I read
this article a couple days ago and even though it's written from the dad's point of view, I found a lot of it hitting home for me. This week has been very tough in the whole did-I-do-the-right-thing realm. It all started with a photo posted on facebook, which made me miss my old workplace, which then made me miss everyone who works there, and the kids I worked with, and blam. Death spiral of regret.
And then I read the whole thing about how the author likens becoming a parent to becoming a vampire, and seriously, it's true. This is going to sound so absolutely lameballs but I feel like before Adeline I was watching life go by like in the beginning of The Wizard of Oz when everything's in black and white and then she shows up and lights everything up with color and sparkles and dancing munchkins. I hate to even say things like that at the risk of being one of those moms, the ones who think that people just don't get it unless they are parents. I mean, I got life, I loved life, just having Addy has made everything, myself included, more awesome.
And yes, the transition has been a sad, painful one. I cried today just talking about it with a friend who wanted to know how I balance being a mom and still being me, something that I deliberately work on pretty much every single day. Before I became a mom I was terrified that I would completely lose myself in a tornado of diapers, bottles, and conversations about butt cream. I cried often about wanting my old life back (and sometimes about wanting my body back), feeling like I was suddenly used up and done with my wanderlust.
In a weird twist it's taken exactly that: me losing myself in the wonder I see in my daughter's eyes, losing myself in the joy she has at discovering new things, losing myself in the new way I have to look at my own frustration, anger, and regrets so that I can be fully present for my child and be what I think is a good parent. I will never be content to be average, to spend nights in front of the TV watching other people live their lives, to let life pass me by.
I know that so many women in my generation were raised by driven, passionate, loving women who told us we could do anything we wanted to! Reach for the stars! Don't let anything stand in your way! So that's what I did - I traveled, I loved, I did a whole bunch of crazy stuff and I honestly looked down on the concept of being a stay at home mom. I never wanted to go to college to find a husband, didn't want to get married right out of college, and certainly never entertained the idea of being a sahm in suburban Dallas. We were told we can do both (and gosh darn that SJP - she just made a movie about it, which I heard is terrible) and after being in the 40 hour work week for a few months as a new mom, I know that no matter how passionate I was about my job, I just couldn't do it and I have mad respect for those who do.
What they don't tell you is that there's a catch to having it all. Either way you have to sacrifice something. When I was working I was sacrificing successful breastfeeding, being there to see my daughter crawl for the first time, and my relationship with my husband because we were just too exhausted to speak by the end of each day. At home I feel like I'm sacrificing keeping my mind and my practice sharp, relationships I had built with patients and staff and friends, and the overall sublime joy I had at walking into a patient room not knowing what was about to happen exactly but knowing it was going to be awesome.
I am humbled and thankful that I have the choice to be home, because I know that God willing later on I will have the choice to go back. I'm not entirely out of the MT world - this weekend I'm giving three presentations and hopefully getting the word out about music therapy in a way that will get some people some jobs.
So yeah. Now I finally feel like I have superpowers and a taste for blood. She has been worth all this...all this chaos and growing and pain and joy. All of it.
