You know, even back in the day before kids, I was a pretty low maintenance girl. I didn't go in for monthly for highlights or manicures, I wasn't out shopping every afternoon or sitting sipping lattes while typing notes in class, and I hardly ever wore make-up of any kind and never of the department store variety. So when motherhood came and I fell into the mommy-trap of allowing my kids to take my everything, at first glance, there wasn't much to miss. But damn if I don't hate having to plan my outfits a few days in advance in case I might want to show a bit of leg (shaving takes some preplanning, dontcha know?)
I had a friend a few years back whose New Year's Resolution the year after her first baby was born was to wear a pair of earrings every day. Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? But it got pretty complicated. First she had to find those earrings, then she discovered that she needed a way to keep them visible in her house so that she would remember to put them on, and finally, she had to actually stop for the 30 seconds or so every morning (and again in the evening) to stand in front of a mirror to put them on.
On paper, all of that seems pretty easy, but this mommying thing makes EVERYTHING hard. I can't believe it has taken me 4 years to put that down in writing, but it is incredibly true. Everything is harder just by virtue of you having produced offspring, as if they sucked some important ability to manage out of you as they left your body. But, little by little, I am trying to reclaim that which was taken, and with it, small pieces of myself.
I had a friend a few years back whose New Year's Resolution the year after her first baby was born was to wear a pair of earrings every day. Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? But it got pretty complicated. First she had to find those earrings, then she discovered that she needed a way to keep them visible in her house so that she would remember to put them on, and finally, she had to actually stop for the 30 seconds or so every morning (and again in the evening) to stand in front of a mirror to put them on.
On paper, all of that seems pretty easy, but this mommying thing makes EVERYTHING hard. I can't believe it has taken me 4 years to put that down in writing, but it is incredibly true. Everything is harder just by virtue of you having produced offspring, as if they sucked some important ability to manage out of you as they left your body. But, little by little, I am trying to reclaim that which was taken, and with it, small pieces of myself.
