It Gets Easier

Ever since my conversation with Miriam and my trip to NY, I’ve just been cranking with my writing. Last week I wrote an essay called “Sex and the Third Grade Girl” and yesterday found out it will be published by Mothers Movement Online. This week I also finished an essay about race called “Learning to Be a White Liberal” and sent it off to a magazine. I haven’t felt this productive in years. Then it hit me yesterday: this is the first time in over nine years that I’ve had six hours a day to write without having to teach, care for my mother, or watch a young child. No wonder I’m actually getting things done.

I’m so grateful that I was with my kids a lot when they were little. I’m grateful that I’ll be there with them when spring break starts in just over a week and during summer break, which is just a warm breeze away. And of course, I still have other obligations. Blue Cross just sent me a bill for my mom for March, if you can believe it, and I have a stack of other mom-related business I should be attending to. Still, I’m appreciating this new phase we’re in and the freedom I feel.

In her book Mother Shock, Andi Buchanan recalls an incident when she was at the playground with her baby and the mother of an older child, a stranger, walked over just to say “It gets easier” to Andi, a moment she says made all the difference to her. That’s what I feel like saying today to all those blogging mothers trying to express themselves between diapers and temper tantrums (yours or theirs). It gets easier.