MAMA CHIMES IN: Losing Freedom, Finding Home

by Ellen RM Toner

Like probably every new mother out there, and I'm willing to bet every new father, too, anticipating and accepting the monumental changes that accompany parenthood has not been easy. We're just about eleven weeks in now, and I'm definitely struggling with a lot of the sacrifices I was afraid of. But, as Jamey is writing in The Chamber tonight, and I'm revising this piece and keeping an eye on our tranquil Sonya Rose, not quite fast asleep next to me, it's comforting to remember that not everything has to change entirely. So, for all you new parents out there who are missing what once was, I hope you can find both some commiseration and some comfort in my thoughts on the matter.

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

33 weeks and 1 day

Dear Sonya,

Your Dad and I are buying our first house this week, provided no last-minute nasty surprises get in the way of signing papers on Friday. And then we’ll move on Saturday! We have really loved living in this sweet little yellow house, but we knew when we moved in here last January that it was only temporary. And how glad I am for you that you will be born in the same house that you will, almost certainly, live in for your whole childhood! My own parents, your Grams and Pops, have moved so many times over their marriage. I just had a dream last night that was set in the house that I grew up in in Lancaster (’96-’05). It’s funny how much a place sticks with you, and colors your thoughts, conscious and subconscious, for years and years. I always dream about that house when I have dreams with my siblings and parents in them. What I hope for you, little girl, is that this house will be your home for decades to come, and when you are far away and grown up and building your own life, you will still dream about it and remember it as a place where you were calm and happy, at peace, safe and protected.

To tell the truth, Baby, I’m not doing so well these days. I’m feeling awfully scared and worried about how to be a parent, how to be a working mom, how to take care of you and your Dad, stay on top of my job, and be available to my siblings and especially my parents as they get older. I had so much more energy even five years ago than I do now. And I could do so many things---writing and studying, singing, calligraphy, heck, even socializing---that I just don’t even know how to do any more. Your dad is writing a lot these days, and even being asked to write articles, and getting paid to do so, which is so great for him. That’s all he’s ever wanted to do, and it’s finally and literally paying off for him. It’s been such a good year for his writing, between finishing his set of Hyperions, getting published in The Wanderer and solicited by Public Discourse, writing his blog about you, and even being asked for novel manuscripts (still no publishing deal on that, but just give it time). I really am happy for him, but I confess I’m also a little jealous, not just of the proliferation and mental energy he has (when is the last time I wrote something that I really loved?), but also because he comes home from work and hunkers down and writes and I miss him, and resent how it takes him away from me. And, the thing is, it’s not like he is an inattentive or unaware guy, not in the least little bit; the care he has given me in the past two years is something for the books. He’s been phenomenal. I’m just… I just miss him, and am frustrated and peeved that he’s able to just write and write and write and I’ve produced nothing really good since last March.

We went to visit your Nana and Pappy down in North Carolina over Christmas. We were listening to The Great Gatsby in the car, and there’s this part in it I remembered from last time I read it, where it talks about how before Gatsby kissed Daisy for the first time, wedding his unutterable visions to this mortal, earthly creature, he romped with the mind of God above the stars, potentially sharing in some kind of divinity, being in a place where all the best and highest and most unattainable things of beauty and richness were possible. But, when “the tuning fork struck against the stars” and he kissed Daisy, all of that vanished; he became mortal, and eventually got shot and killed on an inflatable mattress in a swimming pool. Of course, before everything was just potential; you can go on potentiating forever, Hamleting around about being or not being and never doing anything. At least he kissed the girl and got his feet on the ground. He was human, after all. He wasn’t made to live in the stars. Not yet, anyway.

This is how I feel when I look at the last ten years of my life, and look ahead to what I can tell of the next few decades. Most of my 20s I was pretty free and unencumbered. Not to say that there weren’t plenty of rough times. But the possibilities! And I’m so glad I took them when I had the chance. Applying to grad school, even though I chose not to go, studying midwifery and publishing, joining some intensely wonderful choirs and learning so much about singing from incredible people who became phenomenal friends, hiking the Camino, hiking in Scotland, the Rockies and in Shenandoah, learning calligraphy, establishing a voice as a writer and because of that falling in love with a warrior poet. But I kissed him, and everything else fell away. And it is so much better to be with him than to be without him, and it is so much better that we are starting to learn to be parents than that we never had a chance at it, but I loved romping with the mind of God.

When I look ahead, I see increased worries about how to pay the bills, afford a second car that won’t poop out on us, how to balance being a good employee with a good mother (this is a paradigm that I know is the right one for us, but not one I know, and honestly one I wish we didn’t have to worry about), how to be a good daughter, sister, aunt and friend while still putting the needs of our own little household first, energy pulled in so many different ways, none of which are artistic or creative (at least not in the ways I’m used to), and nothing like the freedom I have known. 

There’s this Robert Frost poem about a woman who is like a tent pole, providing cover and shade and protection, tied down by silken (?) stays that pull in all directions and somehow balance her out and allow her stay upright by tying her down. I guess that’s what marriage, adulthood and parenthood are all about. Like your dad wrote to me long before we started dating, choosing one thing means saying no to everything else that might have been. And, as he often reminds me, it is so much better that we leave one thing still loving it and knowing that we will miss it, rather than shaking off the dust with a good riddance. A good metaphor (and an intentional practice set up for us, no doubt) for what death will hopefully be like when our time comes.