Heather R.'s Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 11/30/01 -------------------- 10/25/01 6/21/01 5/10/01 4/8/01 3/30/01 3/23/01 3/15/01 3/7/01 2/27/01 2/20/01 2/12/01 1/29/01 1/17/01 1/1/01 12/27/00 12/19/00 12/1/00 11/13/00 -------------------- Heather R.'s Introduction

December 1, 2000

"I want to run

I want to hide

I want to tear down the walls

That hold me inside..."

--U2, "Where the Streets Have No Name"

Is it possible to have an anthem for parenthood? If it is, then this is mine. The past few weeks have been challenging, but not just because I am a mother. Sometimes life is like that, you know. I do want to run and hide sometimes. Especially those times when I come home to a screaming, clingy 13-month old who acts as though I were gone for eight months instead of eight hours.

Ivan is entering the "please-don't-leave-me-or-I'll-die-phase" of his toddlerhood, and the demands that he makes of me are exhausting. It doesn't help that he is home with John and Chloe all day. He wants me and no one else, thank you.

From the moment I walk through the front door, he is running towards me, arms outstretched and eyes bright. He is usually making a somewhat strange noise -- kind of a half cry, half scream of glee. His relief is immense and immeasurable as I swing him up into my arms and he buries his face in my hair. But like any object of adoration, it is impossible to live up to the ideal.

For example, if I need to use the bathroom within the first 10 minutes I have arrived home, he screams as though his heart is breaking. If I need to change clothes because he is covered in some sort of mess, his cries scatter the room, even as I tear my outfit off and pull any old thing on.

Chloe did not go through this stage with me, but rather suffered the same panic whenever John was away. John was her primary caregiver, and I was unable to nurse her naturally. Instead, I pumped milk for 10 months, and she drank through a bottle. Ivan has always nursed, so I believe his deeper attachment to me stems from that. I always felt, at the time of Chloe's infatuation with John, that I was somehow missing something integral to being a mother. That the feelings she had for John were so much stronger than the feelings she had for me. Of course, I realize now how insane that was. Chloe loved us in different ways, for different things, just as Ivan does now. And while it is nice to be the one followed and adored, it is arduous and exhausting.

And while I want to run and hide sometimes, I also identify with the rest of the song lyrics. As of late, I have become increasingly aware that I need time all to myself, away from my family. Logically I know that this is a natural thing to need and want. It's as though the walls of parenthood and work and family on occasion need to be torn down, so that I can have a bit of freedom.

But awareness and action are two different things. It is one thing to say I need time to myself, quite another to take it. John, being the kind of person he is, has literally begged me to take an entire day off to do something on my own. And he is right; I need the break now and again. So, next weekend, I am doing it. I'm taking off for a bead shop, followed by a trip to my favorite bookstore, Powell's, and topped off with a decadent dessert downtown. I'm excited. I need the space and I know that this little excursion will help. Sometimes being alone is the only way to clear your mind.

I try to spend some time writing every evening, after the children are asleep. I'm working on several big projects, and to be brutally honest, parenthood conflicts with the typical writer's life in the worst way. When I feel creative, I'm not usually free to write, and by the time I am, I've already put in a 15-hour workday.

But when I DON'T write, it's worse, much worse. I feel like a fog permanently settles over my brain. My once blazing witticisms and intelligent conversation is like mush. Worse, my mood darkens considerably if I don't write. I know I need the self-communication, if that makes any sense at all. So in many ways, I am relieved to have this journal. Even if I don't feel like working on one of my projects, I can write here. My own little community.

I think one of the biggest problems with being a parent now is that lack of community. I have no friends that live close by -- Portland is a huge city, and there are long rows of house, streets and trees between the ones I care about and me. I can't walk over to my aunt's house for a moment, children in tow, to inquire about a bread recipe or a home-cure for the cold. If anything, this is the magic of the Internet.

I can find a community of my own, flung farther than I may ever imagine or travel in my lifetime. And when it works, it really works. The words spill out over the monitor as though we were sitting in a kitchen, sharing a cup of tea, children playing and wrestling at our feet. Commiserating with the familiar sentences: "yes, I know how that feels..." "You're kidding!" "I've been there," They're like raindrops on parched earth for parents who long for the sense of familiarity found in the smallest neighborhoods. Who would think that such comfort could come from something as manufactured, and seemingly cold as a computer.

Until next week friends,

Heather