Free Write

The girls are having quiet time and so I'm going to have writing time.

I'm in the kitchen with the windows are open. It's a lovely day, the kind where the trees are dancing, whispering, tossing their leaves with arrogance as if they know of their beauty. The wind rustles and bumps, lifts some papers off my kitchen table that I was trying to organize. Oops. I seem to constantly start one project, but before I can finish it, there's another one that needs my immediate attention. My to-do list is endless, and while I'm great about starting things, I'm not so great about finishing them.

I bought the girls some kiddie rakes and we're going out later to clean up in the yard together. I need to spend more quality time with them. They are almost 4 and I don't know where the time has gone. Yelled at Izzy about something earlier and stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn't all that long ago that I had defective, unresponsive ovaries and I was on all these drugs, a total mess, thinking I'd never even be pregnant. And now there are these two little girls walking around in Fancy Nancy tennis shoes, talking about Halloween, eating peanut butter sandwiches at my kitchen table, brushing the hair back from their faces like they're 13. Abby's getting my toes, Izzy's getting my eyebrows. Little pieces of me. Abby is a little version of Daddy walking around and Izzy is a little me. It's surreal to think that they grew inside of me so long ago. And that I have pictures of them as little embryos. And I have the catheter that they traveled in to get back inside of me, my uterus. Isn't life strange? Isn't it amazing? My kids are living, breathing medical miracles. It's not right to yell at them.

I'm 33. I'm a mother and a wife and a sister and a friend. I'm a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a cousin, a niece, an auntie....but I want to be more. These things are important--they are my life, for sure. But there's something lurking, nesting, brewing underneath my skin. I'm antsy and anxious and I want to be more active. I want to stop living every day just to get through that day. That's the motherhood pose, the mantra in my head that goes, "Just get through today." I don't want to just get through anymore. It's a selfish thing. I do, do, do, all day long for my kids, my husband, other people. But I want and need to do more for myself. I need more time. There's never enough time. Time to sit and do some nothing, time to read, time to write, time to reflect, dream, regroup. Time to get back to being me. Who is that, anyway? She's been paused, on hold, stuffed away, shuffled in and out, wrinkled up and used. Surely I can dust her off, polish her up, and have her be as good as new? But she's different now. Moth-eaten, maybe. Faded. Crusty. A little musty, too.

I did a few slightly rebellious things when I was younger, just for the hell of it, to get out of my boring, goody-two-shoes rut. I have a friend, Laura. I used to baby sit for her three daughters. We became really good friends. She once told me I should get my belly button pierced because she really wanted to, but her husband would never let her. She wanted to live vicariously through me. I was scared, but I thought it would be awfully cool and unusually hip of me. I told her she had to come with me & hold my hand. She did. Can't believe I did it. It hurt a lot. Dan really liked it, too. But I had to take it out when I was pregnant and my belly was getting so huge. And it just never went back in.

When I was in college, my friend Heather and I decided to get matching tattoos. We found a place in the yellow pages and just went, without any preconceived notion of what we wanted. We were so dumb. You'd think we'd have at least gotten Phi Mu letters or something. But no. We picked a matching pink generic-looking, very small flower, and put it on our right hip. My dad was livid. Nevermind that it's the size of a nickel and no one ever sees it!

Another year in college, I got my left earlobe pierced all the way up and also pierced my cartilage. I thought I was such a rebel. After a few years I stopped wearing posts in them and they mostly closed up.

I'm starting to get that rebellious feeling again....and I don't think pink hair will cut it (we have a sitter the girls love and she often has a few strands of pink in her otherwise pale blond hair--it's really fun & cute). But it's different now. I don't know how to explain it. I think writing will solve it, but there's not enough time. Never enough time. Maybe I should start to budget some time. And I suppose blogging counts to a certain extent...at least when I post something thoughtful.

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us---don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know!