The Mama Letters: Figuring it out

At the beginning of this year in a fit of New Year inspiration, I made a wild and diverse list of things I wanted to do in 2012. I was daydreaming, just trying to recapture sides of myself that had been displaced by months of baby fixation.

Recently I looked back on that list and was struck by how many of the things on it are just so incompatible with having small children in tow - things like query 50 times, write another novel, crochet slippers, bake fancy pastries, have a margarita, and try Crossfit. But I didn't know that just a few short months ago - what I could or couldn't do with a baby - I wasn't thinking about it then and I didn't fully comprehend the daily demands of baby care.

Now I realize I have a new world to navigate. Will is 2 months now. Time is flying and I feel as if I should be settled by now, but I've only just begun to digest what this all means.

Sometimes, most of the time, I look at Will in awe of his deliciousness, so grateful for the wave that swept him into our life. Sometimes, though, I feel unsettled and blank and uncertain.  I knew what my gig was before - I wasn't satisfied - but it was familiar. I was working, hard, at a stressful job, in an accidental career that I found myself pretty good at. I was an aspiring writer, a creative blogger, a longtime wannabe mother. I was always wanting more time, and wanting a simpler, homier life as a wife and mother and dare I say it? Homemaker.

Now I've got what I longed for and I'm still not sure what it is yet, this new lifestyle. That extra time to get our lives in tidy order? Ha! What was I thinking? I'm doing good to keep up with the laundry and cook a meal and get a shower. Writing? I really, really hope to get back to it, but right now it's on hold. Craftiness and creativity? Tee hee. More time for relationships? Not yet. More exercise and fresh air? Ahem.

I'm living that simple domesticated life I've dreamed of, but it isn't quite as expansive in the free time department as I thought it might be. And it still feels odd, like wearing someone else's clothes.  It feels so natural to mother Will, but this is more than that, it is stepping into a new life and I haven't figured it out yet.

Here's to figuring it out!