Saturday, December 1, 2012

flat lining.

i'm flat lining and finding that i actually thrive on the busy and in the messy and frantic. i like running last minute, packing lunches the morning of, and chasing down the missing sock.  it's when the quiet sets in that i struggle. i'm having a hard time resting, being still, sitting.  i can't actually. i'm really antsy.   i'm really bored. for sure i have a million things to do: a bin full of those tiny legos are all over my bedroom floor, smashed goldfish are hidden under the rug (which may have been pushed under there by maybe me, an embarrassing confession), and a car full of crumbs, but my heart is, well, bored. i'm flat lining. i keep trying to jump start it with ideas: start a new blog, quit photography, do art projects, start a non-profit, do something inspiring, build a table out of concrete, but as quickly as my ideas start, they fall, they flat line. i'm looking for something, but i don't know what it is. i am wanting something, but i can't find it. the more i search the less content i feel. why can't being just a mom be enough. why don't i feel complete in it, in them. and why after being a mom for 5 years do i still feel incomplete and disconnected from that name. i thought by now that title would fit. why does it seem like other moms get the mothering thing? not mothering, but being a mom.  not action, but identity. and why do i feel like there is a part of me that is always trying to escape it. what is that part of me? like something else, something out there could be better. why can't i just be here. i keep wanting to inject some sort of excitement into my bones, but there is a gentle hand holding me back. a gentle hand holding me still. and the more i stay the more uncomfortable i feel because flat lining is painful, a slow death of sorts. and i feel the uneasiness in me, all the aches and all the ugly rising. and a gentle hand holding me, stay, don't run away. i'm not sure how to dig my roots down into the soil of motherhood. it's hard for me. my identities are still separate. the me and the mom, these two are still meeting.  the ground is tough. but i stay and dig my feet downward because down there somewhere i know my toes will touch the waters of a spring. waters with words bringing my worlds together.

2 comments:

Charissa said...

i feel like i'm trapped in a room with 50 toddlers and i've been commanded to build a tower of blocks. not possible.

it's the constant destruction of everything...i make breakfast, they destroy it, i clean up the mess. i make dinner, they destroy it, i clean up the mess. i make beds, they destroy it. i clean, mop, strive, work, they destroy it.

i feel your pain. and i'm glad the story doesn't end in destruction.

ashley lalkin said...

love. real love is sacrifice. you sacrifice it all for them because that is what love is. we search for this identify to complete us but really it's in the losing that we are really found. you are not alone. I think so many moms feel this way. I feel this way so often. but we do love. that is life. and we sacrifice and there is beauty in not being complete. i love your honestly. thank you