There’s a popular subreddit called Shower Thoughts, where you can write your random but profound musings for an online audience. When I first joined, I thought, “I’m going to be cranking out Shower Thoughts left and right. This is my super power,” only to find that every time I tried to submit one, I’d get an automated response to the tune of,
“Your submission is not original enough to be considered a ‘shower thought.’”
This is sometimes how I feel now, with a blog that I only really write on when I have “Something To Say.” But it often seems that there are millions and billions of voices out there competing to say the same bucolic types of things, about the same types of experiences. It felt almost easier as a kid of the 80s and 90s, with the possibility of, “Maybe I could write a book someday and get published.” Somehow, the possibility of being published and approved by a small body of editors felt more realistic than emerging as an original voice in this cacophony of noise we’ve created on the interwebs. Do thoughts need to be original? Probably not, I know. Most of us like to read other people’s musings because they remind us that we’re not the only ones thinking these things, or feeling crazy/messy/weird/etc.
So now I’m a wife and mother with two small children, a 7-month-old and a freshly turned 3-year-old. Random thoughts often squeak by with no outlet to write them down except my phone, if a baby doesn’t happen to be grabbing it and typing her own inscrutable texts at the same time. Pens are banished to the highest ledges and countertops or completely out of sight because, yes, they get used, but more often than not on the walls, and while Magic Eraser is magic, it can sometimes be so magical that it also removes the paint you want in addition to the scribbles you don’t. This leaves the introvert journal-hugger in me feeling sometimes like a pressure cooker without one of those pressure release valves.
Because of this, I wanted to dedicate this blog entry to some of those very everyday but special-to-me thoughts. So, in no particular order, here they are:
I spend a lot of time encouraging 3-year-old Kateri to make friends on the playground and that it’s not as scary as it seems. Meanwhile, I am often too shy to actually have real conversations with adults I see at the playground! Kateri will walk up to kids considerably older than she is, grab them by the hand, and enlist them into whatever game she has in mind… and they actually follow her! Her skills at making friends right now are much better than mine are.
Airport security is one of the most stressful experiences I can think of. I thought everybody stressed about it for the same reason until I asked John what it was about security that felt so awful for him. It turned out that for him, he can’t stand having people bark orders at him in a disrespectful way. For me, it’s feeling like I have to completely unpack my bag, take off shoes and coats, hold kids in awkward ways, etc, and that terrible sense that I’m holding up the line for other people who could do it much faster than me. It’s the fear of getting beeped at and being “caught” for something (usually for the crime of carrying diaper wipes in my carry-on diaper bag), and having to explain that I’m innocent and the fear of not being believed.
(This is a Catholic one): To the priest who told me once that praying short, quick prayers while you’re going about your day is just as acceptable as taking a good long time to pray contemplatively: I nodded when you said that, but I thought you were wrong. I just want to say that you were right. When I was single and had a lot of uninterrupted time, I took that time daily for contemplative prayer, and it was great. Going to Adoration or daily Mass was easy to do. After having kids, I’ve felt completely at sea, because life looks and feels so much different now. I often feel that I’m not praying “right” because I’m not living my faith the same way I did when I was single. Trying to go to daily Mass with a toddler and baby is like playing jungle gym for 45 minutes, and that’s not taking into account the screaming. The day is completely full, a freight train from start to end, with train signals for nap and lunch, etc. Finding a quiet minute without interruption is a rare gem.
The landscape has changed. When I’m in Minnesota, I wear clothes suitable for a certain climate. There are certain rules of dress that are directly tied to what the weather is like. We don’t keep umbrellas immediately at hand like they do in London. When we recently went to the Mexican jungle, I realized as soon as we had been there 24 hours that I’d completely forgotten to take certain things into consideration when packing, such as - you’re going to be drenched as soon as you put your clothes on. Everything will be wet all the time. You can put your clothes out to dry, but they won’t actually get really dry. It’s hard to really be prepared for a new climate until you’ve experienced it.
All this to say, different seasons of life call for different things. I can beat myself up for not living the same way I did in that other season, or I can adapt to a new climate and discover what the new parameters are.
Singleness and married life or life with kids: A friend and I used to talk about the fact that the world (in particular the church) seems to forget about singles, as though they’re a non-entity in some ways, or that it’s really only the families that matter. Like Joni Mitchell, I’ve seen it from both sides now, and I’m recognizing that wherever you are in your life, you can feel alone or isolated. As a single, it felt like so many church ministries were dedicated to families. Homilies were directed toward family life. It could often feel like families had each other, so they didn’t really need to look outward and see the single people around who didn’t have people or places to go for special days, or who had to work really hard to create their own communities. As a single, it often felt like you had to be treading water all the time to stay active in your social life.
And now the isolation is different, and it’s for different reasons. It’s when you walk into a public restroom with your baby who needs a diaper change, and you, who just needs to go. There’s no room for a stroller in the stall, so your choice is, either leave the baby in the stroller or the changing table by the sinks while you go into the stall (this looks pretty weird and believe me, you get dirty looks because what mother would just leave her child alone in a public place?!) or take your baby into the stall and put her on the floor (also weird, and who knows how dirty the floor is). If anyone out there has figured out the solution to this puzzle, please tell me because I’m still trying to figure it out. The isolation can also come from the fact that it’s harder to keep the same connections with friends while wiping noses, breaking up fights, or dealing with huge messes that get made while you turn your back. When you come up for air during nap times, you often have a myriad of choices, all of them important - take care of neglected chores, take a few moments to yourself to breathe and just be, or call all the people you haven’t talked to in forever. Or nap.
I forget what movie this was, but there is a movie in which a guy has an app that tracks everything - how much exercise he has gotten, what his heart rate is, what his emotional health is, etc. Sometimes it feels like our generation boils everything down into metrics - because we can! We measure and pour ourselves into so many expectations - “I will exercise this many minutes,” “I will eat this number of grams of carbs and this of protein” “I will spend 20 minutes reading with my child,” “I will make sure to connect with 3 people this week.” We can look at all the things that go into perfect human wellness - emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, etc. When you add children to this, you might also be thinking about how to boost their emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical wellness, as well. There are just so many things on which to focus (maybe too many things?) A friend shared with me that she, too, has this running list in her mind, and one day she had to let it go in order to take her mother-in-law on some errands. And somehow, even though all the metrics didn’t get measured or recorded, it was a good and whole day, she said. What happened to our ability to just be? And why do we have difficulties in leaving behind the noise of our own metrics?
Who knew that chicken nuggets, fries and “chocolate juice” and some dollar store chalk would be the key to my toddler’s happiness? And where does one buy a toddler-sized Big Bad Wolf costume for Halloween?
