Self-Care is (Still) Hard

This past weekend, a week into a ten day stint of solo parenting, I left all three kids with my parents while I walked to Wortley Village. I stopped in at the health food store, I made a quick trip to the library, I bought a tea and found a sunny bench in the church garden. And I found myself sipping my too-hot tea, burning my tongue, and reading the first few poems in my book without even really reading them. 

Because self-care is still really hard for me. I felt like this time was undeserved. I felt like I had to rush to get back to my parents' place. Like for sure the kids, Charlotte in particular, were all perishing without me. I was tense, just waiting for my phone to buzz with a message from my mom saying "you'd better come home".  

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago. I went to a yoga class one Sunday evening, leaving all three kids with P and my parents. So one adult per kid. It's a fair ratio! But through the entire class I just could not relax. I could not still my thoughts; instead, I spent the entire time picturing Charlotte screaming, tear stained face. I rushed out of the class when it was over, raced home and burst through the door to hear...nothing. No crying baby, no freaking out toddler. Maybe a little laughter, the sound of the t.v. Of course everyone was fine without me. 

So back to the church garden, and that sunny bench with my tea and book of poems. I stopped myself. I took a few slow, deep breaths. I closed my eyes, felt the warmth of the day. And reminded myself that everyone would be okay without me for awhile. In fact, they would be better without me.

We all know that in order to keep at the hard work of pouring ourselves into these little people day after day, we have to stop and fill ourselves up, too. No one seems to talk much about how hard it is, though. How making time for self-care often feels illicit. It is so difficult to just shut down that part of our brain that is constantly thinking about the next diaper change, the next snack time, the next melt-down, and just sink into the moment and take care of ourselves. 

I'm going to keep at it, though. I might continue the practice of checking in with myself, taking a few grounding breaths before I do whatever it is I'm doing. What about you? Do you struggle with self-care? Are you getting better at it? Or do you find yourself, like me, rushing through it so you can check that off your list, too? 

One Foot in Front of the Other

I'm sitting on my bed, drinking tea. I came up here to write for one hour, as I've been trying to do for almost two weeks now, every day. Some days, it's easy. I can't wait to get here, pouring out the words to a new poem or working one in progress like a jigsaw puzzle. Some days, like today, I get here feeling uninspired and with a whining voice in the back of my mind. I don't feel like it, the voice says. Just skip today. And I guess these are the days that are most important to push through.

I used to believe that I could write only when the mood struck, when inspiration hit. I believed that if I just waited patiently in between those bursts, another idea would come eventually. Now, I understand that the real work of creating comes between those (rare, precious) bursts of true creative inspiration. The real work of creating is just showing up, day after day, sometimes kicking and screaming.

As I sit here musing over this aspect of the creative life, it occurs to me that parenting is much the same. Most mornings, I wake up feeling unrested. I open my eyes and I think "already I have to get up with these kids? Didn't we just go to sleep?" I expect to get out of bed with the ache in my lower back and pelvis and thighs and feet having been soothed by sleep, only to find the ache is still there. It's a constant in my life. I change diapers, I get the kids breakfast, I refresh my Facebook feed, bleary eyed.  I nurse the baby. The sun comes up, the boys start to get wild and I know I need to engage, I need to get us all outside. But the ache. The tired. I just want to sit, and rock in the rocking chair, and close my eyes. But doing that is always so much harder than pushing myself to get up and get us all dressed and out the door for an hour. And eating junk convenience food for dinner always feels so much worse in the end than actually prepping and cooking a real meal.

Every day of this parenting gig I feel like I do the impossible. I wonder how the hell I can possibly get through another day, but then I just do. I'm sure most parents, moms of more than one child in particular, are familiar with the question: "How do you do it all?" I don't even know how to answer this. I shrug. Because I have to. I have to do this, I have to show up every. single. day. And feed and dress and engage with these little people because I don't have a choice. I have to do this work because I can't NOT do it. And some days are fabulous. Some days are beautiful and smooth, they just flow from moment to moment like my pen flows across a clean blank page in those rare moments of true inspiration. I push through so I can be open for those inspired moments.

So, in writing poems as well as in parenting, I just continue to show up. When I don't feel like it, when I'm tired, when I want to do anything but. I put one tired foot in front of the other, and keep plodding along.

A Mother's Writing Life Version 2.0

The only thing constant about my writing life is that it is always changing. If I try to set myself up into some kind of routine, it inevitably falls apart within a week or two. When I think of the oft-given writing advice to schedule your craft for the same time every day, so that your muse might follow, I feel despair. Because that just ain't happening. I thought my time would be early mornings, up with the baby. But then she started sleeping a little later, and, thankfully, so did I. Then, I thought it would be during Colm's nap, but Charlotte doesn't reliably sleep for that and it leaves Aedan alone in front of the t.v. for an hour or more. Then, I thought it would be an hour several times a week in the corner coffee shop, but that's only happened twice, because life with three littles is crazy and unpredictable.

My muse must be fast and ready at all times, prepared to leap into action whenever I find 30 minutes or an hour alone. I have to trust that she is just the muse I need at this point in my life. It encourages me, just now, to imagine this spirit: she is wiry and tough, sharp-eyed and always listening. She sees the opportunity coming before I do, and she begins to hum in anticipation. And I hear that hum, hear it steady and low beneath the constant (and I do mean constant) chatter around me. Together we snatch up a pen and paper, or fire up the computer, and we create something. We put words together, or rearrange them on the page. We build my writing life new each day.

I've been drawn to poetry over these last couple of months, both because of its compressed nature and because it's my first love. I've been writing and rewriting several poems, polishing them til they gleam, til I can't look at them anymore. Yesterday, I sent them out to several online literary magazines for consideration. I'll try not to think about them and how they might be faring out there as I move on with new poems.

This morning over oatmeal and green tea, I emailed a local writer's society to inquire about their critique groups. And I joined the mailing list for the Ontario Writer's Conference, which I hope to attend in the spring.

So, even though this seems like the worst, most ridiculous time to be building a writer's life, I'm doing it. Because, like I said in this post back in July, this is the only life I can save. And as Elizabeth Gilbert points out in her inspiring new book, Big Magic, this life is temporary, so why not use it to create?

This post is part of the #WhatImWriting link up. Please visit Writing Bubble to see the other linkers!

Self-Care is Hard

I'm sitting in a corner coffee shop, near my house. I am alone. I drink a green tea as I type this post, trying not to listen to the conversations taking place around me. My back is to the door: I'm determined not to be distracted from my hour of writing time. Weeks of mental preparation have brought me here, a morning of talking myself out of it, talking myself back into it. How is it possible that 4 years ago I did this kind of thing without a second thought? Now, I sit here nervously, expecting at any minute for the Mom Police to come up behind me, clap a heavy hand on my shoulder and take my tea away, spilling it across my lap and burning me. They wouldn't take me to jail, no. Just back home to the babies.

If there are myriad blog posts and magazine articles and forum conversations dedicated to the importance of dad's self-care, I apologize. I've missed them. Self-care, the very intentional practise of putting oneself first every once in awhile, is the realm of women and mothers. We are socialized, particularly as mothers, to put everyone BUT ourselves first, all of the time. Then we read that the key to staying sane is to care for ourselves. To put the oxygen mask on ourselves first. Enjoy a cup of tea, they write. Take a long bath. Go for a run. Practice yoga. And these things all sound wonderful and simple, but the truth is, they're not. Taking care of yourself after not doing that for several years is SO HARD. I expect it will take several weeks of regularly coming to this coffee shop, sitting at this same table with this same mug of green tea, before I feel good about this. Before it feels easy and my cup truly feels full.

Why? Why is this so difficult?

Maybe it's wrapped up in my own failing self-worth. If I don't feel like I deserve even this, a couple of hours spread out across the week, then of course this time would feel stolen from the laps of my children, prised from their grimy little fingers. Of course I'm waiting for someone to call my bluff, send me packing back to dirty diapers and the endless loop of making snacks and cleaning them up.

Maybe I take some kind of sick pleasure out of being a martyr. I will spend all my time with these kids if it kills us all, dammit. But nobody really likes a martyr, they're worshipped only after they're long dead. Living with one: not fun. And I am worth so much more to my family if I'm living, and happy to be doing so.

Maybe I like to think that I'm the only one who knows how to care for them properly, the only one they want. Charlotte has started sucking her thumb this past week, soothing herself to sleep on many occasions.  And each time she does, I am surprised, happy, devastated. Already, three months old, she doesn't need me for that one little moment. If all I am is a baby-soother, a milk-maker, a bum-wiper, then of course it feels uncomfortable to be something other.

So here I am, in the world of the living. In the world of adults with complicated beverage orders, with softly playing indie folk music floating on the cool air. And around me, others talk with friends, they do a Sudoku puzzle, they read the news on their laptop. I am incognito, taking care of myself. I pencil it into my calendar: "self-care, 10 am".  It's ridiculous and it's the only way. So if you're like me, and you find it almost impossible to take care of yourself: Do it. Find a way. Be uncomfortable the first 10 times you do it, and then slowly, like I hope to, I hope you'll feel better about it, too.

I'll write my book of poems, my collection of short stories, my novel, one stolen hour at a time.


Image via Flickr user Nina Nelson. Licensed under Creative Commons

Learning to Live with Anger

It's late morning. I sit on the couch in the sunroom, nursing my baby and watching the boys play. This particular day started too early, and my attempt to sneak in some writing before the demands started was interrupted when Aedan curled up beside me, clinging to my arm and resting his head against my shoulder. Now, the boys are playing a noisy game of "you be the lizard and I'll be the dragon chasing you": they roar, hiss, screech with delight. To say I am overstimulated would be an understatement. And I'm tired, and hungry. I decide to do something about that last one. I sling the baby up onto my shoulder, and walk to the kitchen to find something to eat. And the second I am out of the room, Colm's squeals of joy turn to cries of distress. I tense up (if it's even possible for me to be more tense), my jaw clenching, and storm back into the room. Aedan has his brother pinned face-down, and he's gripping Colm's chubby little cheeks, pulling his head back. And I lose it.

With my baby still in my arms I start yelling. I forcefully pull Aedan off of his little brother, pushing him away from Colm. I scream "What are you doing? What is your problem? It's not okay to hurt people!" And as I utter those words, a voice somewhere in my head whispers: You are such a hypocrite. It's not okay to hurt people but you're trying to hurt him.

And then the guilt and the shame set in. I feel like shit, like an awful person. All three of us are crying. I promise to do better but the truth is, now that I've lost it once today I'm more likely to lose it again. This path is so worn I swear I walk it in my sleep.

Anger is absolutely the last emotion I expected to encounter on my parenting journey. So when it began to bubble up, hot and intense and unstoppable, just after Colm was born, I had no idea how to handle it. I had never experienced anything like the kind of anger I've just described. My biggest triggers are Aedan getting too rough with his little brother, and my own over-stimulation: both of these are unavoidable parts of parenting young kids. I hate this aspect of myself. I think it's ugly, out of control, and scary. Over the last two years, I have promised myself and my kids repeatedly that I will not yell. I will not lose it. I will do better, be better. And, inevitably, I break my promises, over and over again.

With the guidance of a wondeful therapist, I've come to realize some key issues with my approach. First of all, framing it as "doing better, being better" implies that what I'm doing now is wrong, and that there is something wrong with who I am today. And saying "I'm going to be better" sets me up for a big let down when I lose it the next time. Because, let's face it, just saying those words doesn't magically make it so. Learning a new way of dealing with explosive anger isn't going to happen overnight. So if I've promised to be better, and then I'm not, the feelings of shame and guilt are even greater. It's a pattern that leads to more anger, more shame, more depression. Instead of saying "I'm going to do better", I now think of it as doing differently. I'm learning new techniques. I am still me: ever evolving me.

The biggest issue I face, though, is that I am trying to live without anger, trying to deny the feeling exists, trying to squash it down. But anger is a very real, albeit a very uncomfortable, feeling. It is physically uncomfortable: we often feel anger in our bodies, the tension and the jaw-clenching I mentioned. Maybe you ball your hands into fists or grind your teeth. Maybe you feel it in your gut. We often feel an intense need to relieve that anger, by yelling or by lashing out: shoving, hitting, kicking. And that may feel like relief, briefly. And then we feel awful for what we've  done. We might feel even angrier then, at the person who "made" us lose it in the first place, and at ourselves, for losing it.  The feeling of discomfort lingers, intensifies.

So what if we just sit with our intense feelings? What if we just give those feelings space to be? Over the past month or so I've been trying this. Noticing when my anger is being triggered. Acknowledging it by saying, either in my head or outloud: "I'm really angry right now!"  I feel it in my whole body, I feel that urge to strike out, and it is so uncomfortable. I feel my anger peak, and then, gradually, simmer down and finally pass. I've noticed that when I do this, I'm actually angry for less time. There are fewer tears shed. My relationship to my kids is unscathed.

The hardest part about sitting with my anger is still dealing with the situation at hand.  Since my anger is usually triggered by Aedan getting too rough with his brother, I still have to act. Real life prevails: I can't just retreat to a quiet room and deep breathe until it passes. For now, I tell Aedan firmly that we don't push, hit, kick, bite etc. And then I go to Colm, if he needs me, and I hug him and kiss him and make sure he's okay. I hold his sweet little self until the anger begins to dissipate and then I might address Aedan more fully. For now, it works to get me through the day.

This trick of giving space to uncomfortable feelings works with more than just anger, of course. When I'm feeling depressed or anxious, I've begun to just notice these feelings, acknowledge them, and patiently watch for them to pass. And in the same vein, when I am feeling happy, joyful even, I honour those feelings by attending to them, letting them swell and crest and then gently lap at my toes as I wait for the next wave, whatever it might bring.

Were you surprised by unexpected emotions in parenthood? How do you deal with things like anger or deep sadness in your everyday life? I'd love to hear what works for you.