My daughter was 22 months old when I left my classroom for Christmas break and never returned. Writing was merely a hobby when I left the classroom. I had shelved that particular dream for so very long; I didn’t think it had lungs left to breathe in the life Ryan and I were building for our family. Little by little, my stories wandered from my fingertips, my ideas aching to be released onto the screen or into notebooks, words becoming something I shaped and shared, not just something I feel in love with in books or in the secrecy of my hobby.
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My days in the classroom feel like a different time and a different dream. I’ve started upon this new trajectory. Going back to the old one feels false and hollow, and I’m reshaping my own ideas about how my life as a working mother will look in a field that doesn’t involve lesson plans and piles of grading.
Until this year, my deadlines have been few and far between. Writing was a hobby working its way into something more. I spent days in our usual routine of play dates and museum visits, reading and building and feeding, maybe taking time here and there to read and comment on posts or dance a few steps of the social media shuffle. The majority of my own writing was done at night, under the cover of darkness and away from the eyes of my children.
This year is different. My commitments are greater, which is thrilling personally, but it brings a whole new level of prioritizing and explaining.
We are all adjusting.
I’ve attempted different writing strategies. Spurts of time when the kids fall into their own world of make-believe were races for my thoughts and my fingers, uncertain when my presence would be wanted — or required, as it sometimes is when a little brother is learning he does, indeed, have the ability to say no to his big sister. I’ve turned on the TV, stretching the limit of what makes us comfortable, knowing how little time thirty minutes can truly be when I’m struggling to edit a piece that just isn’t working. We sit together at the dining room table, me with my laptop and my kids with watercolors, never knowing if this will be a day they paint for an hour or for three and a half minutes.
Even with my best efforts to integrate new responsibilities into our routine, I struggle. My five year old’s verbal skills are a point of pride, until she uses them to explain her disappointment with the time I spend writing or how hurt she is that I can’t play with her “all of the hours that we’re awake”. In those moments, I want to close my laptop decisively and put my own dreams aside until both of my babies are in school full-time, when my dreams can be tucked into the hours they’re away from me and don’t see my efforts to fit something into my life that isn’t them.
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Then I think of the way their own eyes light up as they weave a make-believe world of stuffed puppies at tea parties or how they can play pediatrician with their dolls for an hour at a time. I want them to know their dreams are sparkling, beautiful things that live in the light of day, and part of me knows, irrevocably, that one way to encourage their dreams is to chase after my own.
So for today my laptop is on the dining room table, my fingers racing over the keyboard. My sentences are interrupted by requests for a little applesauce or a glass of milk with breakfast and questions about where the doll shot has disappeared to for the fifty-seventh time this week. I can only hope it is enough, for all of us, at least for today.
xo
Angela
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
