LOST MOM

by Jean Marie Moffa
August 15, 2005

It was no wonder Julia couldn't find me. Tucked away in the shower, perched on a ladder, paintbrush in hand, reaching into the upper corners of the master bath, I was as good as gone. My daughter's solution? Wanted posters, in the form of yellow oversized post-it notes, throughout the house, reading: LOST MOM (pen and ink sketch of me included.) In her own, fun-loving way--and with the wisdom that seems so keen in children--Julia hit on something very real and true: I am a lost mom, and furthermore, I believe I need to remain one.

Seven years ago, I made a radical move: for the first time since I was 16 years old, I decided not to work. I decided that it was time to focus full-time on parenting Julia, then 15 months old. Margot followed, within the year. With two small daughters, it seemed the obvious choice, the Right Choice, the best decision for our girls and our family.

Seven years into it, I continue on my path, but with a much deeper understanding of its impact on me. And I continue to learn how to manage this place. After all these years, I still awaken on Monday mornings with a quiet but gnawing malaise. How will I structure the day? What will I do with the girls this week? Will they be learning? Will they be having fun? Will I get the housework done? The bills paid? The food bought and good meals made? When will I exercise? When will Frank and I have time together? Will I read enough? Knit enough? Work towards getting my new baking kitchen one step closer to reality? The questions that reel through my head each week border, at times, on overwhelming. Throw in the very little things, like making sure we've all brushed and flossed, taken vitamins and had enough protein and calcium in a day, or some not so little things, like mediating sibling fights (on bad days, read: prying apart screaming, flailing little bodies) and, well, I've had moments of being painfully close to the edge.

Yes, I am a lost mom. I've heard of, read of, met--and even been friends with--some women who find their groove in this life precisely by being at home with their children. They wax poetic, in beautifully captivating honesty, about how they finally have found the path in life that makes everything make sense. I am in awe of these women. I aspire to their inner peace amidst the multi-tasking and chaos.

I am not these women. I struggle with my path, question the decisions made daily, ponder the thrills and challenges of my growing baking business and my past teaching career. I believe that this decision to be with my girls remains the right choice for me, but I know that it is not a self-evident one. I know that it challenges me to learn more and more about what is of value in this life, what is important, real and sustaining. Many of these things revolve around my girls and my husband. Many of them don't.

It's that latter category that brings me back, interestingly enough, to Julia's post-it note. Perhaps LOST MOM is just what I need to be. LOST in my cake work. LOST in my knitting. LOST in a neighborhood run or sitting on the dock of the lake by our house. LOST in the hammock. LOST in a good book.

I can feel lost in the unending list of tasks that fill my days, but when I allow my days to be devoted strictly to the care of others in my family, I have lost a part of myself. I become edgy, anxious, and bitter--a person I do not like. When I give so much of myself that I have nothing left for me, I am no longer able to care for or give anything to the people I love the most. It's taken me some years to realize this simple fact, too.

The care and feeding of others is celebrated in our world--an altruistic medal of honor we earn, in the process. The care and feeding of ourselves can be a bit more tricky. We may all believe it to be important, but when days run short, and a decision must be made between attending to a child's needs, or my own, it can get cloudy... and easy to put off what I need. It's taken me years to realize this--years that have erupted, at various points, in pain and anguish, as I search to find my center, in a home where I have, at times, not created enough time, space or place for me to unfold, grow and become all that I am meant to be.

So I shall aspire to become LOST MOM. Less of the mom who becomes lost in laundry piles, meal planning, and errand running, and more of the LOST MOM who knows that in those times of nurturing myself, apart from the demands of others, I am attending to the elemental and essential, and finding the woman who can learn to love and live, in balance.