There are times (in fact, let’s be honest, it’s most of the time) that I feel like it’s not reasonable to grieve who I was before I had kids, stayed home, was married, stopped working. Those are my choices. I don’t regret them. But with every choice that is made, others are left on the side of the road. You watch them fade in the distance like a kid who presses her snotty nose against the back window pane in the family chevy station wagon as she watches the circus get smaller and smaller. It was a fun day - now it’s time for home. The kid licks her cotton candy sticky fingers and thinks about her bed.
I have this guilt around missing who I was or perhaps who I am - but am not being at the moment.  Let me state, for the record, that I know that I am blessed. I have a husband whom I love and is an able and steady provider. I have my three boys, a house in the suburbs with an excellent school, friendly neighbors, holidays full of loved ones and antiques that have been handed down to me. What I’ve set aside or made take a backseat or let slip is my ongoing connection to my creativity.  It’s been set on the shelf over the years that I’ve folded clothes, changed diapers, run errands, scheduled doctor’s appointments. Some women do it. They keep the channel open right through having kids and mortgage payments and bunko nights. Some women feel too strongly to let it go or make getting their kids gatorade and crackers when they have the flu more important than scratching down song lyrics that occur to them or writing because they have to. I haven’t been one of those women. I’ve done bits and pieces. I’ve gotten committed for brief periods of time. Then the fridge breaks down, the animals get fleas, the kids need homework help and again I let it slide,  whatever my inner voice is telling me to create.

I’ve told it “no” or set it aside enough so that now that voice is thin and small and easily ignored. When I go to see Shawn Colvin at the Troubadour the lump in my throat tells me that the 20-something who connected with that music is still there. I’m right here. I’m 47 now and have a white streak of hair and lines around my mouth but I’m very much still the same person.  How do I be this person, the younger, connected-to-her-muse one and the person I’m used to being, the one who drives 35 minutes to Monrovia to take her son a bottle of water to his flag football game and see 15 minutes of it before driving 35 minutes back home. I’d like it if she could sit down and make some kind of a deal with 22 year old me who heard “Steady On” streaming from the car at Bennington college and was touched by the melody and the lyrics. I’d like it if the mes could hash out a custody arrangement. Perhaps young me could have some time while the kids are in school. Old me is kind of controlling and likes getting things done and isn’t too sure about letting young me take the wheel. She’s worried that if I plug into inspiration it will take over and I won’t be able to accomplish all the things I need to do on a given day. 47 year old me is thinking about what’s for dinner and the dog needs another walk and the kids need ortho appointments and is worried that letting go of the reins will mean chaos.  It all just makes me want to cry.

I go back to the lyrics that pull at my heart then and now. Shawn sings:
“I am weaving
Like a drunkard
Like a balloon up in the air
I am needing a puncture and someone
To point me somewhere
I’m gonna keep my head on straight
I just hope it’s not too late
Open up the gate I go straight on, steady on

Steady on!”

If I touch in with myself I know that no one, not the world, not society, no one gets to tell me how I should or shouldn’t feel.  It’s OK for me to miss the things that my decisions have left behind. It’s alright for me to feel sentimental about myself before all this wonderful stuff like kids and marriage and houses in the suburbs happened. The question is - what do I do with this? What do I do with the lump in my throat and my yearning to reconnect with the parts of myself that have been neglected?  I think I go “Steady On” into negotiations with my own self. I set the table, pour the tea and ask my inner persons to begin negotiating.



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