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The 9-5 work day genuinely is the death of passion. I get home every night and I am so tired that the most I can muster myself to do really is lay around. At least before I could look forward to the climbing gym, but given the state of my tendons right now, I doubt I can climb the way I want to for another week or so. Why do I have to be punished for just doing what I want? Admittedly the injury is forcing me to be cautious about my limits but then again I completely forgot about my similar and equally frustrating wrist injury from pole overexertion this past spring. I never learn!
Camp has further cemented my belief that I don't want to be a teacher and I don't want kids. I know these two things likely will change in the next decade or so but I cannot imagine having to spend all of my time giving and giving and giving. So what if I don't want the selflessness of motherhood? When you are a mother you must wholly and willingly resign to the fact that your life is no longer solely yours. And obviously, in a traditional pregnancy and motherhood, this sharing is not hypothetical but rather bleakly and blatantly physical. I give you my fat, my blood, my milk; all my things big and small.
My mom couldn't wear contacts anymore after her first pregnancy. Again, things big and small.
I recently finished reading Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. It follows Mother, an in-hiatus artist SAHM, as she begins to transform into a dog during the nighttime -- Nightbitch. I won't spoil the ending, which I still feel uncertain towards, but Yoder manages encapsulate so many of the fears regarding mothering that I somehow have developed by the ripe age of 19. More specifically, she recognizes that there is a very unique damage that motherhood can do to one's artistic practice. I thought a lot about Nightbitch and her relationship to her son: a sometimes-terrible but perfect child who depends on her more than anyone and appears more dog than boy (although this is maybe not entirely his fault....).
Nightbitch certainly holds an unrelenting love for her son, but perhaps not an unconditional one. She more than subtly changes the boy to suit her needs. This kind of change is inorganic. The magical realist in-novel universe provides a rather lovely ending to the book where Yoder pushes for a more raw kind of love, for spontaneity, for an embrace of the nasty and the disgusting aspects of motherhood.
Does it always work like that though? Usually that leads more towards intensive therapy.
Nightbitch reminds me of Chouette, a thematically similar book I read last year when I also happened to be working at an arts summer camp with children. In Chouette, our mother is named Tiny. Tiny is a cellist whose sudden and rather animalistic pregnancy results in an always-terrible but perfect child who depends on no one and appears more owl than girl. Chouette is a very different book in many ways: Tiny's husband is much worse than Nightbitch's and Tiny finds herself changing more and more for her child.
I found Tiny's trajectory more believable. Her career is ruined, her marriage spoiled, her child gone. All because she did her best, I guess. In her own way.
I usually find myself pretty optimistic but motherhood is the one thing my instinct seems to refuse negotiations on. Never mind the whole non-woman thing. I don't even want to think about my body in relation to pregnancy in relation to gender.
I highly recommend both mentioned books.
I can't wait for menopause.
Camp has further cemented my belief that I don't want to be a teacher and I don't want kids. I know these two things likely will change in the next decade or so but I cannot imagine having to spend all of my time giving and giving and giving. So what if I don't want the selflessness of motherhood? When you are a mother you must wholly and willingly resign to the fact that your life is no longer solely yours. And obviously, in a traditional pregnancy and motherhood, this sharing is not hypothetical but rather bleakly and blatantly physical. I give you my fat, my blood, my milk; all my things big and small.
My mom couldn't wear contacts anymore after her first pregnancy. Again, things big and small.
I recently finished reading Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. It follows Mother, an in-hiatus artist SAHM, as she begins to transform into a dog during the nighttime -- Nightbitch. I won't spoil the ending, which I still feel uncertain towards, but Yoder manages encapsulate so many of the fears regarding mothering that I somehow have developed by the ripe age of 19. More specifically, she recognizes that there is a very unique damage that motherhood can do to one's artistic practice. I thought a lot about Nightbitch and her relationship to her son: a sometimes-terrible but perfect child who depends on her more than anyone and appears more dog than boy (although this is maybe not entirely his fault....).
Nightbitch certainly holds an unrelenting love for her son, but perhaps not an unconditional one. She more than subtly changes the boy to suit her needs. This kind of change is inorganic. The magical realist in-novel universe provides a rather lovely ending to the book where Yoder pushes for a more raw kind of love, for spontaneity, for an embrace of the nasty and the disgusting aspects of motherhood.
Does it always work like that though? Usually that leads more towards intensive therapy.
Nightbitch reminds me of Chouette, a thematically similar book I read last year when I also happened to be working at an arts summer camp with children. In Chouette, our mother is named Tiny. Tiny is a cellist whose sudden and rather animalistic pregnancy results in an always-terrible but perfect child who depends on no one and appears more owl than girl. Chouette is a very different book in many ways: Tiny's husband is much worse than Nightbitch's and Tiny finds herself changing more and more for her child.
I found Tiny's trajectory more believable. Her career is ruined, her marriage spoiled, her child gone. All because she did her best, I guess. In her own way.
I usually find myself pretty optimistic but motherhood is the one thing my instinct seems to refuse negotiations on. Never mind the whole non-woman thing. I don't even want to think about my body in relation to pregnancy in relation to gender.
I highly recommend both mentioned books.
I can't wait for menopause.
