nighttime yard-wander

[felicula]

The sky tonight is that same dull reflected shade of salmon that always reminds me of snow. I know it is really just the same orange of nighttime light pollution reflected off of clouds and diffused through the soft flakes. Still, it is bright compared with the ordinary rust color of a rainy night sky in the city. I remember looking outside one night as a child and knowing that it would snow. The only difference I'd seen was the color of the clouds.

I actually spent some time outside tonight. As a full-time parent, there are too many days when I don't bother going outside at all during colder weather. Errands don't quite count except to get a sense of the temperature outdoors. It is nice to just go outside at night and feel the silence. The snow has a comforting quiet to it when the neighborhood is asleep. I can just inhabit the yard, feeling the chill normalizing my body temperature and let my mind absorb the previous day.

Admittedly, I miss being a social person as I'd been in college. It stuns me somewhat when I realize that it has been over four years since then. So much has changed yet I still seem to think of myself as who I was then. I am a parent now. I am a spouse. I've moved away from the home in which I grew up, and the friends I had there. So much of my time is spent in this apartment's microcosm with only my child and the pets, while mechanchaos is at work.

Since then I have spent a lot of time learning how to create a home, rather than sinking into the maelstrom that used to be my way of organizing. "It *is* clean mom. Everything is in its place!" Scowl from mom,"Everything is all over the floor." "I know that mom." ***matter of factly*** "That is where it is supposed to be." ***giggles, remembering*** I think the only thing that helped me in that department was FLYlady.

I think I've come to a point where I need to rediscover who I am. I know who I was. I know what I have done. I just need to bring things into the present, to find out whether what I knew was still applicable.

Perhaps that is why I don't have much to bring up in general conversation. The only parts of my life that are present tense are housework, my child, my spouse, Minerva and her kittens, and the people we've started getting to know.

I get self-conscious when I light up during social situations. It is like I don't realize how much I miss having friends around until I am practically radiating from the feel of interaction. That, or I catch myself hyper-focusing on one detail or motion in the room only to totally miss what someone was saying to me. Now that is a disjointed feeling. It is like my hearing ceases to function when I drift into hyper-focus. I know that on some level I must have taken it in, but the words just aren't processed as they ought to be.

I'm hoping that I can bounce back. With more opportunities to be social, perhaps practice will snap me out of my slowdown.

Comments

[hbbtrbbtbcnbt.livejournal.com]

*lots and lots of hugs*

Oh my, I know EXACTLY what you're saying, because I've felt the same way! Married life, and especially children, really do take up so much life, especially when they're so young. It really is like a major disconnect happens from the rest of adult life. And when you finally do get to be around adults, it's so awkward, because they're in a different season of life, and there's not the same level of relatability. So often, I've just sat and been 'on the outside looking in' of the conversation, and feeling really out of touch and isolated. It's very easy to lose yourself, in that you're more often 'his wife' or 'their mother'. Not that these roles are bad or something to begrudge, but it's just so easy to lose yourself, and so hard to connect outside of home.

It does get easier as the kids get older....I've noticed that just with one going to school now, it's opened my life up a bit more, and the other will be starting school next year. They can also entertain themselves for longer periods, which helps. (For me, it was also getting over the 'guilt' of asking people to look after the boys so that I/we could have couple/social time.) It's also really good to remember that this is not going to last forever; they do grow and become more independent. It's hard to remember this when your kid is three and a half, and you've been up to your eyeballs in Mommyhood for that long, but it does get easier!!

It's been good for me, also, to be getting to know everyone, and I look forward to getting to know you better also :)

Hang in there, and enjoy the time :)

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Wow, and here I was wondering if there was something wrong with me for ending up that way. ***hugs*** It is reassuring to know that I am not the only one, and that we are on our way to hanging out more often. ***smiles***

Belated response

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

I find this really ironic, especially the "outside looking in" part because I have the same sort of feeling when I am around more than one person who has children. As increasing numbers of my friends become parents, I have this sort of "left behind" feeling. But the plus side is that since many of my friends DO have kids, when I have some, I won't have to feel out of place or anything of that sort. :)

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I've heard similar from ecwoodburn as well. If you would have asked me five years ago if I thought I'd have kids and settle down, I'd have said "not for a decade, not this uterus!" Now I can't picture myself any other way.

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

*smiles* See, being a mommy is the only job I've wanted for my entire life. There have been other career type things I've considered throughout the years, but that's the only one that has remained constant throughout.

Yet somehow, at 27, I'm still not there. I suppose, having been married once and divorced already has a lot to do with that, as well.