I gave up an overnight sitter, New Orleans, and an evening with Ani Difranco so I could stay home. I chose it. It made me feel good. I am changing and my deep seated ideas of what is cool and fun and what I considered 'living' are struggling to catch up and shift with me. Hence my propensity to make lavish plans that involve me leaving my children behind only to discover that that's not at all what I want.
My childless (for now) friend doesn't understand and probably thinks it's neurotic to forfeit such an awesome experience for the seemingly mundane life that I live every day. But as I get older and my love for my children and my husband matures and grows more complex, this life of domesticity and love reveals itself to me as the goal I have been seeking since I was a boy crazy teenager. I am an unlikely and reluctant but nonetheless full blown member of the motherlove club. I am happy and fulfilled in a way that is so simple and pure that its confusing. My life has long been filled with cycles of drama and longing. I'm sure I played a big role in keeping myself caught in the pattern since it became a comfort zone. I'm used to thinking that being lusted after and being full of lust myself was the pinnacle of human emotion. It was a cheap but powerful high. Going out to be seen and get drunk so I have an excuse to lose my inhibitions was often my goal and my son was an obstacle I made a game out of overcoming while trying to avoid any feelings of guilt. Now, having experienced an entire year of not working so I could stay home with Kiwi and move forward with the pregnancy and birth of my second son Caelum, I have found myself in love with being a mother. I still have a strong sense of myself. I still have the desire to look and feel attractive but it's finally and truly only a desire to please myself. I love my husband and I love making myself shiny and polished for him, but I know whether I have full hair and makeup going or look busted and homeless and smell like breast milk and baby shit that he loves me. Maybe I'm finally getting better at being here now because I know that this time in my life-like my son's infancy-is precious and fleeting. I am reveling in it as self indulgently as possible.
I simply don't care about the same things. I'm happy and I'm free (at least for the moment) of any desire for anyone else's approval but my own.
