When you sign up to have a baby there are a lot of things you think you know and understand. You think you know how much you will love them, but you cannot truly comprehend. You think you get that you will lose some sleep, that you won't quite have your usual lifestyle 'but we'll make them fit us!'.
I'm not sure which notion you are first disabused of.
Certainly there is the fatigue. Like, you think you know what it means to be tired. You carry your kayak down to the river and with adrenaline coursing through your veins you face a feature that made you want to cry and then you kayak all day in the hot, hot sun and then go to your campsite and party all night and then do again the next day. Then you drive home and fight through traffic as it bottlenecks into Surrey and you go in and unpack all your gear and wash your precious paddle coat and upload your pictures and then fall into an exhausted heap feeling like you couldn't be more tired.
Ha. I laugh at you.
Since I have become a parent I have encountered fatigue so severe and debilitating it has made me feel like I understood why really old people get so exhausted that they finally just give up and die. I have fallen asleep in the hairdressers chair. Twice. In one visit. I have fallen asleep on the floor while folding laundry. I have gone to appointments a day early and, unfortunately, also a day late. I have forgotten my passwords to everything at least twice. I'm considering using '1234' until Zola sleeps through the night.
And that's just the beginning.
You think you understand that you'll be 'out of the loop'. You think you'll miss a few beats but then jump right back on that horse and earn six-figures again and get that baby weight right off! You'll bend their little wills to fit your life and lifestyle! You won't miss a beat!
For about five minutes.
If there is anything that I have had the most trouble coming to terms with as a parent it has been the absorption of my former self into this current self. Like a parasitic twin that gets absorbed by the stronger twin so that only a few twisted fingers and a hairy ear remain as evidence. Except I'm the hairy ear twin.
It seems little or nothing of my former life remains. I don't think I wear a coherent outfit more than once every 8-10 days. I have even, after 15 years of living in Vancouver finally ended up in the standard mommy outfit: I got the rubber boots (albeit snazzed up with buckles and clips like the real boots of my former life) and the black hooded rain coat. If I could find money in my budget (oh, yes, that too you think you'll get) I would even add the de rigeur $125 Lululemon pants to top it off. [as an aside - I actually remember buying my first yoga mat from Lululemon when they were set up in the back corner of a hair studio in Kits...see where life can take you?] I still attempt make-up most days, although mascara has become just another thing I have to clean up afterwards so it tends to get the shaft. I spend several hundred dollars every month on clothes and dance lessons and cultural education. Unfortunately none of it is for my own edification.
I guess this brings me to budget.
First of all, I actually now have a budget. That alone I didn't see coming. But somewhere along the way I stopped being the ingenue and the series lead and I started being the day player and so went my disposable income. Needless to say, my Robson Street shipping sprees have been severely curtailed. I don't even look in the same direction as, say, Holt Renfrew. It's just too painful. I have ballet shoes to buy and swimming lessons and Aquarium passes and RESPs and Princess-bloody-everything to buy. There are days when I feel guilty because I bought myself a Starbucks. I should be saving for their education! Or life insurance! Or the babysitter I need so that I don't go completely insane.
It's not even the 'stuff' that I really lament. I do miss having nice clothes, especially ones that actually fit me but, einh, whatever. You can become a slave to how you look and motherhood can really help with that! I miss going out to dinner or drinks whenever we wanted. When I took the girls to Grouse Mountain recently I smelled that gorgeous crisp air and I remembered how great it felt to go snowboarding on a sunny day then share a pitcher on a patio somewhere after. I do miss that too. But still, that's not it.
I think what I miss the most is my mind.
I miss the sheer ability to meditate on my future, on my place in the world, the grand scheme of things. I miss my creative brain constantly working on something other than which colour glitter glue to stick the googly eyes on with. I miss writing - really writing. I miss learning, I miss creating and dreaming. I miss that part of me, that glowing ember that erupted with new challenges - a new river run, a new mountain climbed, a new stamp on my passport. The closest I've come in a long time has been a run down a Class II river and a stamp on my 'Little Nest' coffee card.
I spend most of my time buckling the kids into the car and driving to something for them. Packing lunches in a blur so that we can go to the park before pre-school and then stop at the library for singing time after and going to the Aquarium and the trains and the beach and Science World and...
And every once in a while I wonder when I get to do something for me. And you know what it makes me think? It makes me think of my mom; of all moms. Of your mom and mine - because that is what life is like when you are a mom. And when you are a kid you never, ever think about it. Motherhood - parenthood - is just that: sacrifice. For the first time in your dementedly selfish existence you put someone other than yourself first, and you do it because you love these weird little inexperienced people so much you would give up all that other stuff just to get one of those leaping hugs or to hear them ask a question like "Do the guys hold hands when they play hockey?"
Ez and I were in the throes of one of those grown-up 'this is really currently sucking' times and we were having a very productive argument via email (yes, it's come to this) and this is what he said:
I don’t want to see you down on yourself as much as you have been.
You are doing the most important job of both of us. You are with our two beautiful children during the most formative periods in their lives. Would you rather say that a nanny took care of them while you earned a couple more Gs? Its only money. We will find a way. Love, time with family, time teaching, laughing, guiding, it is priceless. They will never look to us as they do now. Truly try to enjoy it while you are amidst the fray.
I’ll be home a bit earlier, I hope.
I love you.
What you do is the most important job that you or I will ever have. Remember that … please.
I love you.
And through all of it - the exhaustion and the doubt and the self-recrimination about my sheer inability to feel productive about just about anything - it all paled in the face of this paragraph. Because he really is right. Yes, it's a huge sacrifice. But it is a job unlike any other. It doesn't mean there aren't days when you don't stand outside of the car and take a big breather before you continue back into the fray of parenting, but in the end, at the end of my days I will not remember, will not even be thinking of how much money I made, what titles were on my resume, what heights I achieved. I will be wishing to see my daughters' beautiful faces again and to tell them how very proud I am and what a privilege it was to have been their mother.
All the other stuff is just that. Stuff.
