How to Begin...

I feel a bit like Bilbo at the start of the Red Book, I have such a tale to tell but where to begin?


I suppose I begin with leaving...

I think that the Boy's entrance into our lives was difficult because he changed me. Fundamentally. From the version of me that I had been into a new (and probably better) version of myself. The old M is still there, it's the elements, the building blocks that make me who I am, but in thought and actions, I'm different from what I have been. That was really circular, even for me.

When I was packing, I brought out the clothes from my Before I Became a Mom days. Lovely button down shirts, thick cotton sweater vests, belts, scarves, funky socks and clogs. It was so nice to be able to wear the same clothes all day, so nice not to be drooled on, wiped on, snotted on. But oh, then I would feel awful for taking such delight in such a little thing...but that is a whole different ball of guilt.

So, while I was there I felt very much like my old self, I wore the lovely clothes and jewelry. I went where I wanted when I wanted without thinking about someone else's nap schedule or eating habits. I ordered whatever I wanted to eat rather than thinking about what someone else would eat. I had intelligent conversations without singing anything at all. I went to the bathroom by myself.

But at the end of the day, I was missing something, or rather someone. I had a ton of fun, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And believe me, when these opportunities arise, we'll be taking advantage of them. But I still felt like I was missing something. Maybe it was the Boy, but maybe it was ME. The version of myself that I am now, every day.

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote about this conflict in a letter once. She and her family had just moved into a nice, new house and she was writing about her preoccupation with it when she said, "is it right to spend so much ourselves on so purely selfish a thing as a house is, while so many are wanting--thats the haunting thought to me; at least to one of my Mes, for I have a great number, and that's the plague. One of my Mes is, I do believe, a true Christian--(only people call her socialist and communist), another of my Mes is a wife and mother...that's my social self I suppose. Then again, I've another self with a full taste for beauty and convenience which is pleased on its own account. How am I to reconcile all these warring members?"

My experience of the last few days is that maybe it's a choice like most everything else. Maybe we choose which version of ourselves we live...maybe we choose not to be selfish and vain and preoccupied, and instead choose to be patient and kind and generous. I don't know. Maybe this is old news and I'm just behind. I had fun. But it felt a bit like dress-up, where I wasn't quite the most truthful version of myself. And now that we're home and I'm back in my plain, ordinary life, I feel like I'm ME again.