Last semester began over the weekend.
Things I've learned so far:
1. I love being alone in a place where no one really knows me. It's like hiding, ducking out of my humdrum life for squandered hours here and there and getting to return to myself - to the me that's silenced by Spaghetti-O's on the floor and smears of Balmex. The me I pushed aside for my children, to carry them I gave my body - but to raise them, I gave the me I've always known. The one who secretly thinks terrible things like If I were living each day like it's my last, I'd be on the other side of the Atlantic...and then I realize that in that perfect, idealic existence, I'm walking the cobblestone streets alone.
Thankfully, before I can delve too deeply away from myself (my mommy-self) the subway car jerks to a halt and my daydreams are scattered like the Cheerio's I'll be sweeping up when I get home.
Sitting in the workshops, I'm creative-me. I'm curious and interested and, before we begin, I'm quietly listening - absorbing the gentle chatter of non-parental conversations sprinkling around me refreshing as rain.
Walking home, I peek in boutique windows or ethnic markets and am tempted to pause. To stop my fast foot-to-concrete pace and just let myself slip into aisles of foreign stores, fingering linens or knick-knacks or bags of strange sweets, until I forget where it was I had been in such a rush to return.
Except, I can't. My mother-in-law can only watch the children so many hours in a day.
So I instead descend the million-steps to the subway, stare at the bricks, the rails, the dirt, the smudges of footprints on the thick yellow "Do Not Cross" line.
And I wait.
2. I love being home.
Because he runs to hug me within ten seconds after I walk through the door. Because his hair is soft and his cheeks are cool and he smiles when he looks up and calls me Mom like it's a word he invented - just for me.
Things I've learned so far:
1. I love being alone in a place where no one really knows me. It's like hiding, ducking out of my humdrum life for squandered hours here and there and getting to return to myself - to the me that's silenced by Spaghetti-O's on the floor and smears of Balmex. The me I pushed aside for my children, to carry them I gave my body - but to raise them, I gave the me I've always known. The one who secretly thinks terrible things like If I were living each day like it's my last, I'd be on the other side of the Atlantic...and then I realize that in that perfect, idealic existence, I'm walking the cobblestone streets alone.
Thankfully, before I can delve too deeply away from myself (my mommy-self) the subway car jerks to a halt and my daydreams are scattered like the Cheerio's I'll be sweeping up when I get home.
Sitting in the workshops, I'm creative-me. I'm curious and interested and, before we begin, I'm quietly listening - absorbing the gentle chatter of non-parental conversations sprinkling around me refreshing as rain.
Walking home, I peek in boutique windows or ethnic markets and am tempted to pause. To stop my fast foot-to-concrete pace and just let myself slip into aisles of foreign stores, fingering linens or knick-knacks or bags of strange sweets, until I forget where it was I had been in such a rush to return.
Except, I can't. My mother-in-law can only watch the children so many hours in a day.
So I instead descend the million-steps to the subway, stare at the bricks, the rails, the dirt, the smudges of footprints on the thick yellow "Do Not Cross" line.
And I wait.
2. I love being home.
Because he runs to hug me within ten seconds after I walk through the door. Because his hair is soft and his cheeks are cool and he smiles when he looks up and calls me Mom like it's a word he invented - just for me.
Labels: Myself, Reflections
3 Comments:
Ah Mella. This one moved me to tears. (sniff) Your writing is beautiful. And I'm particularly fond of the ones about your children. It speaks to me and puts words to feelings in ways that I couldn't even imagine. Beautiful.
Glad to hear that the semester is off to a good start. Enjoy it.
(o)
This is so honest and I love you for it. I have been noticing the same thing since I started working again on Saturdays...just me and my two arms and legs, no diaper bag, no stroller, no 20lb sack o' sweetness on my hip...and I can get a coffee and sit and be quiet and read a few pages of a book. It is just so satisfying. It's amazing how that freedom was totally overlooked when I was sans bebe...
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