So, it turns out it's not as hard as I had anticipated to jump right back into mothering, working, and living at breakneck speed.
Except, that is, for those five minutes this morning when I was trying to change Jake's poopy diaper. He has now decided that a choice between lying down and standing up while being changed is not sufficient for his needs and prefers to dangle, loose-limbed, from my left arm while my right hand does its best with the diaper wipes.
Still, he is a joy, and being his mother above all else is a joy. But it doesn't keep me from thinking back to Friday night, gimlet in hand, wearing a new dress unadorned by smears of yogurt, talking about days not so very long ago when I had such a very different life.
Crying at the end of an old friend's visit, I have figured out, is more than a matter of not wanting to end the break from intense mothering. It also, for me, had a lot to do with feeling that person I used to be being sucked out of my body, as if it were attached by a string to Sam's luggage and headed for the airplane out of here while I drove sadly back home.
The wave of panic that overtook me as I pulled away from the curb had a whole lot of loneliness in it. I suddenly felt very small and very alone, surrounded by a big place called Asheville, a place I happily call home but to which I have so few attachments.
When I was single, I used to relocate roughly every two to three years. Which made me both very good at relocating and kind of crazy. Still, I loved the excitement of a new home. I'd inevitably unpack in a nervous, sleepless weekend, and then, in quick succession, join a gym, find a good dog park, and start a new job. All fruitful avenues for making friends and feeling connected.
It works a bit more slowly when you move with an 8-month-old. It was impossible to settle into a yoga studio when I was caring for him all day; and even after he started school, I found the mid-day class not nearly as camaraderie-building as my old 6:30 a.m. classes. You've got to bond with anyone else nuts enough to line up outside a yoga studio clutching her mat at that hour of the morning. We did briefly go to the dog park down the block as a family, but I spent most of my time talking to Jake rather than other dog owners, and we gave up with winter and one too many Audrey attacks on an undeserving dog target. And the new job? I'm just here at home doing the freelance thing. Not much of a social network in the hallway between my home office and the bathroom.
In fact, not much of a reason to get dressed in the morning at all, unless you count my brief encounters with the caregivers at Jake's school.
"Why are you putting on make-up?" Mike asks quizzically when he sees me brushing on a quick coat of mascara in the morning.
"Because," I mutter, hoping it sounds more convincing to him than to me, "I see other mothers who are on their way to work."
Does this mean I want to be on my way to work as well? I do recall relishing the ritual of showering, drying my hair, and choosing my costume -- I mean, outfit -- for the day. It's fun to click around the house in heels feeling like a character in, if not Sex and the City, at least The Gilmore Girls. Never mind that usually by the time I made it all the way to the office my hair had fallen into bedraggled tufts scented by hairspray and my pants had stretched out in the car so they bulged unattractively around my hips. And don't even get me started on how I looked on the days I taught the evening class and wondered where my carefully applied make-up had disappeared to over the course of the day.
But what about those years in my 20's, when I was living in DC, putting in my hours at a law firm, and tripping out at night for drinks, a movie, dinner -- whatever I wanted because there was no one waiting for me at home? What about all those years when I thought my body was a little bit flabby only because I didn't even begin to comprehend what nine months of stretched abdominal skin will do to your midsection? What about a life full of possibility and excitement and energy?
To be honest, just writing about it here makes it seem far less attractive than when Sam and I were talking about it.
Freedom Does Not Equal Happiness
It's easy to imagine we were happier -- or at least had the potential to be happier -- before we were tied down to motherhood. Because now we have no choice. We've made the decision to have children, and I doubt there's a one of us who regrets it. Still, there's a big difference between regret and missing the old days.
Most of what I think is magical about those old days is the fact that we hadn't made any permanent decisions yet. Regardless of how we felt at the time, we could always change direction, switch jobs, move to a new town. About the most radical change one can easily manage with a young child generally involves one's hair.
(I say that as someone who did move with a young child. It does not feel radical. It feels scary and a little bit stupid and mostly like it was done by a responsible parent -- better schools, more neighborhood kids, a big house for Jake to grow up in -- than by a carefree gal who could play the lead in a one-hour drama about cool professional women living in Western North Carolina.)
"I love change," I used to tell people every two or three years when I was packing to move to a new city and new profession. "I just hate the process of changing."
And this was before I had read anything by the Dalai Lama.
Having read a bit about Buddhism since then, I understand what I meant, and I understand why it makes me so sad sometimes to look back at those days when I seemed so free.
I was not happy by any means. I hated being a lawyer, and, after the initial sheen wore off, was wearied by being a law school professor. I was lonely, even though my basset hound Roxanne helped tremendously. I was tired of shallow, yelled conversations in bars and of spending every Sunday night glued to Sex and the City so I could feel not quite so alone but cry about it anyhow.
But what I did have was that ability to change things when it got to be too much, to start over, reinvent myself, take charge.
Here's what that means translated into my oh-so-limited understanding of Buddhism: It means I got to feel like I controlled change. And that illusion made me think that when I found the right place I could stop the change as well. Because I was -- I falsely believed -- in control.
Notice that every few years the deep wrongness of my belief caught up to me and I ran in a frenzy to a new place where I got to make big decisions for a while -- job, home, dog park. It didn't make me in control, just well traveled.
The truth is, change happens all the time, and we don't control it. The more we try to control it, the ruder our awakening will be. The less we resist, the happier we will be.
So, we have children because we embrace the change they will bring to our lives. And then they bring all those other changes -- the ones that take the polish off your fantasies and mire you in the realities of daily life. And we look back to the days when we could skip away chasing a new fantasy -- whether that meant moving to a new city or buying a pair of really high heels we might actually get to wear some time -- as something magical.
We think we had something then that we have given up. When the truth is just the opposite.
Change and Balance: Bakasana (Crow Pose)
Think of the gift of your children. Okay, you could spend the rest of the day doing that. Think specifically of the gift of change they have brought you. Every day something is different with Jake -- saying "cookie" in addition to "baby" and "dog"; no longer insisting on sitting in my lap when we eat at the table; and, with any luck, suddenly getting over his insistence that he neither lie down nor stand up when having his diaper changed.
These are all good changes, even the difficult ones, because they are the beauty of a young life unfolding. Reveling in them makes it a whole lot easier to deal with the other changes that happen regardless of what we do -- changes in health, in fortune, in friendships.
Those days when we were a lot younger and child-free? They're part of us now, just like the gray branches of the tree outside my window. After laying dormant for a long winter, the branches are beginning to bud -- something new bursting out of something old.
So next time I am sitting outside having a drink with an old friend, I'll talk about the days when I was young and single and I'll even indulge myself in thinking I was happier, prettier, more exciting and excited then. But I'll come home and hug Jake and snuggle into bed next to Mike, and -- I commit to this right now -- I will embrace the changes that have brought me to a place I wouldn't ever give up where I'm not so very in control.
Bakasana (crow pose)
Finding the balance between the changes that happen to us and the choices we make to change is always difficult and sometimes impossible.
The changes that happen to us can knock us off our feet. The choices we make to change don't always turn out the way we had planned. And yet these moments inspire us to find greater strength, and with that strength comes a new sense of centeredness. Finding our center, of course, is what brings us balance.
Bakasana is the foundation for all the arm balances. I offer it here because it emulates the process of balancing our choices with the energy around us. It took me some time to find my arm balance, but now that I have, I find nothing compares with the joy of floating into the energy around me.
If you are familiar with bakasana, consider using these directions to find your way into more challenging arm balances.
1) Squat on the floor and lean forward so your heels lift off the floor and your hands are on the floor in front of you.
2) Concentrate on your hands, as they will be your foundation. Place them shoulder distance apart and spread your fingers. Make sure your pointer fingers are pointed toward the front of your mat. Press into the space between your pointer fingers and your thumbs and, at the same time, draw your elbows closer toward each other so your shoulderblades come together on your back. This will feel awkward, but you will also start activating your balancing muscles. Consider all that you carry on your back and see how beautiful that can be in this pose.
3) Lift your hips and, bending your elbows in toward your sides, place one knee on each tricep, as close to your armpit as you can. Your toes will stay on the floor. To find space for this part of the pose, draw your navel in and lengthen your spine.
4) Lifting on your tiptoes, think about letting your heart surge forward. Don't forget to keep your elbows close to your sides. Feel a lift in your lower back by pulling your navel in toward your spine. You are combining that self-generated heat in your core with the energy of your heart -- freeing yourself to follow change while putting in the effort and energy to embrace it and work with it.
5) As you start to feel the lightness and lift of your heart and your core heat working together, continue to lift up on your toes and see if you can bring one foot off the ground. Experiment with lifting one foot and then the other, trying not to lose the balance of energy you had with both feet on the floor. Think about how this relates to life -- easier with both feet on the ground, but less open to the change that will inevitably come to us.
6) Ultimately, you may feel ready to try lifting both feet off the ground. You must trust yourself and the energy you generate and the energy around you, just like in life. It helps to keep lifting around your kidneys -- just above your hips -- and to draw your elbows in strongly. Don't be afraid to let your neck lengthen -- like sticking your neck out in the face of unknown change, you might fall, but you might soar.
Even if you are not fully in the balance, let yourself fly. Even with all the strength we must have as mothers, we can, indeed, soar.
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