"Three is greater than two," I say apologetically when people
ask me about my writing. In other words: I'm not writing. I . . .
underestimated . . . the difference it would make in my life to move to
three children from two. Misunderestimated. I love being a mom and I
am besotted with these unique, amazing little (not so little!) people
I'm getting to raise. But I've yet to find space for myself in all the
physical, temporal, and mental chaos of my life, so I'm not writing.
That's
true and also incomplete. I can write anecdotes and passionate
arguments on Facebook all day. But I'm not writing creatively. The
difference between a Facebook post and a blog post highlights the other
reason I'm not writing. The Big reason. The Real Reason. A Facebook
update can be quick, funny, incomplete, utterly lacking in context. It
can simply be a picture. It can be a short conversation. It's a
snapshot of a moment. The way I blog, on the other hand, tends to be to
collect anecdotes for a few hours or days or weeks or years, then
assemble them into something that makes a sort of narrative or point,
even if it's a very short or simple one. Blogging - let alone writing
memoir or fiction - requires perspective for me.
Perspective and some sort of connection to emotion. But emotion is painful,
y'all. I feel like I barely get through my days doing the things that I
need to do. Children dressed and off to their appropriate places with
their appropriate things (snacks, water bottles, lunches, signed
permission forms, money for this that and everything else, dance gear,
gymnastics apparal, instruments, music, themed hats). Weekly schedules
created and maintained. Meals planned, shopped for, and prepared. I've
given up on cleaning up altogether. Committees worked. Summers
planned down to the minute. These classes, these camps, these
vacations, these meals, these structured free times. We don't do so
well with unstructured time.
And as for me, I find a sense
of accomplishment in managing and balancing all of this. I call it My
Life. I also have something to pour into the space where I used to keep
writing and dealing with emotions and exercising and tidying my house
and whatnot. That something is food. I look forward to what I get to
eat next. Predictable results, etc. But doing My Life and then eating
and reading or watching TV or playing Nintendo or whatever else I do
after the children are in bed and before I turn into a pumpkin (more
committees) - in the space I used to use for writing or running or both
(in addition to reading - there's always reading, for better and for
worse) all of that allows me to mute my feelings.
And
muting my feelings is a relief. As a teenager I felt so much, so
acutely, it was unbearable. I filled notebooks with scrawls of rage and
pain, pages warped by tears. Becoming an adult - and this happened
gradually in my early-to-mid-twenties - was a relief. I could feel it
happening. I sought it out. I called it perspective, I called it a
mature ability to organize my thoughts logically, to present arguments
rationally, to exist in a world with lots of pointy edges.
When
I'm feeling a lot of pain, I can distract myself with TV or books or
games or busyness and try to think about the pain as little as possible
until a skin forms over the gaping wound, until I can examine it from
afar without pressing too hard on the tender spot. This is a coping
mechanism, and it works - to an extent - but it's not conducive to good
writing because to write, I have to feel. I'm not sure I even remember how to turn that back on, anymore.
It's
not that anything so bad has ever happened to me. I've lived a pretty
charmed life. But it's cumulative, you know? I was a kid, and I was
hurt by things I'd shrug off, now. I've had friend drama (and loss),
relationship drama (and loss), family drama (and loss). I have a child
with disabilities. She's great, but it's a lot to manage, sometimes. I
have children, and that really is sort of like letting your heart walk
around out in the world unprotected. I lost my dad too soon. It's
easier to just . . . mute that a little. Let the skin grow closed, just
a thin layer, so that light gets through but not too much. A
manageable amount. That's how I'm living my life these days: in
manageable amounts. Later, I'm sure, there will be more writing.
