I've been thinking about loneliness lately, and how motherhood for me has been a surprisingly lonely journey. Sometimes I wonder if this is something innate to my own personality ~ some introverted, introspective side of me that is merely exacerbated by my life as a stay-at-home mother.
Then I'll have a rare conversation with a girlfriend over tea or lunch, one of the many close friends I have who are experiencing the same stage of life right now, and in confidence they will confess that they too feel lonely and isolated at times.
It's weird how you can spend your entire day surrounded by little people who want your total attention - who will do literally ANYTHING to get you to play with them - yet still wind up feeling completely alone.
One of my dearest college friends recently shared with me that in her view, when you divide your life between home (mothers) and work (fathers) there is likely to be a sense of disconnect and loneliness because so much of the day and its various joys and struggles is not shared... not even with the closest person in your life.
This may be especially true for my family, as my husband and I long ago divided up our weekends so that we each have our own personal day in which to work on the things that matter to us as individuals; to hang out with our own friends; to experience adventures that keep our identities intact.
Before we were parents, we did nearly everything together on weekends... we spent long hours reading the paper over brunch at coffee shops, taking hikes, working in our garden, going to see bands at night. We had long, quiet conversations about politics, science, religion and art.
Now that we are parents, we still do some of those fun things - but rarely together. One of us is constantly covering for the other (it switches off) so that neither of us ends up feeling trapped or chained by family life. We want to keep the parenting experience as joyful as possible, and in order to accomplish this goal, you DO need a little space sometimes to actually miss and appreciate being part of the family. At least, we do.
My husband and I both think that this stretch of personal time is sacred and vital to the health of our family as a whole and to our personal health as human beings, yet there can be no doubt that leading a divided life does take away from the feeling of being a team. When you see your closest acquaintance only in passing here and there in the evening, it's easy to feel disconnected ~ no matter how much you love that person.
Yet, he is the only person on the planet who can truly understand what my home life is like here within these walls with this particular set of children. He alone knows what I am up against as a parent day by day as I struggle to nurture and raise them with compassionate values and loving hearts... grappling with the realities of their unique personalities and how they often clash or collide with one another.
Similarly, he alone can fully appreciate how amazing these children are - OUR children. How miraculous it is when they share moments of genuine love and affection for each other, the beauty of watching their minds expand day by day as they grow and soak up knowledge from their interactions with the world. He is the only person who could truly "get" how fantastic it was when our second son finally potty-trained himself after years of bowel troubles... because he is the only person who'd helped me change those nine or ten foul diapers a day.
My husband is in many ways my best friend. Sadly, I rarely see him. He's busy working his heart out to provide for our family ~ whose needs just continue to grow like the maw of some insatiable beast... haircuts, shoes, sports, dance lessons, pediatrician bills, field trips, school fundraisers, new clothes... and coming just 12 years down the pike... COLLEGE. Eek!
Realistically, we aren't likely to see more of each other anytime soon.
When I contemplate the loneliness of parenthood, then, and ask myself exactly what it is that mothers need to feel that they are part of a meaningful collective - What would I need to feel less alone? - the answer is complicated. A lot of it, for me, has to do with honesty and privacy.
As a single girl I related to other women and men by being totally honest at all times about my life - both its joys and challenges. My telephone was always ringing with the calls of friends... and when they weren't calling me, I was calling them. We 'kept up' with each other, having lengthy and personal conversations about the nitty gritty of our lives.
I *knew* what was happening with my friends and their relationships, as they knew what was happening with me. There were no secrets, just a very open stream of communication.
Then I got married. When you marry a person, a certain shield of privacy and intimacy goes up ~ stories that you might once have shared with your crew of friends suddenly become off-limits. Not by design, not by an arrangement made with your spouse. It's just part of the love compact.
This unspoken agreement goes something like, "I will keep our private business, well... private." It has to do with love and mutual respect, and the idea that while your friends might have understood and commiserated when an ex-boyfriend did absurd things like blowing his entire paycheck on new speakers while living off your credit card... it really isn't right to share all of the private details of a marriage.
What I've discovered though is that this sacred sphere that protects and supports a marriage is compounded a bit by the realities of parenthood. With three crazed small people running around screaming and hanging on my legs every time I try to answer the telephone, it isn't really even an option for me to call a friend when I'm having a rough day.
If I'm lucky, I might get time to put together a single sentence for a Facebook status: "LOL MY CHILDREN ARE DRIVING ME INSANE!"
Even were I to find the time, say during nap, to call a girlfriend... chances are strong that she wouldn't be able to actually take my call because she herself would be wrangling her own children. Alternatively, my working mommy friends are typically at work during naptime, and have even more pressure to focus on their children when they can finally spend time with their families at the end of a long day or week.
I live then, in this very strange transitional time - where I am lucky to have so many extremely amazing best friends and yet I rarely speak with them. I rarely see them. Not even the best friend that I am blessed to live with.
I still love all of them like crazy, and I know without question that they love me too. Many of them are the kind of friends that I can go weeks, months or even a year without seeing and when we get together it is as though no time has ever passed. I've been close to some of them for nearly 30 years. At some point we became family to each other - and family lasts a lifetime.
This doesn't change the fact that today is Sunday, my personal day, and once again I am spending my day "off" of mothering all alone. My husband would gladly spend time with me on my personal day but he's busy taking care of three children so that I can get this blessed break. In turn, I would gladly have spent his "day off" with him yesterday but - similarly - I was busy helming the family so that he could get his own well-deserved break.
There are friends I would love to catch up with, that I would love to call right now. Realistically, they are either attending church as a family (perhaps discussing the noticeable lack of Rapture yesterday) or spending precious quality time together with their husbands or wives.
Even were I lucky enough to catch one of them on the telephone, it would be pretty difficult to catch up on weeks or months of time that has elapsed since last we spoke... especially not just in a few minutes.
Yesterday a good friend of mine who happened to be joining us for dinner asked me, "So what have you been up to since I saw you last?" and it was hard to form a coherent answer because I really didn't know where to start or what about my life as a stay-at-home mother might be relevant to a single, professional man without kids.
I suppose that this blog may have ended up sounding a bit 'woe is me' and before I close it out, I'd like to clarify that point. I don't feel sorry for myself for having created a life role that can be lonely at times. My husband and I have structured our individual and collective roles like this because it is what makes sense to us. We are both strong willed independent people who need space in which to breathe, and we respect that about each other.
If my life is lonely, it may well be because I myself have agreed to accept loneliness in exchange for a little privacy and autonomy. I don't regret this decision at all. In fact at this very moment as I type, I am luxuriating in the absolute quiet of my home, blissfully uninterrupted by my beloved small children (who are off visiting their grandpa with their daddy).
Having the time and space in which to nurture myself makes me a better mother, a better wife, and a better human being.
I'd rather be lonely than lose my sense of self.
In 16 years the ground beneath our feet will shift again when our children are grown and out of the house... at which point my friends and I will likely not know what to DO with all of our free time. We'll probably have lunch together every single week, perhaps musing with regret over how much we miss the days when our children were small.
My husband and I will finally have the chance to reacquaint ourselves!
"Well HELLO THERE! Gosh, how have you BEEN for the last 22 years? I've missed you!!!"
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