you get a strange feeling
when you’re about to leave a
place
I told him, like you’ll not
only miss the people you love
but you’ll miss the person you
are now at this time
and this place, because you’ll
never be this way ever again.
[Reading Lolita in
Tehran]
After having a kid, it is pretty
common for one to lose a sense of self. I sat with a friend last night,
drinking a girly adult drink, sadly giggling while reminiscing over how
"we used to be so fun." It's a very common theme among my
friends these days. it's not that we're not fun, its just that the meaning of
fun goes through a little evolution process when you have someone other than
yourself you have to care for 24/7.
We opted on a late showing of the
movie, 'Bad Moms,' (how fitting) and had serious reservations over whether we
would be passed out before the movie actually played: Mom Life.
Masking serious doubts with
smiles, I conceded that I felt as if I were the shell of someone I used to be.
It's an odd feeling to be in my later 20's (26 to be exact) mirroring the same
questions about my identity that I went through a decade ago. I once
lived my life with such confidence. Though often penniless, I often felt
a sense of power merely for existing and being in a place of my choosing. I
might not have felt beautiful, but the absence of the standard of beauty placed
on me by society didn't burden me. I might not have felt good enough,
but inadequacy wasn't a haunting figure looming over me on a day
to day basis, with Elmo songs as the background music.
This isn't actually all just
babble, did you know a woman's brain actually changes when they become a
mother? neurologists have discovered that, "Even before a woman gives
birth, pregnancy tinkers with the very structure of her brain [...] After centuries
of observing behavioral changes in new mothers, scientists are only recently
beginning to definitively link the way a woman acts with what's happening in
her prefrontal cortex, midbrain, parietal lobes, and elsewhere. Gray matter
becomes more concentrated. Activity increases in regions that control empathy,
anxiety, and social interaction. On the most basic level, these changes,
prompted by a flood of hormones during pregnancy and in the postpartum period,
help attract a new mother to her baby. In other words, those maternal feelings
of overwhelming love, fierce protectiveness, and constant worry begin with
reactions in the brain." (Adrienne LaFrance) - it only makes
sense that when neurological changes like that takes place, it would shake a
person from their core, even without their routine being disrupted.
I remember reading about the ship
of Theseus years ago in my Greek Mythology class in college. Plutarch
wrote extensively on it- essentially, Theseus, the king of Athens, and a bunch
of youth from Athens traveled from Crete- and the ship was preserved for years
and years after, while constantly being replaced with new timber as the planks
would decay. Eventually, the ship of Theseus was gradually replaced piece
by piece, over time. The ship of Theseus was referred to as the
"Theseus paradox" eventually, because it posed the question- if all
the components of an object (or person) are changed, is it still the same?
Herein lies my doubts: now that Mother is the front runner
of my identity, is this just a component of my identity or does my personhood
fall under the shadow of this? There has been a lot of reluctance from me in my
parenting journey, to embrace what is in front of me, when I have
been mourning the life that is behind me. I don't know why change and
growth is met with such resistance. Maybe the great problem in all
of this, is that I am the one who has refused to change though circumstance and
opportunity have demanded that I do so.
Perhaps I only lack perspective.
In the midst of the redundancy of mundane tasks, it's often impossible to
see where any glory could possibly be found.
I want to contribute to great
change in the world, but I am consumed with cleaning dishes, trying to not be
late, and constantly trying to remedy the fact that I've ran out of milk and
diapers- again.
I want to spew out poetry and
write meaningful things, but I can't even remember to write down doctor
appointments.
I want to feel
beautiful again, but im also trying to teach my son that even though the body
is a temple, wrapping paper always gets thrown away and a persons beauty has
nothing to do with symmetry on a face or a number on a scale and to believe
otherwise is toxic.
so this is where I'm at, today. I've labeled this part 1, because I know this is just the beginning of this thought.
I'm sorry to finish this so abruptly, and that I can't finish this off with an anecdotal story or resolution today. I'm writing this out so I can process this, and I'm nowhere near ready to figure this out. But, I will post updates as they come. If this comes across as depressing- I'm sorry, I assure you that I am not depressed, I'm just trying to be transparent.
