No, not "bowel movement" but "Before Motherhood" - this elusive time of my life that I (admittedly) find myself searching for once again, even though I know it never will return.
Nine months ago, I was BM but desperately wishing I had the little babe in my arms. I was fat, I was cranky, my feet were swollen and nothing better than being a mom was on my radar. Now please, don't freak out (Mom, yes that means you). I'm not saying that I regret our decision in any way.... but it does give one room for pause.
Right now, I'm sitting here and I'm supposed to be working on something. A dissertation chapter possibly, a lesson plan, interview research and preparation for the upcoming interviews... but I'm not. Because I need to get this off my chest. Steve took Stella to run errands to "give me some down time" but in my world, getting an hour away from my daughter does not yield "down time." It yields the uncompleted list of tasks I was supposed to do by last Wednesday. It yields the knowledge that an old friend from NY called me to wish me a Merry Christmas from freaking Germany and I still haven't talked to her. It yields the painful reminders that my dissertation is still 2 unfinished chapters and 3 chapters of revisions away from being done. It yields the dirt in the house, the laundry not done, the library books to be returned, and the interview research still incomplete.
So maybe this isn't about motherhood, but about the teaching profession. That when you are a teacher, you are never done. The job does not end when you walk out the door at 5pm. It stays with you in the evenings as you are preparing lesson plans or grading, it stays with you at 3am when you wake up and realize that you still haven't done revisions to that journal article that is seemingly never going to get submitted (and really, who is going to publish it anyway?), it stays with you when you check your email and yet another student is writing from LAST QUARTER contesting their grade, giving you all sorts of excuses why they really should have received an A- when they only EARNED a B+.
A few years ago a fellow PhD student and friend had a baby and she put the dissertation on hold for awhile and was a mom. (She's a follower of this blog and better blogger than i... her wit is unbelievable folks!) I think it took her another year? year and a half? to finally complete it. And full disclosure, I remember thinking to myself, gosh? Why can't she just write the damn thing? I mean, how hard is it really to do with all those naps that babies take? How could you just "give up" on school to be a mom?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Let's just say, I know now. Oh, do I know. And I deeply understand the desire to "just want to be a mom." (as if that were something to "just be"). I mean, we waited awhile to have kids, and I feel some days that I'm shortchanging Stella because I plop her down on a blanket so I can check my email, farm her off with a friend so I can have a phone interview, drop her off with a grad student so I can work my ridiculous graduate job for 4 hours. I am EXTREMELY lucky to have the schedule that I have, to be able to have spent this much time with her without having to put her in full time daycare - I know that. And there is a hard fight within me - on one hand, the desire to be with her full time and relish in that, and the desire to have full time childcare so I can just get my work done and do the other job that I do - teach and write.
But I also wonder if this will ever change? I will still need to grade papers as a professor. I will still need to create lesson plans - and if i get these jobs, I will be teaching FOUR classes a semester. I will need to do all the things that are required so I can get tenure and have job security. I will want to direct a show one year and have to be out every evening for rehearsals for six weeks. And I will probably still be stressed and feel guilty while I do all of this.
In my research to find information out about these on-campus interviews, I came across a book title recommended to female professors - "The Family Track." I requested it from the library and went on Amazon to read some comments about the book before it came. One reader said the book is invaluable for working mothers and women in academia, but might "scare off graduate students" with its raw and honest portrayals of how hard it is (and how hard academia makes it) to be a mom and a professor. I want to read the book, but I'm also scared as well. (And I'm sure waking up at 10pm, midnight, 1:30am and 3:30am to a cranky baby who could be A) teething B) gassy C) on her stomach and refusing to turn over or D) all or none of the above does not bode well for completion of anything).
I think that's why I have gotten into bread baking in the last few years. For me, baking bread is an achievable goal. I mix some ingredients, I wait, I mix them again, I wait. I shape, I bake, and I either have made what I set out to do, or I did something wrong and it didn't work. It's that simple. Within the span of 4-6 hours, I know whether I took care of the dough in such a way for it to be the delicious bread with incredible crumb structure and crunchy exterior that I was searching for.... OR, it sucked. Being a mom does not yield such immediate results. Neither does the path to professorship.
So I am somewhere in limbo. In the middle of a rise. Somewhere where the gluten strands are forming and creating the mixture of water, flour, yeast and salt. I will either rise and bake to perfection, or I'll be flat and hard and dense.
I'm suspecting the latter... but a good loaf of bread would be a nice surprise.
