Reframing the Demands of Motherhood

In November, I traveled from Northwest Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to explore a potential next step for our family: a move out-of-state. Since my miscarriage in September (and really, even before that) I’ve felt deeply unsettled and desperate to move towns.

And this is what used to help: alone time away from “the usual.”

I especially wanted to get away from what-felt-like suffocating demands of working and care-taking. I hoped a weekend trip would literally change my life for the better!

But it didn’t “help” so much as enlighten the real problem: I’m desperately afraid of losing everything and everyone I love. I’m afraid of DEATH.

So instead of embracing LIFE, I make sure I don’t enjoy things *too much* just in case I have to quickly prepare for losing everything and enveloping myself inside grief.

And god, it’s exhausting.

I understand (intellectually) that it’s not about “losing” so much as “cycling through” what naturally comes from LIFE: change, transition, then death. I understand (intellectually) that we cannot have life without these things.

I just didn’t realize how desperately afraid of death (and life) I’ve become.

And who would have thought that I’d travel 200 miles to realize all this? To realize, too, that I have everything I want and need within the life I’m already living.

Even if it ends someday, as eventually it will, I want to show up for all of it: good parts and hard parts (and particularly with the people I adore v. alone).

Here’s a writing excerpt from my trip -

“As I wake up alone this morning, I realize that this is maybe all I’ve been missing lately: a slow, sacred start to my day, sitting in bed to write (without being woken or waking anyone!), music playing in the background, time to think and meditate and practice yoga before the demands of the day roll in…

But otherwise, I’m truly grateful for those demands, and the people who make them.

I’m grateful for our closeness especially. Not only our physical closeless, the result of two years in quarantine. But also how deeply we know each other: our daily patterns of movement, changes in facial expression and tone of voice. Sometimes I know my people better than I know myself.

And dammit if it’s taken a trip (and 30 years) to realize that I’ve been running from the good parts of this life because I’m afraid of the bad parts.

I’m afraid of getting too close, of loving too deeply and being loved… because what kind of hell does that invite if I lose all that?

I thought I was “protecting” myself from being deeply hurt, later. Which sounds completely illogical! (It is.)

But fear is not privy to logic.

I love so deeply, so intensely that it’s hard to imagine how life can, and will, change. It’s hard to imagine loss — but also growth and forward movement. I’m holding on so tightly because I can’t bear the thought of losing the people I love and care for, the dreams I nurture, the community I treasure.

And somehow that translates into the feeling that I might explode if I don’t get time away, time alone — even though actually getting that turns out to be lonely and the complete opposite of what I desire.

I’m grateful for a getaway trip. But next time, I don’t want to go alone. That was deeply helpful during an earlier part of my life — but now all I want is as much time as possible WITHIN my family, my community.

Because, if it won’t last forever, I want to show up inside all of it (good parts and hard parts) as much as possible while I can.

And I need my people for that.”

Feeling similar demands of care-taking or parenthood? Have thoughts of your own to share? I invite you to share in the comments below! I’d love to hear your experience, too.

xx, alycia buenger

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