Taking "Time" for yourself and other illusions of MAD women.

To all the friends, family, therapists and concerned parties who over the years have insisted that regardless of the demands of being a Mom and Dad (MAD) woman,  I still "should" have been able to "make" the time to take care of myself, I have one word for you - BULLSHIT!

I can say this one word with confidence as an experienced MAD woman. Let me illustrate.

Up until just last year, I had two very real and tangible obstructions to my "finding the time" to focus on my own needs: My teenage daughters. You want to talk about energy sucks. As they might put it, the struggle is real.

Because up until last year, the youngest of my daughters was still in high school, without a car, and with a full week schedule of school programs, projects and nightly dance classes. You starting to see how that works?

Let me make the MAD woman disclaimer: I LOVE MY DAUGHTERS AND LOVE BEING THEIR MOM (Dad, not so much but that is another post). That doesn't negate that it is a struggle to put others' need ahead of your own for two decades.

My discovery came just tonight, as I finished up my solitary dinner. I pondered what I wanted to do the rest of the night. So I decided to blog about it, because  I have the time to do this. This was an unfamiliar experience, so I wondered...what has changed?

Lets see, this past summer I sold my family home of 18 years, and with it went a certain amount of chores and responsibilities, but that didn't quite feel on target.

And then it dawned on me...DUH!  My daughter isn't here, and I am not driving back from wherever she is!  She has a car now, and can take herself from point A to point B to C, D and back. And she is often not home for dinner! Can I get an "Alright and Alleluhah!" Please don't judge my glee. As a MAD woman, getting dinner on the table 7 nights a week was a herculean effort. I recall many a night when we would be eating dinner at 10:30 pm, because that is when my daughter returned home from dance rehearsals. And I don't serve fake food. I cook real food, fresh ingredients. If its frozen its organic.

Her having a car also means I do not have to wake up before the sunrise to drive her to her school 20 minutes away. That's practically a full hour saved each morning. Why yes in fact, I am doing yoga now!

You see my point? When I would lament (hard to believe I know) about my poor eating habits, my stress level, lack of funds and the like, my most well meaning friends and family would admonish me that I "had to take time for myself". Can I get all the MAD women in the house to join in the chorus...OK! YOU TRY IT!

I know they meant well, and were just frustrated and full of fear for my health, which has been challenged over the years. But beyond being annoying and dismissive, this societal denial of the reality of time and space is oppressive for MAD women, and probably for most mothers.

Society holds up this image of the woman who can do it all, if she would just put her mind to it and organize herself! Who can forget those Electrolux commercials featuring Kelly Ripa, magically getting the laundry finished while hosting a fabulous dinner party for her fabulous guests all while looking so fucking fabulous!  Forgive me for repeating myself...BULLSHIT! 

Its like this. There are 24 hours in a day. During their daytime waking hours, MAD women usually are working. In the remaining few hours of each day, they are tending to their children's needs. Suurree...they could put themselves first. Sally can make her own lunch damn it, she's 5 for gods sake! And there is public transportation...Mommy has to meditate, jeez!

No mother is a stranger to having to put her needs last. It comes with the job for the majority of us. So if it is a choice between reading a book, or helping Sammy with his school project...you guessed it. If the choice is to take Olivia to her dance performance, or go to a movie with a friend, well, they're only small once. And somehow they never felt like choices to me.

Which is FINE! I get it, this is the job description and hopefully we MAD women understood that when we gave birth to these amazing creatures who we love with all our hearts and souls for ever and for always, yes, we do.

But PLEASE...don't deny my self sacrifice. Acknowledge it. Acknowledge that it is hard enough for most single people...to get to the gym, to eat right, to find time to unwind. Don't admonish us MAD women. Don't make us feel we are failing because in fact we CANNOT do it all and when something has to give, it will most likely be us. Its not a character flaw if we are unrecognizable to ourselves after a decade of child rearing. Now that I am getting reacquainted with myself, I see how much I have to reclaim.

Do not deny our reality, because when you do, you push us further into madness, further into losing our internal compass. A mother's soul is fragmented when she is raising her children. She thinks not just of herself, but she is a multitude of selves.

Only when she has the real tangible earthly TIME and SPACE, can she get back to herself and take care of herself. Only when the MADness is lifted, can she be whole again.

Nuff said.

Becoming a MAD woman

I was not planning a wedding, nor an engagement. No hopeful conversations and long made plans. Nursery themes...I still am not sure I know what that means.

A baby?  Hahahahah. No really. We'd only been officially dating 3 months. Sure we pined for each other for years, but we were just getting to know each other, still in the first months of passion and playfulness.

He was 14 years older than me, so at 28 I was dealing with his, um, mid life "issues". I didn't think he could even get me pregnant. Crazy stupid i know, but clearly I must have been in Lala land to still have been with this man. At 28, I told myself the sex wasn't the most important thing. Why was I willing to work so hard so early on?  It was a talisman for the next two decades of my life, and the beginning of my becoming MAD.

Facing 50 - About Reclaiming Ourselves

As I settle into my new space, both internal and external, I have set myself a goal to give myself the space to rediscover myself. Coming off of a 25 year road-trip through marriage, motherhood, divorce and illness...including a move far away from the place I call home...I am presented with the opportunity to pause. To take a stop, look around, and gather up pieces of myself that I'd left behind.. As my friend Joanne put it..."You definitely deserve to get off at the next rest stop!"

My journey back to myself includes dusting off my yoga practice, walks on the beach, meditation and perhaps...a break from "making a living". Instead I am going to try to create a life.

I still have some vestiges of my former life that are attached to me...much like a trailer attached to the hitch. My 18 year old daughter made this move with me. She  is also at a crossroads, having just completed the journey of primary education, she is now learning to be a student in a different way.  We are working on redefining our relationship, to grow into two adults...at different stages in our lives...living and learning together - and apart.

This weekend she was away on a trip with her boyfriends family. The details of which will be a topic of another post. Her absence left me truly alone for the first time since we moved into our new beach side apartment.

I took advantage of a day off of work last week, added another and gifted myself a long weekend. The goal of which was to take a few steps forward in a new direction, and unpack a few more of the seemingly endless boxes. I am happy to report that I accomplished many of the items on the to-do list, leaving the most anxiety provoking for last.

That day has come, to gather my financial documents and get my financial house in order. Prior to the sale of my home, my finances were simply a matter of getting from point A to point B. I made some small random investments, but had no time or resources to actually make an effort to manage it.

With the sale of the house, I have cashed in my chips. And so today...I must gather up these random pieces and like a torn picture,  piece them together to see what it looks like.

But I divert. While working my way to this task, a song came on Pandora. Barry White's "Never Gonna Give You Up". THIS SONG. So soulful, so damn sexy. I can remember the first time I heard it, in the den of a older neighborhood girl, whose name I've long forgotten.

So I started to dance, to move my body in a way I haven't in a long, long time.

And this is where I became reminded...of the young girl I once was.

My youngest daughter is a dancer. She is beautiful, and naturally talented. I put much of my limited resources keeping her in dance classes for the past decade. Well, she got her rhythm and flow from someone...and that would be me. Her dad is not too shabby either, having won a dance contest in high school.

When I was a teenager, I danced my heart out every opportunity I could. And something amazing would happen. People would stop me and tell me what a beautiful dancer I was. This happened every time I danced in a public place. Not random public places like the library! I mean places like the discos of the resorts we'd go to on family vacations, or weddings and parties. This started when I was probably around 14 years old.

This recognition became a source of pride for me. Not only did I love to dance, but apparently I was good at it and it showed!

All through my late teens and into my early twenties, I derived much joy from dance. I found it was the one time my mind truly took a back seat. When the music drowned out the racing thoughts and my body just obeyed the rhythm. Bliss. It was bliss.

The reasons I did not pursue dance as a young girl are pretty simple and pretty tragic for me. In the silence of my own mind and heart, I determined at 17 years of age that I wasn't pretty enough. I had a crooked tooth. Well, that wouldn't work! Besides, I rationalized...I would have needed to have had training as a young child. And with that decision made one day while standing outside on the grounds of my high school,  my dancing was reserved for disco dance floors. But the passion I had for dance, never ceased.

So here I find myself, 52 years of age, brought to tears as I moved my body again to the rhythm. Naturally I have danced here and there over the years. But today, in this sacred and solitary space of reclaiming, I was literally moved to tears. And what I realized was that in this journey of putting back the pieces of myself...I will face this sadness. The realization of the parts of myself left to wither, almost forgotten.

Naturally, I am grateful that I have remembered, and you can bet I will make it a point to have music on in my home at all times, and will put everything down to groove as the music moves me.

So my message today fellow travelers is this. Sometimes, in the journey to rediscover ourselves, we will feel remorse for the parts of ourselves we neglected. As we rejoice in the discovery, we may also feel regret. Like meeting an old lover, and feeling things you thought you had stopped feeling for them. Yes, there is joy in the discovery, but there is also sadness and the tragedy, and the lost years. Let it be. Let the tears flow, and be glad to welcome yourself back into your own heart.

Now...about those financials!

xoro