everyday :o) I think it’s totally normal and just a fact of life when you have kids.
Posted by: Stephanie
i do not think anyone can really describe the feelings you speak of. only three months in, but feelings do well up and remind me. i would change none of it, but i feel like such a very different person than i once was. i have to go back to work soon, on a very limited basis, the first conversation i have had without baby speak was with my boss…it was oddly refreshing, and in a way scary, the detachment from my reality of mama to 2 boys. heart wrenching and wondrous, that is what being a mama seems to me.
Posted by: mamie
I remember those feelings. The overwhelming feeling of the mommy identity subsuming all the others and then the knowledge that it wasn’t permanent–mother gets added to the list, but does not replace it.
I’m glad you felt connected to writer-person again. Sending good thoughts on the book selling. I want more literary fiction–that’s the only kind I tend to read.
Posted by: Steph
you fully made sense- and I parallel (even though I don’t have the child) keep living the onion life and be glad you found that piperide back to a part of you again 🙂 gives us all hope!
and hope to catch you soon in the real brooklyn! hehehe…
Posted by: stinkerbell
My goodness, do I totally relate.
I’m also taking a hiatus from a creative career (photography) to raise my son, and I had a huge adjustment to make in my own head about who I was, who I’m turning out to be, and how to be okay with it all. I love being a mom, but I loved being who I was when I wasn’t a mom, but I’m beginning to see how the two can sort of mix.
But man, is it a challenge. Thanks for the entry–it just really tapped into my brain.
Posted by: Anna
Fresh off of the floor, where I’ve been trying to get my son to sleep, scarfing crackers and apples in the next ten minutes before I have to get him and take him to his tumbling class, seven and a half months pregnant with another…I’m totally feeling you here. The irony is that my MFA friends and I used to joke that we’d carry our books around in Baby Bjorns and complain about how they were going through stages and teething and sleepless nights, etc., so that we could get some sympathy from those who don’t understand what it’s like for WRITERS.
Posted by: JulieFrick
I can’t comment on any older posts – no comment post window.
I use Ener-G egg replacer successfully in tons of stuff. As a kid, allergic to eggs, my mom would soak natural dried apricots in hot water until soft, then blend and 1 TB for each egg. That worked really well, too.
I have an older husband, too (he’ll be 42 this year and I’ll be 30). We don’t have any kids yet so you’ve got a head start with that!
Posted by: Emily
While my kids are my steps, and I knew them from ages 8 and 6 on, I do relate. I made a whirlwind of changes once I married their father, and right now I am about to write while I have banished them to their room to play or read or draw (SOMETHING UNRELATED TO THE COMPUTER!) so I can have some time. It was a shock when, for a time, I could not write but was mainly the mom, the housekeeper, the cook, and the cough cough “analyst” for pay. My soul nearly died.
No one in my MFA cohort has published but one is shopping hers and I am hoping to wrap the agent up this year. Six more chapters of revision to go. I have this fantasy that I won’t have to revise again but HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I would copy that for another ten pages (a la Lorrie Moore) but never mind. 🙂
Posted by: Aura
Even though I haven’t experienced motherhood, I have had that feeling of rediscovering the old me, and liking her. I managed to get good parts of the old me back, but I also know I’m not the same person anymore. I’m glad you’re getting glimpses at all your parts.
Posted by: Sneaksleep
Just as everyone else has commented. Your feelings are like the rest of us mommies. I felt like I had completely lost the old me….well…not even just the old me…the whole me! After having 4 kids and slowly reclaiming some alone time, I’m feeling more and more like me everyday :o) I think it’s totally normal and just a fact of life when you have kids.
Posted by: Stephanie
i do not think anyone can really describe the feelings you speak of. only three months in, but feelings do well up and remind me. i would change none of it, but i feel like such a very different person than i once was. i have to go back to work soon, on a very limited basis, the first conversation i have had without baby speak was with my boss…it was oddly refreshing, and in a way scary, the detachment from my reality of mama to 2 boys. heart wrenching and wondrous, that is what being a mama seems to me.
Posted by: mamie
I remember those feelings. The overwhelming feeling of the mommy identity subsuming all the others and then the knowledge that it wasn’t permanent–mother gets added to the list, but does not replace it.
I’m glad you felt connected to writer-person again. Sending good thoughts on the book selling. I want more literary fiction–that’s the only kind I tend to read.
Posted by: Steph
you fully made sense- and I parallel (even though I don’t have the child) keep living the onion life and be glad you found that piperide back to a part of you again 🙂 gives us all hope!
and hope to catch you soon in the real brooklyn! hehehe…
Posted by: stinkerbell
My goodness, do I totally relate.
I’m also taking a hiatus from a creative career (photography) to raise my son, and I had a huge adjustment to make in my own head about who I was, who I’m turning out to be, and how to be okay with it all. I love being a mom, but I loved being who I was when I wasn’t a mom, but I’m beginning to see how the two can sort of mix.
But man, is it a challenge. Thanks for the entry–it just really tapped into my brain.
Posted by: Anna
Fresh off of the floor, where I’ve been trying to get my son to sleep, scarfing crackers and apples in the next ten minutes before I have to get him and take him to his tumbling class, seven and a half months pregnant with another…I’m totally feeling you here. The irony is that my MFA friends and I used to joke that we’d carry our books around in Baby Bjorns and complain about how they were going through stages and teething and sleepless nights, etc., so that we could get some sympathy from those who don’t understand what it’s like for WRITERS.
Posted by: JulieFrick
I can’t comment on any older posts – no comment post window.
I use Ener-G egg replacer successfully in tons of stuff. As a kid, allergic to eggs, my mom would soak natural dried apricots in hot water until soft, then blend and 1 TB for each egg. That worked really well, too.
I have an older husband, too (he’ll be 42 this year and I’ll be 30). We don’t have any kids yet so you’ve got a head start with that!
Posted by: Emily
While my kids are my steps, and I knew them from ages 8 and 6 on, I do relate. I made a whirlwind of changes once I married their father, and right now I am about to write while I have banished them to their room to play or read or draw (SOMETHING UNRELATED TO THE COMPUTER!) so I can have some time. It was a shock when, for a time, I could not write but was mainly the mom, the housekeeper, the cook, and the cough cough “analyst” for pay. My soul nearly died.
No one in my MFA cohort has published but one is shopping hers and I am hoping to wrap the agent up this year. Six more chapters of revision to go. I have this fantasy that I won’t have to revise again but HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I would copy that for another ten pages (a la Lorrie Moore) but never mind. 🙂
Posted by: Aura
You make absolute sense. Good comments above.
Posted by: Mary K. in Rockport
Time to channel Han Solo talking to C3PO about successfully navigating an asteroid field:
“Never tell me the odds.”
Posted by: rams
I remember the first time I experienced this, and what a relief. I had a lot of grief when I realised that life wasn’t going to go back to being ‘normal’ anytime soon after my first was born. Boy I was sad. And then one day I woke up and realised that even though I wasn’t going back, the me I missed had come with me for the ride. She had just been hiding out in the shadows till things settled down a bit. I’ve found it much easier with my second to see myself even if at times that version on me seems a long way off. I’m more Ok with her lesser role right now.
I wanted to ask you too if it would be OK with you if I published a larger size on the baby yoda I have developed? I knitted yours and have really loved it but now my boy is older I’ve created one a size up and would love to share it – with full credit to you of course!! Please le t me know if that’s OK with you.
Posted by: sooz
You’re definitely not alone! My daughter’s 7 now, and I’m just starting to get more time for myself. I put my novel and other writing on the sidelines for a long time, mainly because I felt guilty taking time for myself when it was still light outside and my daughter was still awake. By the time I’d get her to sleep, I was asleep myself.
I started attending a writing group with some people at work, and while I didn’t have much to share except things I’d written years ago, I slowly started to feel that other part of myself come back…the person who hungered for words and kept a pen and paper with her all the time so when the muse came I was ready. So I totally understand where you’re coming from.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother, and I hope to have another child eventually, but I’ve found myself becoming happier since I reclaimed the writer within. I’ve learned that women are not just mothers or wives or workers or whatever…we’re so many different things and that’s what makes life exciting.
Posted by: Anna
Yes, I feel very much more “myself” now that my kids are 16, 14 and 12. Oh, and stop telling people how great Portland is! :-))
Posted by: LeAnne
Portland is the new Brooklyn, Williamsburg is the new East Village, Greenpoint is the new Williamsburg, Montana is the new Maine, Emeryville is the new Berkeley, Hong Kong is the new New York, Edinburgh is the new Paris, India is the new USA, Africa is the new India, Europa is the new Earth, Alpha Centauri is the new Milky Way, and quarks are the new protons. Pardon me, my dictionary just exploded and I have to go clean up the shrapnel.
Posted by: Lizbon
I have a suggestion for your problem with your cat. When my daughter and her two cats moved in with her fiance and his cat last year they had the same problem. Her fiance’s cat, Rascal, started peeing on all of my daughter’s things–clothes, backpack, HER furniture, etc. Their vet put Rascal on amitriptyline (see below) and they are all now living happily together.
My daughter and her fiance are both vegan, animals rights proponents, and were hesitant to put the cat on meds, but it was the right thing to do for them, because the cat now loves being part of a larger family with 2 “siblings”.
I pasted below information from a website for your information only–I can’t vouch for it:
“Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant. It is used in the treatment of behavior problems, especially anxiety disorders. Medications alone will not solve behavioral problems, but must be combined with behavioral modification techniques recommended by your veterinarian or animal behaviorist. Contact your veterinarian if your pet experiences sedation, vomiting, diarrhea, or seizures while being treated with amitriptyline.”
GOOD LUCK!
Posted by: Ann
I am elated about Oscar! But I have to tell ya, the drive sounds like hell. Good luck.
Posted by: Juliette
You make absolute sense. Good comments above.
Posted by: Mary K. in Rockport
Time to channel Han Solo talking to C3PO about successfully navigating an asteroid field:
“Never tell me the odds.”
Posted by: rams
I remember the first time I experienced this, and what a relief. I had a lot of grief when I realised that life wasn’t going to go back to being ‘normal’ anytime soon after my first was born. Boy I was sad. And then one day I woke up and realised that even though I wasn’t going back, the me I missed had come with me for the ride. She had just been hiding out in the shadows till things settled down a bit. I’ve found it much easier with my second to see myself even if at times that version on me seems a long way off. I’m more Ok with her lesser role right now.
I wanted to ask you too if it would be OK with you if I published a larger size on the baby yoda I have developed? I knitted yours and have really loved it but now my boy is older I’ve created one a size up and would love to share it – with full credit to you of course!! Please le t me know if that’s OK with you.
Posted by: sooz
You’re definitely not alone! My daughter’s 7 now, and I’m just starting to get more time for myself. I put my novel and other writing on the sidelines for a long time, mainly because I felt guilty taking time for myself when it was still light outside and my daughter was still awake. By the time I’d get her to sleep, I was asleep myself.
I started attending a writing group with some people at work, and while I didn’t have much to share except things I’d written years ago, I slowly started to feel that other part of myself come back…the person who hungered for words and kept a pen and paper with her all the time so when the muse came I was ready. So I totally understand where you’re coming from.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother, and I hope to have another child eventually, but I’ve found myself becoming happier since I reclaimed the writer within. I’ve learned that women are not just mothers or wives or workers or whatever…we’re so many different things and that’s what makes life exciting.
Posted by: Anna
Yes, I feel very much more “myself” now that my kids are 16, 14 and 12. Oh, and stop telling people how great Portland is! :-))
Posted by: LeAnne
Portland is the new Brooklyn, Williamsburg is the new East Village, Greenpoint is the new Williamsburg, Montana is the new Maine, Emeryville is the new Berkeley, Hong Kong is the new New York, Edinburgh is the new Paris, India is the new USA, Africa is the new India, Europa is the new Earth, Alpha Centauri is the new Milky Way, and quarks are the new protons. Pardon me, my dictionary just exploded and I have to go clean up the shrapnel.
Posted by: Lizbon
I have a suggestion for your problem with your cat. When my daughter and her two cats moved in with her fiance and his cat last year they had the same problem. Her fiance’s cat, Rascal, started peeing on all of my daughter’s things–clothes, backpack, HER furniture, etc. Their vet put Rascal on amitriptyline (see below) and they are all now living happily together.
My daughter and her fiance are both vegan, animals rights proponents, and were hesitant to put the cat on meds, but it was the right thing to do for them, because the cat now loves being part of a larger family with 2 “siblings”.
I pasted below information from a website for your information only–I can’t vouch for it:
“Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant. It is used in the treatment of behavior problems, especially anxiety disorders. Medications alone will not solve behavioral problems, but must be combined with behavioral modification techniques recommended by your veterinarian or animal behaviorist. Contact your veterinarian if your pet experiences sedation, vomiting, diarrhea, or seizures while being treated with amitriptyline.”
GOOD LUCK!
Posted by: Ann
I am elated about Oscar! But I have to tell ya, the drive sounds like hell. Good luck.
Posted by: Juliette