She lays her head on the hard metal armrest, feels her back pulled and pushed in ways that are nowhere near comfortable. Her spine is wrapped around the bump between the seats. She cups her hands and rubs her face and tries to wash away this angst she feels. The coming and going in her life. Excitedly leaving the children and their messes behind. Anxiously anticipating her return to it all. To the comfort they bring her. To the comfort of knowing exactly who she is when she is at home, with them, with their messes.
She closes her eyes and her body sinks into the hum of the airplane. The low, loud hum that she wouldn’t even notice if she weren’t paying attention. Her limbs cannot find a resting place but her mind is content, if only for a moment. I wish I had this noise at home, she thinks. This kind of loud, whirring, constant noise that slows me down and cushions everything. The noise that lulls a baby to sleep.
The peace and calm, they flee. Her anxieties flare yet again. She wrestles with herself. Why do I feel so unsteady? Why do I feel so out of place when I’m away? I’m the type of person who knows exactly who I am.
Or does she?
The waffling between confidence and insecurity is exhausting.
She wants to craft a hard, non-porous shell and hide inside. It might be easier, after all, to always know she’ll always be comfortable. But she is slowly, slowly learning to bridge the gap. And I am watching her in awe. As if she is not me at all, but a woman driven by a force outside of consciousness. Which makes no sense at all, because she is me. I her. And somewhere along the way we will come together. We will come home.
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This is beautiful, Sarah. You have put into words something I always feel when I’m away from the comfortable, the familiar, but haven’t found a way to express.
Sometimes when I’m traveling (which isn’t often) I’ll see myself as if from above and wonder, “Who is this woman?” It’s like I can’t define myself when I’m away from my home base. I get caught in that in-between space – the “go away, come here” that is motherhood, for me.
Thanks for your gorgeous words.
-Ellie
Beautiful.
“The waffling between confidence and insecurity is exhausting.” Yes, yes it is. But you’re not the only one. I think it must be something in our DNA as women. This voice of insecurity sneaking in all the time. But don’t listen to it! You can handle anything that comes your way.
Love this post, and love Eva’s response. That line caught me, too, because it describes the waffling I do nearly everyday, as I move between home and work and work and home. Every weekday I’m reluctant, then busy, then wistful, then busy again until my daily family reunion. I’m headed for a big change soon, and it’s exciting but daunting, as it’ll require even more commitment to my grown-up life. It’s all !!! and ??? and …
I haven’t traveled without my girls, sometimes when I am without them I feel…wrong. I feel unmoored. I love who I am with them, but I hope I can find myself apart too.
I love this glimpse of life – yours, hers or could be mine. But written with such tenderness.
Beautiful. Brave. True.
Sarah,
Your last few posts have embraced this search for identity that so many of us are struggling through.
Am I only a mother? A person who cleans, cooks, and struggles through menial tasks while wishing she were somewhere else? And, at the deepest level–can I be more?
You, I, all of us can be more. Motherhood–parenthood– is a blessing that is mixed with so much confusion. We are constantly seeking for something, the person that we think we could be or should be while fighting against that voice that whispers we will fail in all our efforts. Yet, this blogging world provides a haven (sometimes not so safe) for us to share our words, our desires, our fears. We find women and men who understand our frustrations and our joy. In these relationships we discover a world outside of our own with people who are not as quick to judge and who will see us on our journey of becoming.
There are times when we write only joyful things because life is seemingly in a good place and there are times when we are drowning and need something, someone, to send us a lifeline. Whether your posts are full of angst of of !!! doesn’t matter. We, I, come back again and again because I relate so well to your words.
Rather than offer a platitude, I want you to know that I understand. Suffocating beneath the constant demands on your time while trying to remember how much your love your children is exhausting. You are strong. Remember that.
Beautiful. Brave. True. But most of all…YOU. Best thing about you, Sarah Fite…what you see is what you get. Gloves off, straight-shooter. YOU. Soul sister, you don’t lie and you don’t waste time pretending. I love you for that and so many reasons.
That gap is hard to bridge. Sometimes, the hardest parenting moments for me are the first five minutes I’m home after being away (or my kids have been). That transition is so foreign, somehow.
Finding home, of course is the crux for all of us. Mothers and women in particular. You will find your way, and you will find a way to embrace her and you all at once. And then. You will reinvent again and again. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll be on that plane again and again. And just maybe it will get a tiny bit easier or clear each time.
I love this post. When I first became a mother at 20, I didn’t know how to be out in the world as anything else but a mother. It scared me to death to not have my mother face on, it was my identity. Now, I love to go out in the world as other things as well as mother, but it’s hard. You rock!
You never will shed the mama in you, no matter how solo or how far you travel. And wearing that away from your children has a slight itch you cannot quiet scratch.
My heart is in my throat with this one. Welcome home, where all divergent parts of you come together.
This is a gorgeous, honest piece of writing, Sarah. It takes me so many places, and I know, I come at this on the tail end of parenting but no less fatigued, no less “in search of,” no less unable to sleep or know where I belong.
It seems as though women are raised to think we’ll find our sense of self (and home) in a man, in a man’s love, even in the creation of family with a man. But we have to own ourselves. We may not do so first; we may in fact do so last. As we can, when we can, our capacity for everyone else – and everything else we care about – seems expanded. Of course, at times it seems our capacity for fatigue expands as well.
And none of that equals comfort. Not in my world, anyway. Nor does it mean an end to the “waffling” – as you so beautifully described. But it’s a tipping toward an acceptance. The opposite of that non-porous shell. Something fully absorbent, that still leaves room for the self, the woman, and those moments of contentment, just a little longer, and a little more frequently.
I will remember this piece of writing.
I always want a shell to hide in. And then, occasionally, I peek my head out and realize it’s not so bad out there, in the big, big world, flying solo without my mothering hat. Scary as hell, but not so bad, even good sometimes.
Wow!
“The waffling between confidence and insecurity is exhausting.” It SO is. Sometimes, though, I wonder if the confidence would feel as good without the insecurity there to anchor it. It’s a tricky balance between the two, and the extreme of either is dangerous. Hope you find your balance soon, and often.
Gorgeous.
I highlighted and copied the same line: “The waffling between confidence and insecurity is exhausting.”
So resonant and real and raw. This was this post for me.