Motherhood is Not for Wimps

The woman sitting next to me in the master’s fiction course was stressed out.  We were all stressed out.

The program was merciless, cut throat, and involved sitting in a circle discussing in great detail what was wrong with each other’s writing.  I hadn’t even submitted work, yet, and I was miserable.

 ”I stared at that sentence until 2 a.m.,” the woman said.  “The grammar was just wrong and I couldn’t sleep thinking about it because I knew he was going to be all over me about it.”

“I just have so much to do before I even get here,” I said.  It popped out of my mouth and I regretted it instantly.   Never in my life have I felt quite as uncool as I did being a mini-van driving mother of two in a class full of young single literary women.

“Is it really that different than any of the rest of us who have lives outside this class?” the girl replied. 

“No.  Sorry, I’m just tired,” I said.

Because it’s rude to say, “Sweetheart, you just don’t get it.” 

She had bills to pay and floors to sweep, boyfriend problems and worries about the future.  Plenty of pressure, to be sure.  But it wasn’t quite the same as what I was experiencing.

Before I could get in the car to come to class I had to make dinner for five people, lay out pajamas and pick up the living room.   Doing my homework cost me $12 an hour in child care.  Before I put one penny toward that, I had to teach two undergraduate courses just to meet my financial obligations to our household. 

I was the only student who had to factor a mortgage and day care into my financial aid assessment, who felt like every hour in the classroom was taking resouces away from my kids.  I was the only one planning a fairy princess party for 17 the weekend before her paper was due.

Draped over all of this was the fog of drugs I was taking to control the violent nausea of the first trimester of a pregnancy I was keeping secret —  discretely excusing myself from the discussion to pee or vomit or whatever.

The night before we were to workshop my material, the professor e-mailed to say it was not going to go well for me.  My work was inadequate and he intended to be very hard on me in class the next day.  He just wanted me to know what to expect.

I replied with a request to withdraw from the program. 

I was not the person I was trying to be.  I could not return to a life when I could stay up until 2 a.m. glorying in grammatical art.  I could not make the money we needed by working in a coffee shop.  I could not care about the coursework the way I was supposed to because my worries included whether my kid’s night terrors were related to the number of hours she was spending in day care.

I was staring at a closed door.  A door I had closed long ago.

Maybe if the program had been different — less pressure and negativity, more nurture and encouragement.  Maybe if our financial position had been better and the stakes had not felt quite so high, if I had not had to work two jobs while racking up more debt.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Coming home after signing the withdrawal paperwork I felt immense relief, regret, sadness.  I had gotten a full refund.  The loans were gone forever, thank God.  I stood at the kitchen eating chocolate cake, looking down at my growing belly, contemplating the fact that if I had been ten years younger, I would have stuck it out, no matter what.  I would have listened in  tortured silence, feeling stupid while my work was ridiculed and discarded — thinking I deserved it.  I would have refused to quit and I would have assumed a lot of debt doing it.

A year later, Schmoopy is very Schmoopily, and way better than any nasty ole MFA.  I have been grateful many times that I was not trying to complete a degree while caring for a sick child and earning a living.  I would never have made it.

As to the writing part?  Well, I am reminding myself every day that I don’t have to be everything I will ever be,  just who I am right now.   Every life has its sadnesses, its closed doors. 

And who knows? Maybe some day I’ll be the lady in the MFA class, bitching about how hard this is to do on a retiree’s income. 

But I hope not.  I hope I’m the lady writing about how she taught herself, did it between loads of laundry and paying freelance gigs, and how it is okay that it took twenty years because she got there in the end.

Along with her husband and three beautiful children.

I come out of the meeting to discover that it is 10 p.m. and snow is falling hard enough to weigh down my eye lashes.

The parking lot is un-plowed, so when I press down on the Loser Cruiser’s accelerator, I am curious to see what I’ve got for torque. I have backed the car in to the space — I’m a New England girl, I can smell snow and when I do, I park nose-out. I learned to drive on front-wheel transmissions, not that anyone knows what that means any more.

I ease out on to the main road, fish-tailing a little, but not bad. The conditions are worse than they look, though, and I bring my speed down to under 20.

Take it easy, no rush, low and slow.

When I drive like this, I always think of that Grand Man. In his youth he was a pilot, trained by an instructor who would blow cigar smoke up in his face during instrument approaches.

“Boy, if you could land in those conditions, you could land in anything,” he used to tell me. He taught me to practice my acceleration, to shift by the sound of the gears — even how to double-clutch like a race car driver.

My headlights make a clean triangle into the block of snow I’m driving through. On either side, darkness.

It occurs to me that I have not been this alone in a very long time.

I am glad the children are not with me. Ahead of me, in our little house, they are in their beds. Ren and Mare are probably in the bottom bunk together –they have a habit of snuggling when a storm powers the drafts that run through the Tilty Floored Farm House.

Don’t get cocky, just ’cause they’re not in the car, their mother is in the car and they need you to come home — it is the Grand Man’s voice that scolds me when I drive. Check your speed, check your rear, check your sides, feel for a skid, be ready.

It is really dark now — I can’t see the lines on the road, I check my sides to be sure I’m where I need to be, there are no treads ahead of me and I know I am hydroplaning.

I used to be this alone all the time.

I am not just their mother. I am a daughter. I am a wife. I am the granddaughter Ducky so fiercely protected, my brother’s sister, and the teacher my students count on to pass on all that was taught to me.

With my children not in the car, I realize its cargo is still precious. There is plenty in me, yet.

And then I am home.

The driveway is a narrow target between two trees. It drops suddenly over a little lip. I reverse, aim, press the gas, release, ease the Loser Cruiser into its spot. I make sure the Crappy Honda will be able to get around me in the morning, then I turn the key and set the brake.

In the kitchen I stomp my bare feet while my tea steeps. I put away the half-eaten biscuit I’m pretty sure Cute Husband must have given to Ren after she didn’t eat her pasta.

I am halfway up the stairs with my mug when I hear a tiny, breathy:

“Hi! MAMA!”

It’s coming from my bedroom. A pair of chocolate eyes in a little fuzzy baby bird head peeks out from the blankets. Her Daddy, beside her, is snoring. She kicks her feet in joy, pulls herself out of his arms and over to my side. I tuck in, nurse, rub her back.

She is mine, and I am hers. And she is hers, and I am mine.