(Blog Post Link)Friends for Life
What is it that keeps us moms from becoming true friends? Do we resent other moms because we always wind up talking about our kids, as if we no longer have our own needs and hopes and desires? Do other mothers make us feel guilty for thinking about anything besides our kids? Or are we too competitive with other moms? How can we be friends with someone who tells us that her nine-month-old is walking when our ten-month-old hasn't started to crawl?
I won't lie about how lonely I was, staying home and taking care of my son. Until I had Miles, we lived in the city. I had a job at a woman's magazine writing copy about new designs in furniture and decor, about household hints and shortcuts, storage tricks, spot removal, that sort of thing. Now that I have a household, I can't remember one helpful hint.
My husband insisted that the city was no place to raise a child. It took a lot of persuading, but in the end I saw his point. I thought that living in the suburbs—the country, actually—would be fun, and it has been. The minute my husband saw our house, he fell in love with it, though I couldn't see the potential, at first. But again, he convinced me, and now I love it more than I can say.
I went through a bit of a crazy time right after we moved. I forgot who I was. The only thing I cared about was being a superwife and supermom. I was living a nightmare from the 1950s. I made all my own baby food from scratch. I cooked elaborate dinners for my husband that he was too tired to eat when he got home from work, or else he was too full because he'd been taken to some fancy lunch while I snacked on the leftovers from last night's dinner. And though I tried to be understanding and patient, we'd bicker.
As soon as my son was old enough, I enrolled him in all sorts of classes and programs. Toddler yoga. Baby dance. Swimming lessons. I was doing it so he would learn and have fun and meet other kids. But I also wanted to meet other moms, make friends, find caring women who were having the same mixed feelings, the same rewards and challenges, that I was.
But I could never get anything going with the Connecticut moms. They all seemed to have closed ranks, circled the wagons, and turned back into the mean girls they'd been in junior high. When I tried to start conversations, they'd look at each other and practically roll their eyes. They'd stare at me just long enough to be polite, then go back to talking to each other.
That's why I started this blog—to reach out to other women who feel isolated, mothers everywhere dealing with the demands of parenting. Some of you may find it strange that a mom who can't make friends in the real world would start a blog and give advice and share with friends in the virtual world. But what helped me get past my self-doubt was realizing that I couldn't be the only mom feeling friendless and alone.
Being a widow makes everything—including motherhood—harder. My husband is gone. He's the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, the last thing I think of before I go to bed. Wait—no, not the first thing. There are always a few blissful seconds when I wake up and forget and feel almost okay—and then I notice that his side of the bed is empty.
For months after the accident, I thought I was going to die of grief. And maybe I would have done something stupid—self-harming and irreversible—if I hadn't had my little boy throwing me the life preserver of his love, keeping me from going under.
My brother was gone too, so I couldn't rely on him. And that was a whole other kind of sorrow. I became an expert on the different varieties of pain.
My mother had died, not long after my dad. And I didn't want to go like she did: dead of a broken heart. There was no one I could talk to. My friends in the city had moved on with their own lives, and I sometimes thought they looked down on me for getting married and having a child—for caving in and moving to the suburbs.
