Tonight I want to thank all of you for actually reading this and sticking with it, even though it isn't quite the mama-friend resource center/support group I originally had planned. It's nothing that useful; just another stay-at-home mama blog all about yours truly and the little ones. I've joined the legions of ladies chatting about life on the homefront and I must admit, it's pretty fun.
This little project has had unanticipated consequences, for which I am deeply grateful. (Here is where you come in.) After 18 months of stay-at-home living, most of it done in a new town where I am relatively unknown outside my roles as wife and mother, I'm afraid my confidence was beginning to crumble. I suspect this is fairly typical for others in my position, but its universality doesn't lessen the sting: it was hard to remember if I was good at things besides getting plastic barrettes to stay in place and executing stand-up diaper changes. We would go to dinner parties and I felt I had nothing to contribute. I felt exposed without my kids, or without the ability to talk about them. I used to be interesting, I swear! Invite me over in a few years, I'll tell charming anecdotes that do not rely on the zany antics of preschoolers, I promise!
Strangely enough, writing about the zany antics of preschoolers has helped enormously to quell this fear that there is a vacuum where my adult self with all its capabilities and agency used to be. Turns out I'm still here. Sharing some of the bits of my daily life with all of you has reminded me of that - and the support, kindness and enthusiasm you've expressed for this funny little family journal has helped shore up some of my crumbling confidence. Writing itself is a restorative pleasure I had forgotten about. But the love and kindness this thing has generated have buoyed me up, up, up to a place where I can look all around and feel sincere gratitude for this time with my children. Yeah, yeah, I complain a lot about the limits of my life now, but your responses have helped me see through all the junk to what's real and true.
Thank you, thank you.
3 comments:
I'm enjoying reading even if I haven't particpated in the restorative process of writing in a long, long time. I feel so rusty. I feel like I need more time, a pretty journal, a new pen. Much of what you say about the stay at home experience resonates, not just with me but also in what I hear from the mothers around me. Just yesterday I said to myself, "I used to be more interesting than this," and then an even more desolate voice inside me told me that perhaps I was never that interesting to begin with. Keep writing.
Love,
Reader
I'm so glad this is becoming your mommy blog! I love keeping my own blog, even though I know it's trite and boring. It is truly a creative outlet, and it keeps me reflecting on and appreciating things that otherwise get lost in the shuffle.
You are an amazing, brilliant, and wonderful person. Seriously. I can't believe your confidence would ever waver. You know Michael and I want to be you and Mike when we grow up-- we wish we were as good, as kind and generous, as smart and cultured as you are.
But whatever the case, you, Meagan, have been placed in a very tough position the last 18 months. You are doing a great job in a tough situation where no one was really there to help you, and you were on call to help everyone else. I know this, and I admire you even more because of it.
Keep writing.
Love,
another reader
Oh readers! Bringing tears to my eyes. Emily, I too am acquainted with that evil undermining little elf who makes you doubt your you-ness, what is special and best and strong about you. I knew you when, and I am here to tell you that elf is full of shit. You are that interesting, and more. Part of why I am so happy to reconnect and am hoping you will get a new pen (blow the dust off the keyboard?) and write too and help me make sense of this spot in our lives.
And Amelia! You gave me this gift, and you just keep on giving with all your support and kindness. And I also love your blog, by the way; it helped me see what this could be, and I love it because it makes me feel connected to daily life with you and yours once again. I miss that so, and the little glimpses of your family I get are a joy. Things like the fact that Henry likes a molasses sandwich (on the post before Paris). I would never think to make a molasses sandwich. But yesterday F and G shared one. Thanks Henry!
We're coming early to Lancaster for Thanksgiving - probably the Monday before - hoping to see you all a LOT.
You are someone I admire very much, and so your kind words carry that much more weight for me - I believe you. Wow. Thank you.
xo
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