High stakes boredom
That’s what a friend called staying home with her kids. I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my turkey burger. But I still wanted to try it, positive that when I stayed home I would be fulfilled. And now, I do stay home, two days a week on Mondays and Fridays. No work. No office work that is. Its been about a month and our house is calmer, there is (occasionally) more food in the fridge and the floors are cleaner. I finally had time to clean out our junk drawer and the boys drawers only have clothes that actually fit them. But there’s one thing I haven’t been able to keep so tidy: my sense of myself.
For the past four years I’ve been breathlessly unquestioning when it came to whether or not I would want to stay at home: of course, yes, definitely, at least part-time. I had this very clear picture of me tending to the kids, cleaning the living room, fluffing a throw pillow and thinking, “there”. But instead I tend to kids, fluff the pillow and think, now what? And its not about being bored with the boys. I really enjoy being at pick up, and helping with lunch preschoolbloggers classroom and dancing with babyblogger on the living room floor (and knowing my colleagues are in a meeting). Its not the hours that they are awake that discourages me. It when they are asleep and I feel stalked, haunted almost by my former self who asks me, “Its 8:45 what are you doing?” as I’m barely entertained by flipping though a William Sonoma catalog looking aimlessly for an Easter/Mother’s Day gifts.
What am I doing? What am I doing? I think one new, suddenly springlike daylight savings night, when the boys are tucked in, fatherblogger is out having work drinks and I’m sitting on my stoop with a glass of chardonnay wondering how my ambition has shape-shifted on me like the clouds in the sky:from writer to editor to mother and then nothing, only occasional silly daydream professions like the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos (I swear more than any job, I’d love that job. Fatherblogger and I could be having the worst fight and I’ll turn on the TV and if I’m very lucky it will be on and no matter how infuriated I was when I reached for the remote, I’m hysterically laughing as the bridegroom dances into the wedding cake.)
I’m on the stoop telling myself I should be doing more, I’m almost 40, not quite but its coming. I should be reading that Ladies Who Launch book, or plotting a novel but instead I’m talking on the phone with my mother about the boys, or I’m cleaning the kitchen or I’m walking the dog. Or I’m channeling my engery in to somewhat useless endevors, house hunting in fatherbloggers home town, a place he really isn’t ready to move back to and searching online for potential leads, something really only he should do; useless things that are designed to do nothing but feed my restlessness.
I know my experience isn’t unique, for centuries, millions of mother been having thier own version of making a bed at 11:15 in the morning and thought what am I doing? Maybe I’m just having the pre-40 birthday version of Saturn’s return. Or on a decidedly less cosmic note, I’m having my middle age crisis at 37 (which would mean I’m dying young). But I’m tired of being haunted by the ghost in our house who keeps telling me to think of something, do something so that I can finally feel satisfied. She floats around until my mother calls again and I tell her one of preschoolbloggers latest bon-mot, a friend’s babysitter asked him how old doggyblogger is and preschoolblogger put his hand to his chin and said, “I don’t know how old my dog is because he hasn’t told me.” We laugh and for the time being the ghost fades.
Things I am working on:
Growing my nails. A huge effort because I bite when I write and I write all day (well at least for 3 days)
Trying to remember to play the lottery. The Italian grocer told me know one really plays when its under $50 million, so its at $37 million now and for some reason I think that put the odds in my favor. Honestly though I feel more shame than optimism when I buy a lottery ticket. Its like I know I’m not going to win, they know I’m not going to win, so all I’m revealing in front of my neighbors who are on line to buy milk and maybe there own ticket, that I haven’t figured my life out and I need another form of hope at the moment. That rather than make my lottery job or life come true, I’ll put a dollars worth of effort into it. Its embarrassing, in fact, I can’t even ask or verbalize my request, I can only point like the old Italian men, and I pretend as if it just occurred to me, oh and give me one of those I say and I wave my hand in the direction of the red tickertape signage. The one exception to this was when the lottery got so high a few weeks ago. Then you weren’t delusion that was pure optimism, it almost felt like a team effort even if you were buying a ticket just for yourself. Lets see how high this baby can go. Honestly, I was just doing my consumer duty.
July 27th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I think it’s a constant battle when you are a professional woman and a stay at home mom. When at home, you always feel there is something more. I think it stems from leftover ambition. The key is, when at home, to channel that drive and ambition into something useful: whether baking that prize lemon meringue pie that the family eagerly devours or writing that world class soon to be published novel. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with channeling energy into a manicure/pedicure once in a while too!