In many ways, I have grown since I was sixteen. I am healthier, happier and more fulfilled. I have gained confidence and purpose. I now see, in a way I did not back then, that my actions can lead to direct positive outcomes, and this brings me joy.
If there is one aspect of my sixteen-year-old self that I mourn, it is the fact that I had so much uninterrupted time. I went to school, and when the day was over, I went to the library. There, I could spend hours researching topics of interest to me and writing them up for my blog. In college, too, and especially grad school, I would just wander through Gottesman library and read books as I pleased, typing up interesting excerpts or musing about things that caught my interest.
Right now, my time is fragmented. I’m packing lunches, washing dishes, showering children, talking to children, reading good-night stories to children. I’m changing loads of laundry. I plan to cook for Shabbos, and begin that process, only to hear my baby cry, at which point I need to help him. And so it is difficult to find uninterrupted, unfragmented time- time when no one will bother me, no one will interrupt me, and I can concentrate deeply on a task. I want to write a sourcesheet, or create curriculum, but it takes a certain kind of time- uninterrupted, quiet time in which I can achieve a state of flow.
Some women are able to find stolen moments, typing a bit here, a bit there, their writing flowing in dribs, drabs and tittles as opposed to a stream. I find that difficult. To engage with an idea, I want to think only about that idea. I want to concentrate on it and only it. I don’t want people asking me for water, complaining they have nothing to do, or requesting to eat when I am trying to create something. It is impossible to engage fully with a concept when you attention flows like water through a slotted spoon, caught and tethered in ways I don’t want.
It is difficult to create when you have young children. The children are lovely, but they require time, and attention, and if you are in the same vicinity as them (and they are awake) your attention will necessarily be broken. So if there’s something I long for, it’s the long, unbroken stretches of time I had as a teenager and young adult.
I know this is merely the season in which I find myself. Like all seasons, it will pass, and the children will become more independent. I will gain more time, and with the time, hopefully, the ability to keep a record of my thoughts. I’d like to be able to capture the things I’ve learned, wondered about or read recently, catching them like fireflies beneath a glass dome.
In the meantime, it’s the end of the quarter. I’m supposed to be grading, writing curriculum and writing a sourcesheet, and everything is due Monday. I don’t think that will work; something is going to have to be pushed off (and not for the first time, which is frustrating, because I don’t like postponing the same meeting.)
I also need to buy shoes for my sons. (Why is it so hard to find comfortable dress shoes for little boys?) There’s a time limit on that, as we have an event to attend, and it is not one to which they can wear gym shoes.
This is what it’s like to be a mother- harried all the time within the confines of one’s own brain. Thoughts buzz like bees. Serve breakfast, make sure lunches are in their backpacks, did I do kriah with that child, when is her performance again, I need to remember to buy the shoes. Yes, we are having him for melave malka, I need to get back to your relative about when they can come, and I need to buy the Romanian salamis so I can give them as gifts. The grading is still not done, I need uninterrupted time to write the source sheet, I meant to cook tonight but I lost an hour because the baby needed me, and how did it get so close to that event and I still haven’t found them shoes?
It is endless. It is relentless. Every day is an exercise in treading water.
I was spoiled as a teenager. I had great swathes of uninterrupted time, like thick, plush fabric I could loop easily around my fingers. Now, my tasks are performed in short bursts- a phone call while I fry salmon patties, a WhatsApp conversation while I nurse the baby, clipping online Jewel coupons while watching the baby crawl out of the corner of my eye.
I know it will get easier, but until then, the night is seductive. Why not stay up for hours in a row and write, or work? I know I will be exhausted in the morning, irritable and grumpy, unpleasant to all. I know that if I cut enough sleep from my evenings, a migraine will come and force it on me, my head throbbing and pounding while the light stabs at my eyeballs. I know it is irresponsible, which is why I do not do it (as I type this at 1:25am), but my computer beckons me like a siren, and all I really want to do is sit here and write, and write.
The time will come. Sometime within the next two years, I will reclaim my nights.
But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand
And breathe, just breathe
Oh, breathe, just breathe.
(P.S. Literally as I conclude this post a child has woken up and needs Tylenol because his ear is hurting.)
If you decide to share this on Facebook, let me know. There are two or three women I'd like to tag who have expressed similar thoughts and feelings 10-15 years ago, when their kids were younger, and I think they'd have valuable insights to share.