"The days are long, but the years are short." Gretchen Rubin said this. I don't have a clue who Rubin is besides a person who apparently can capture a universal feeling in nine words.
Recently, I have found myself experiencing two completely different emotions in anticipation of having a child. The more prevalent emotion is sheer excitement. I feel like Cody and I are as prepared as we can be. I feel like I have gained valuable knowledge about labor, delivery, breastfeeding, and life with a baby in general. My parents are so happy. Cody is happy. The to-do list is shortening each day. And most days I am giddy at the idea of meeting this little human and starting our lives with him in it.
However, after resigning from my job for the upcoming school year, a completely different feeling has started to creep into my mind. I've suddenly started to worry about uprooting my existence and my identity in preparation for motherhood and all of the goodness that (hopefully) comes with it. I've started envisioning how my days will actually be filled next year when volleyball season starts without me and a new school year begins in August. I wonder what it will be like when Cody goes to work and I am alone with a baby who doesn't speak. I read articles about women who get lost in parenthood. People who completely lose touch with who they were before they had a child. I listened to a podcast about motherhood in which a woman cried about her unexpectedly changed voice after giving birth that kept her from enjoying her notoriety as an excellent karaoke singer...I'm not kidding. The woman was so upset about not being able to do karaoke that she cried on a podcast. What in the world?!?
Needless to say, I've started to worry a bit. The whole parenthood and working debate is exhausting. I have no idea how anyone can determine what is best for them until they simply become a parent and make a decision on the matter. It is probably logical that I have at least temporarily decided to quit working, since I come from a woman who eventually quit teaching to stay home with my brother and me. I also come from a woman who to this day claims being a mother is the best thing she ever could have possibly done with her time on earth. But this brings us back to the long days, short years idea.
Life is generally not good in the present tense. On a daily basis it is difficult to manage stress levels and small details that can greatly impact one's experience. I know that the first few weeks (maybe even years) of my child's life may feel very tedious to me. All of the firsts that he (and Cody and I) will experience will unfortunately be tainted by all of the complaints of everyday life. There are very few moments that I have experienced that transcended the present and managed to erase all of the common complaints of existence, replacing the present tense with a moment so perfectly created that its beauty was abundantly obvious right then and there.
I know that parenthood will be slimed with days of frustration and exhaustion and lack of fulfillment. I know that there will be times when I wish I was living this life that I am a part of right now. I know that the stories my mom tells of her perfectly behaved children who were adorably cute and unique have been smoothed by the years in between when she has forgotten how many hours of sleep she had the night before or the hours of tears leading up to that one perfect experience with her baby. I know that the days are harder than the years. I know that if I go back to work I will regret missing the days no matter how hard they feel at times. I know that if I don't go back to work I will miss the person I was before I had a baby. I know that there is no answer to this question.
I suppose I originally decided to quit working on the pretense of what we have left at the end. When I look back on seven years of teaching and coaching, I can recount only a few moments that seem worth remembering. Most of the days were uneventful. I don't feel like I have moved mountains as an educator even with the help of the years to smooth out the edges.
I keep telling myself that what will be left after the days as a mother have passed will be more valuable than the days I am spending currently. The moments that remain will be filled with my child and not someone else's. The stories that I will tell years from now after the smoke of parenthood has cleared will be enough to sustain me through the days of reality.
Lena Dunham posted a picture to Instagram this morning of her and a friend sitting in her shabby, first-ever office space before she became famous. The look on her face exemplifies the grunginess of the building, the weird characters who surrounded the office. She tells stories of all the hard times she remembers when she looks at the picture from years ago. Yet, she notes that, "it was all better than it felt at the time." Somehow I have to remind myself that the years that pass generally make life easier in our memories. Time will smooth edges and wash away all that we couldn't filter in the present tense. The worry of what will be will probably not matter, and certainly we (I) don't want to miss out on the few moments we get to live that don't have to smoothed to be appreciated.
I'm sort of banking on the fact that creating a human needs less smoothing than a lot of life. Time will tell.
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