Nahanni woke me up about a half hour ago and her words to me when I went into her room were exclaimed thusly :"Let's go bowling!". I think humour is the best way to get through being woken up in the wee hours, especially when you have been suffering weeks on end of insomnia. I had to laugh, although I'm not laughing now as god knows how long I'll be awake...
As usual, I've been thinking about everything; what I can fix, what I can't, the passage of time - you know the drill. I have continually been thinking about that article I was recounting last time, which talked about people only 'thinking' they were happy as parents. I suppose I have found that disturbing, even aside from the fact that I am one to ruminate. Here's a little story to illuminate:
I have three cats. I no longer remember what possessed me to get them, but nonetheless, I have three rescued pound cats, each of whom I have loved and cuddled and cared for for many years. I remember choosing them, bringing them home mewling in little cardboard boxes, marvelling at their soft fur, their giant eyes and unwavering devotion of me. I loved them dearly, really I did. I missed them terribly on those long stints in LA and when I returned I carried them around on my shoulders and crooned and stroked them like babies.
Until I had a baby.
Now, I must admit, I have found them to have become a nuisance. Just three more beings to clean up after, to wreck things and cost money (Oscar recently cost me $60 after eating my newest plant and needing to be rushed to the vet). Within days they ruined my new red carpet, they have torn up a hole in the bamboo wallpaper that lines the hall and cause general mess and destruction wherever they go. Why does no one tell you how much cats barf when you're at the SPCA mooning over kittens? In any case, you get the picture - they are a set of Marleys themselves, these three, and many others like them, I suspect.
So here I was the other day, fed up from cleaning yet another patch of vaguely digested houseplant, mixed with a little bit of reclaimed Christmas ribbon (where do they find this stuff!?) and I was fed up with the whole thing. Fed up with the whole cleaning up after things and trying in vain to keep my house in order and my possessions relatively nice and I just snapped. I stormed around the house swearing at them, not even attempting to mitigate my anger or my language as Nahanni sweetly recounted over and over 'Cats barf! Cats barf!' and I was stopped in my tracks. Suddenly I had the most worrisome thought - 'Oh god! Is this the same thing that happens with kids!?'
Is that what happens? Do we get over the honeyed moon that lights our way through the early months and years, when the romance of a new life takes us through those difficult waters? Do we croon and cuddle and never foresee that someday we will just see our children as destructive little parasites that cause grief, cost money and leave a swath of messiness across your life's landscape? Will the honeymoon end with my daughter too? Will I become one of those parents?
It really is a terrifying thought to me, to think that I will get fed up with my child. I never want to know a time when she is not my greatest joy, and yet, I see how it can happen - parenting is an awesome task. Yesterday she woke up at 6 a.m. and by the time Ez got up I was crawling the walls. We've been snowed in now for almost 2 weeks, practically housebound by it and I've just been feeling absolutely nuts with it. He woke up and I got into the shower and got ready and left the house, feeling like I may be inclined to drive many hours away just to get out for a while. She hasn't been bad or trying or anything of the sort - unlike the cats she hardly wrecks anything at all, but I just needed to get away from her for a while and I wonder - is this the beginning of the end?
Granted, by the time the movie ended I was practically racing to get home to her, to see her impish little face, her wild curls, to hear her voice and see what funny sentence would be the first to come out of her mouth when she saw me. Yes, I missed her, I admit - but that doesn't erase the fact that I needed desperately to get away from her too, only hours before. Now I know about burnout and all that, I get that, especially of late, we spend a great deal of time together, but I feel like I saw the first wrinkle in the fabric of my utter devotion to motherhood. It's not that I don't adore my child, that I don't want to be with her most of the time, but I really see how I need to carve out more time for myself or else I will simply be absorbed into my parenthood and I think that is where the danger lies, that is where you become one of the people in that study. I'm not saying that I won't have hard times, but I hope that my life with my daughter will continue mostly on its course of utter devotion and love and happiness. I guess it's why we must be very conscious as parents, and especially as mothers to make sure that we don't burn ourselves out trying to be too much, to be so much that we lose ourselves and thus the thread that binds us in such deep love to our children. It is a huge and often difficult task to raise a human being in a conscious and present manner and add to that the need to still continue to strive along your own path and you've got your work cut out for you. It's been hard for me to be in that stage of life where (as a recovering Type-A) you get very little done and you can't really travel the way you once did and there needs to be some semblance of order to your life. I miss the old days sometimes, the ability (and funds, but that's another story altogether) to just pick up and fly to some sunny clime, to go snowboarding or kayaking whenever we felt like it (would have made this whole snowstorm thing much more tolerable) - to be unencumbered by life's responsibilities. I think it's actually that which makes parents unhappy - not their kids. And truth be told, I have done all those things and much more and yet, when I really look at it, I think they pale in comparison to the powerful experiences I have had carrying, birthing and raising my beautiful, vibrant and charming daughter.
There will be time again for me and I am willing to bet that I will lament the loss of this time, when she is so small and dependent and thoroughly present with me. I went to see Benjamin Button yesterday in my 'me hours' and the only thing I really took from it was this moment near the end, when Benjamin has grown so young he is a child of about one, and Cate Blanchett is walking with that baby and he stops his toddle and looks up at her and Ms. Blanchett in her wisdom as an actor sees that the boy is waiting for a kiss. She bends to him and presses a fairy kiss upon his lips and tears leapt from my eyes in that exquisite moment. In it I saw the brevity of this time - for her toddling days are already past and there will be far too few moments of pure innocence like that one left for us. Already she is so smart and aware and inquisitive and independence is growing in her by the day. If only I can keep those moments clear in my heart, my honeymoon with her will only be interrupted briefly on occasion throughout the years, but never, ever will it end.
May I live long and well enough to someday bend to the kiss of her child, and have a whole new honeymoon begin.
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