Thursday, June 9, 2016

I Can't Write About Dragons Right Now

I want to write, but I can't write about dragons right now. Or amateur sleuths. Or ghosts. Or star-crossed lovers. Or any of the open fiction projects I have a file for on my desktop. Why? Because less than four months ago I became a first time mom. I'm in charge of an entire tiny human. And that shit is scary. At nearly forty years of age, unsure I even wanted to enter into motherhood, the head trip of becoming a mom has been pretty all-consuming. Some days I can barely remember to put on pants.

Prior to Baby P's arrival, I'd sketched out a schedule for my writing projects and set what I thought was a reasonable calendar of deadlines for these projects. That plan is out the window, along with everything I didn't know I thought about being a mom. My head is so not in the novel-writing game because I'm traumatized by my graceless entrance into parenthood. How do I know I'm traumatized? My first lunch meeting out with my writing partner had me feeling like I had PTSD. That's not what it was, I was actually suffering from FTMS--First Time Mom Syndrome. I experienced anxiety and paranoia. Sounds were too loud and lights were too bright. Everyone was moving too fast as I hovered over the baby in my lap awkwardly breastfeeding as the waitress set down a small plate of sushi that would take me three hours to eat. My eyes darted from side to side like a crazy person. I was out with a baby and in over my head. Never mind the sleep deprivation, which incidentally creates a situation where words like fork and soup completely leave your vocabulary. There's just not a lot of room for fictional characters in my noggin right now because I have all this new mom baggage.

No one warns you about the sheer immensity of the new mom baggage.
They mention it. But never tell you how big it is.
It's because they don't want to terrify you.

This realization that parenthood is hard isn't a surprise. Ninety-five percent of the people I know are parents. I'm late to the game so everyone I know has said, "parenthood is hard" while their ankle-biters throw open ketchup packets in their hair. I thought I had a clue, after all, I've seen a lot of other peoples' kids, but as I look back through the fog that has been my three month introduction to parenthood, I have to say, "Holy Diaper Pails, Batman! What the fuck have I done?"
Seriously.
This shit is madness.
Will I ever drink a hot cup of coffee again?

Parents often tell non-parents that one can't prepare themselves for what parenthood means. I never discounted those warnings, but boy was I still blindsided by some things.

Every expectation I formed as I anticipated the arrival of my child, whether reasonable or not, was altered, dismantled, or destroyed.

For example:
I never expected to be labor for over thirty hours.
I never expected as a natural childbirth supporter I'd choose to have a c-section.
I never expected to be bed-and-sofa-bound for twelve days postpartum.
I never expected my child would have trouble nursing, because breastfeeding is natural.
I never expected my I-don't-hold-babies-husband to be better equipped for parenthood than me. Therefore, I never expected antidepressants.
I never expected to have days that I hate my cherished pets and wished they didn't exist.
I never expected to look at my child and ask myself over and over, why don't I love her?

It's not that I went in with a list of expectations and I was disappointed. Most of these were expectations about how things would go that I didn't know I had. How weird is that? Apparently, I was pre-programmed for motherhood to disappoint me, and I've been grappling with it ever since.

I clearly don't know much about parenthood. I'm trying to get better at it. What I do know is, I have a lot of shit to work out and get off my chest before I can write dragons. There's just no space next to the pile of dirty diapers and milk-coated bottles. It's time to clean house.  

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

How I Miss the Writing

How I miss the writing. It's been over two years since I've written here. Nearly a year since I've written anything. How strange. I had every intention of reinventing this space (once again) into something meaningful, if only to me. My mother's death and my tribute to her marked, in a way, the beginning of an end. Reinvention silenced this space while I wandered away from writing altogether.

I sought out a writing life in 2005 because I had a story to tell. I went back to college with the intention of writing a book. A book of our life, my mother's and mine. Over time, during my writing classes, my truth evolved into a larger truth, and evolved, yet again, into fiction. Into other stories. Even though Mom's story has always been there I've never quite been able to write it. Words lie in wait, but I'm never able to string them together into anything more than sentimentality and passages with little stamina beyond a graceful, articulate moment. Mother's story has defined me as a person and as a writer. It has also stalled me and allowed me to doubt myself time and time again.

Now I've lost my mother, I've traveled to her homeland in Thailand, and I've birthed a daughter. I'm irrevocably altered. How crazy is the universe that I now find myself in life on the other end of what I thought defined me as a writer, being the daughter of my mother. I'm now the mother of a daughter and nothing quite looks the same. 

Words to the page is how I processed things until Mom's death. I tried to use writing in grief, but somehow, for some reason, the words ran out. So, I stepped away. Grieved outside the words. I think I grew. I hope I did. I needed something to happen to me. I think it has.

I'm feeling out the words now. Experience has changed me. I'm not even remotely the same writer I was before. The many stories I began before death and birth touched my life are stalled out because I have yet to find my way back to them. I'm redefining what Mom's story means to me--what my mother, my travels, motherhood, my daughter, and my writing mean to me. I hope exploring words reconnects me back with this act I love and realize I lost. How I miss the writing.