renovations and reclamations
I am loving, loving, LOVING how both kids are in school for at least part of the day. Bao stopped crying at drop-off at the end of last week, and has been cheerfully talking about school and (according to her teacher) running amok in the playground, so I think all is well. The mornings are still a mad rush with two children to ferry to two different schools, but we're finding our feet with the new routine.
Bao is only in school for three and a half hours, but it's still a fair bit of time for me to get errands done with a quiet tea break thrown in, especially if I plan ahead of time and whiz off the moment I drop her off at nursery. Right now it's still an enormous novelty for me to do things like go to the supermarket unencumbered by children. On Friday I went to shop in France for the kids' winter PJs and it felt absolutely liberating to be able to browse slowly and simply think and be inside my own head. Sometimes I fear I like my own company too much.
Hopefully once we're in the proper swing of things I'll plan better so that I'm not spending my precious free time doing supermarket runs and chores. Things I could do instead: catch up on my French lessons, exercise, meet friends for coffee, go to the library in the city which has the big English-language selection, etc. Nothing glamourous, but after six years of having my days revolve around children this is amazing for me.
________________
Not too long ago, my period was late and I got a bit worried. I am usually quite regular but uh, have impulsive tendencies. Impulsiveness + procrastination (just get snipped and have it done with!) + selective memory = bad family planning. J and I sat down and talked about what we would think if we discovered that we might be having a third child. Just the thought of it made me feel like hyperventilating. J, who likes (the idea of?) babies, admitted that it would be bittersweet news. I know that many people have three or more children and are blissfully happy, but I also know for sure that I am not one of them.
I have joked before that having a third child would push me over the edge, and as with all jokes, it's light-hearted but with the sharp point of truth in it. After The Bun was born I was a mess of contradictions: happy and desperate and intrigued and enraged. Oh, the rage. I remember the rage the most. It didn't even occur to me that I could be experiencing PND until I talked to someone who has been struggling with depression for decades, triggered by PND, and she was like, oh yes, the rage, everyone keeps talking about the depression, but no one ever seems to acknowledge the rage.
Close friends will know how much, and perhaps how not so subtly, I have changed since having children. I'm not talking about not going out late anymore (although now I do, I've reclaimed that), or being obsessed with the child, things like that. What I mean is a greater introspection, a withdrawal from everyone, a lack of patience, and yes, anger. I can't remember the last time I celebrated my birthday with friends because it has been so long since I have even wanted to do something like celebrate with J, let alone with friends. I don't think I have been a very good friend in the past few years because most of my energies have been devoted to the children and to winding myself up internally.
For the record, Bao was totally unplanned and a surprise. It took me two weeks to muster up the courage to pee on a stick and get a two-lined confirmation of her existence. The months after she was born put me back on the emotional roller coaster, but this ride seemed to be different, mostly because I was too busy with the Big Move to Switzerland and keeping my shit together to navel-gaze. She's a firecracker in our lives that we love dearly, but yes, definitively YES, we are done.
[Of course Murphy's Law would dictate that J and I spend money on a stick to pee on, only for my period to arrive the very next day. People, buy stock in companies selling pregnancy test kits - it's ridiculous how much they cost.]
_________________
I only wrote that last bit because I wanted to highlight how, over this past summer, I have finally started to feel like I have reclaimed some semblance of my self back. A part of it is due to the kids getting older, and Bao in particular becoming more independent and rational and not as likely to spontaneously combust out of rage as she was before. I spent the summer shuttling them around to playdates and parks and errands, and felt much, much more confident than I have been in a long time. I think that this being our third summer (!) in Geneva, we have found our comfort zone. We have a community of neighbours and friends, we have familiar and favourite hangouts and restaurants, we have constructed a life here.
Talking to J a few nights ago, I pointed out the signs that showed me things were changing: I have newfound passionate interest in subjects that are completely unrelated to children; I have started feeling sociable enough to both make and maintain new friendships; I am taking renewed interest in my personal grooming, heck if my body isn't what it was pre-kids; and maybe most significantly, I am reaching out to J again. Last Christmas was a difficult period for us and our marriage, so much so that we have been discussing holiday plans for this Christmas with some trepidation. I have been encouraging him to fly to Sao Paulo alone for a holiday, partly because he would love it, and partly because I am so afraid of a repeat of last Christmas that I would rather spend it alone taking care of the children than have to go through all that angst again. The continual development of our relationship will undoubtedly still have its ups and downs, but I feel that this willingness to talk to him and to be with him again, this acknowledgement of the odd hustle that only makes sense to the both of us, all this is a good sign.
A long, long time ago, I spent a year in Vancouver for school. In those days there wasn't wifi or smartphones and I could only rely on e-mails and the occasional ICQ conversations with friends and family to keep in touch. I didn't even have the internet set up in my dorm room; I had to go to the library and type out long wordy emails (very much similar to these posts) for hours at the communal computers. I thought I would be lonely, being alone and overseas for the first time ever, and admittedly I was, often, but in retrospect Vancouver offered me an outlet for me to escape from everyone (and one particularly toxic friend) and I have realised, now, after all these years, that when I write 'escape from everyone', I actually mean escape from myself. Vancouver was a key turning point for me. I returned filled with angst over re-entry shock, but also with a renewed confidence and contentment about who I was.
I have a feeling that this stint in Geneva is going to be the same. Not every overseas sojourn has this effect - my year in NYC was fruitful and wonderfully enjoyable, but it did not change me nor was it a turning point. My time here in Switzerland, though, is definitely a significant period in my life, even if I return as angsty and anti-social as I was before I left. I'll write more about it in a separate post, but my point is mostly how being away from friends and family has given me the mental space to help me rebuild and rediscover myself.
______________
Well, I hope all this optimism doesn't go down the drain once the winter blues (and Christmas!) set in. Things might be different this year after all. I keep thinking about the end of Rachel Cusk's book, A Life's Work, which moved me enough to write an entire post about it. Her book mostly focuses on the ambivalent and troubling feelings of motherhood that social norms and the media usually ignore. Such are the bastions of commonly accepted 'truths' about motherhood that the hate mail she received in response to her book was phenomenally vitriolic.
But I digress. I have been thinking about the end of her book because she used the analogy of a house under renovation to describe motherhood. She wrote that having children is like having your entire home renovated while you are still living in it. It's a bomb site, nothing is where it's supposed to be, and you feel like you can't live in it anymore. But slowly, as different parts of the house are completed, you begin to find it liveable again. It's definitely not the same house that you originally lived in, but it's still recognisable, and while you may not like the results of the renovation works in some of the rooms, in other rooms you are overjoyed at the change, and the fresh perspective on life that it brings.
That analogy is resonating with me, more than ever, these days.
Bao is only in school for three and a half hours, but it's still a fair bit of time for me to get errands done with a quiet tea break thrown in, especially if I plan ahead of time and whiz off the moment I drop her off at nursery. Right now it's still an enormous novelty for me to do things like go to the supermarket unencumbered by children. On Friday I went to shop in France for the kids' winter PJs and it felt absolutely liberating to be able to browse slowly and simply think and be inside my own head. Sometimes I fear I like my own company too much.
Hopefully once we're in the proper swing of things I'll plan better so that I'm not spending my precious free time doing supermarket runs and chores. Things I could do instead: catch up on my French lessons, exercise, meet friends for coffee, go to the library in the city which has the big English-language selection, etc. Nothing glamourous, but after six years of having my days revolve around children this is amazing for me.
________________
Not too long ago, my period was late and I got a bit worried. I am usually quite regular but uh, have impulsive tendencies. Impulsiveness + procrastination (just get snipped and have it done with!) + selective memory = bad family planning. J and I sat down and talked about what we would think if we discovered that we might be having a third child. Just the thought of it made me feel like hyperventilating. J, who likes (the idea of?) babies, admitted that it would be bittersweet news. I know that many people have three or more children and are blissfully happy, but I also know for sure that I am not one of them.
I have joked before that having a third child would push me over the edge, and as with all jokes, it's light-hearted but with the sharp point of truth in it. After The Bun was born I was a mess of contradictions: happy and desperate and intrigued and enraged. Oh, the rage. I remember the rage the most. It didn't even occur to me that I could be experiencing PND until I talked to someone who has been struggling with depression for decades, triggered by PND, and she was like, oh yes, the rage, everyone keeps talking about the depression, but no one ever seems to acknowledge the rage.
Close friends will know how much, and perhaps how not so subtly, I have changed since having children. I'm not talking about not going out late anymore (although now I do, I've reclaimed that), or being obsessed with the child, things like that. What I mean is a greater introspection, a withdrawal from everyone, a lack of patience, and yes, anger. I can't remember the last time I celebrated my birthday with friends because it has been so long since I have even wanted to do something like celebrate with J, let alone with friends. I don't think I have been a very good friend in the past few years because most of my energies have been devoted to the children and to winding myself up internally.
For the record, Bao was totally unplanned and a surprise. It took me two weeks to muster up the courage to pee on a stick and get a two-lined confirmation of her existence. The months after she was born put me back on the emotional roller coaster, but this ride seemed to be different, mostly because I was too busy with the Big Move to Switzerland and keeping my shit together to navel-gaze. She's a firecracker in our lives that we love dearly, but yes, definitively YES, we are done.
[Of course Murphy's Law would dictate that J and I spend money on a stick to pee on, only for my period to arrive the very next day. People, buy stock in companies selling pregnancy test kits - it's ridiculous how much they cost.]
_________________
I only wrote that last bit because I wanted to highlight how, over this past summer, I have finally started to feel like I have reclaimed some semblance of my self back. A part of it is due to the kids getting older, and Bao in particular becoming more independent and rational and not as likely to spontaneously combust out of rage as she was before. I spent the summer shuttling them around to playdates and parks and errands, and felt much, much more confident than I have been in a long time. I think that this being our third summer (!) in Geneva, we have found our comfort zone. We have a community of neighbours and friends, we have familiar and favourite hangouts and restaurants, we have constructed a life here.
Talking to J a few nights ago, I pointed out the signs that showed me things were changing: I have newfound passionate interest in subjects that are completely unrelated to children; I have started feeling sociable enough to both make and maintain new friendships; I am taking renewed interest in my personal grooming, heck if my body isn't what it was pre-kids; and maybe most significantly, I am reaching out to J again. Last Christmas was a difficult period for us and our marriage, so much so that we have been discussing holiday plans for this Christmas with some trepidation. I have been encouraging him to fly to Sao Paulo alone for a holiday, partly because he would love it, and partly because I am so afraid of a repeat of last Christmas that I would rather spend it alone taking care of the children than have to go through all that angst again. The continual development of our relationship will undoubtedly still have its ups and downs, but I feel that this willingness to talk to him and to be with him again, this acknowledgement of the odd hustle that only makes sense to the both of us, all this is a good sign.
A long, long time ago, I spent a year in Vancouver for school. In those days there wasn't wifi or smartphones and I could only rely on e-mails and the occasional ICQ conversations with friends and family to keep in touch. I didn't even have the internet set up in my dorm room; I had to go to the library and type out long wordy emails (very much similar to these posts) for hours at the communal computers. I thought I would be lonely, being alone and overseas for the first time ever, and admittedly I was, often, but in retrospect Vancouver offered me an outlet for me to escape from everyone (and one particularly toxic friend) and I have realised, now, after all these years, that when I write 'escape from everyone', I actually mean escape from myself. Vancouver was a key turning point for me. I returned filled with angst over re-entry shock, but also with a renewed confidence and contentment about who I was.
I have a feeling that this stint in Geneva is going to be the same. Not every overseas sojourn has this effect - my year in NYC was fruitful and wonderfully enjoyable, but it did not change me nor was it a turning point. My time here in Switzerland, though, is definitely a significant period in my life, even if I return as angsty and anti-social as I was before I left. I'll write more about it in a separate post, but my point is mostly how being away from friends and family has given me the mental space to help me rebuild and rediscover myself.
______________
Well, I hope all this optimism doesn't go down the drain once the winter blues (and Christmas!) set in. Things might be different this year after all. I keep thinking about the end of Rachel Cusk's book, A Life's Work, which moved me enough to write an entire post about it. Her book mostly focuses on the ambivalent and troubling feelings of motherhood that social norms and the media usually ignore. Such are the bastions of commonly accepted 'truths' about motherhood that the hate mail she received in response to her book was phenomenally vitriolic.
But I digress. I have been thinking about the end of her book because she used the analogy of a house under renovation to describe motherhood. She wrote that having children is like having your entire home renovated while you are still living in it. It's a bomb site, nothing is where it's supposed to be, and you feel like you can't live in it anymore. But slowly, as different parts of the house are completed, you begin to find it liveable again. It's definitely not the same house that you originally lived in, but it's still recognisable, and while you may not like the results of the renovation works in some of the rooms, in other rooms you are overjoyed at the change, and the fresh perspective on life that it brings.
That analogy is resonating with me, more than ever, these days.