I don’t know if it’s because I skipped two weeks of blogging while my children were on vacation, but I am feeling really slow these days. It took me forty-eight hours to get down to sitting at my desk to start writing this post, and any non-vital task has been requiring an almost superhuman effort. It seems like transitioning back into the school routine has been much harder for me, who isn’t going to school, than it has been for my children. Even though I was the one dying for them to go back to “work”.
They were obviously fine with hanging out at home and being fed a decent meal for lunch, while voicing their needs every five minutes. To me, that second week of break felt like an eternity, but for them I guess it was heaven. My teens only emerged from their rooms a couple of hours a day, to attend the (very) minimalist activities I was able to negotiate with them. As soon as they came back, they disappeared again, and I could only hear the faintest thump of rap or Taylor Swift music coming out of their dens. My daughter’s enclave was a perpetual mess for seven days straight, and it was all I could do to keep acting civilized and pretend I was fine with it, while literally being consumed with anxiety inside. The unmade bed. The dirty spoons under the bed. The collection of mugs and glasses covered in a film of not-quite-dried-milk. The cookie wrappers. They remained untouched for a week, for I was not allowed inside the room and incapable of conducting the daily blitz I usually indulge in after she has left for school. I know, she should learn how to do these things herself. And I do remind her several times a day. But my OCD cannot stand un unmade bed past 9 am, and I always end up fixing something in my teens’ rooms, no matter how hard I try not to.
I was truly grateful that we got to enjoy a first week of skiing that did everyone a world of good. My fifteen-year-old, in particular, badly needed some air after some brutal weeks he went through at school. We are still adjusting, or, in my case, readjusting, to the French academic system and its general disregard for confidence building and care for individuals. A break was most needed and was welcomed by all. But that second week of vacation that all French students enjoy, boy, do I hate it. It is nice to have at Christmas, but in February, and October? AND April? People here seem to be very fond of this system, and I understand how it could be nice if you are able to go away for fourteen days every single time. But I’m not sure how many families can do that, and even if they can, don’t they get tired of their kids at times? I know there are plenty of cheap camp options for younger children, and my two little boys were promptly sent off to one of those. But teenagers? Good luck if you can find anything remotely active or fulfilling that they might enjoy doing for more than a couple of hours every day. I, for one, do not have this special power. And having them both at home last week drove me nuts, let’s just say it as it is. For seven days straight – for there was, of course, the weekend at the end of that week, as you might be aware, - I found myself mired in a toxic combination of boredom and restlessness, doing nothing of value but also incapable of relaxing. As if I had been caught in their own experience of time, the lazy mornings flowing into slightly less lazy afternoons and drifting back into screen-lit evenings, all enjoyed from the comfort of (unmade) beds, desk chairs, and various couches. I wanted to give them a good shake and send them to the park or military camp where they would enjoy a hundred rounds of push-ups and endless hours of homework. But inside, I felt the same slowness they were demonstrating on the outside, and it was all I could do to stay awake myself.
My teens are old enough now that they do not need me, most of the time. But they still need to be fed, and have their lives organized. As you mothers will know, and as we all found out during the Covid times, it is all about lunch. Having to SERVE LUNCH EVERYDAY is when you know you have lost the battle. And no matter how old your children are, as long as they are not in college, they still needed to be taken places. Eye doctor appointments were scheduled, as well as a passport appointment. Glasses needed to be tried on after the eye doctor. I was a good girl, and we did cross several to-dos from my list of tasks that cannot easily be performed when everybody is in school. But I was not having fun, my friends. Even though I didn’t have to breastfeed anyone, potty train anyone, or really play with anyone between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm when my boys came back from camp, I felt like my time did not belong to me, and I was just dying for the week to be over. I have had many moments like this over the past few months, when I feel like motherhood is just not nourishing me. When I just feel utterly bored and dying to go on an adventure somewhere. Even at times when there isn’t that much that I need to DO. Just taking people to where they need to be and knowing that I might be needed at random moments – usually when I have just sat down to work, or when I start watching a movie at night – is enough to ruin my planning and scheduling ability. And despite my best intentions, I invariably find myself giving up on my own projects and priorities.
When I look back, it is obvious that I never took last week seriously, really. That I had already given up before it already started. My kids were going to be home, and that was the end of it. That is one of those moments when I miss working outside of the house. When I taught in college, being there was not negotiable. There was no working from home, except during Covid, but even then, my classes still happened at non-negotiable times on Zoom. Now that I am trying something different, focusing on this blog and developing my coaching activity, I find that it is very hard, if not impossible at times, to keep control over my schedule, especially when the kids are home. Especially during “vacations”, when my days start feeling like a long blob of indistinctiveness, one domestic task or family must-do flowing into the next, without any structure given by the outside world. Once I have a steady coaching practice, I’m hoping this will be a feeling from the past, but I know this boredom will never completely disappear, so long as I am a mom with children living under my roof. I know when to expect boredom, as you mothers all do. The playground ranks pretty high up there, alongside those interminable hours when you are home with a newborn and it feels like your partner will never, ever come back. “The days are long, but the years are fast”, they say. I remember hearing those words countless times when I was a new mom. But I’m not sure the kind pediatricians or just plain strangers who proffered them had any idea how FREAKING LONG the long days, the long hours, could be. The hours spent on the couch, breastfeeding while compulsively checking Instagram or Twitter. The daily homework and going over sounds and basic words when your kids start to learn how to read. The Saturday morning board game you regret initiating minutes after you have started it. The sheer lassitude of it all.
There have been times when I have enjoyed this slowness, this time spent outside of the world’s constraints. Except for a few years when I had two jobs (I’m not sure what was wrong with me then), before my third child was born, I have mostly been working part-time since I became a mom, and a big part of it is that I do not deal well with stress and switching quickly from professional obligations to domestic ones. And I think I needed this slow, domestic time, for reasons that make sense in my own story but that I will spare you right now, as I am reaching the third page for this post. I am also keenly aware that having the possibility to work part-time was an incommensurable privilege. Which did not go without guilt and daily blows to my self-esteem when I was around moms who achieved remarkable career success. I never felt completely comfortable knowing that my husband remained the main breadwinner, and that my life choices did not exactly propel me forward into twenty-first century super-womanhood. But I needed this time when I did, and I do not regret it. It did come, however, with its fair share of boredom, and I realize today, eighteen months after I have moved back to Paris, that I am ready for something else. In many respects, this blog is still anchoring me into slowness and loneliness territory. I don’t think I will ever rid myself completely of the need for this experience of time, which was mine as an only child who spent most of her time alone in her room, reading. But boredom can easily morph into stagnation, and I think I have reached this moment. For this, I have the French 14-day vacation, and my teenagers, to thank. In that sense, this time, I hope, was not lost.
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