“You haven’t blogged since January. Your next blog post will probably be titled 2020,” my husband joked, skimming at my website. He had just finished refreshing his work website when he decided to check out mine.
“I don’t have anything to blog about,” I countered. “My life is the same. I don’t do anything but stay home and take care of our son.” It was late in the night. Our son was sleeping and we were in our home office our desks only an arm’s length away from one another. We returned working on our separate things (him, working; me, writing), but I couldn’t get much done. I reflected on my husband’s words and thought of when I did heavily blog. I’d been in a full-time job I wasn’t passionate about, and I’d been writing. The only difference between then and now was that my job was different. I took care of a tiny human being I loved (though it wore me out silly) and didn’t come with the satisfaction of a check being deposited into my bank account.
After my husband bid me goodnight, I went to my blog, reread some posts, especially the ones about drafting Diamond Queen, my PitchWars experience, how I got my first agent, and felt a deep nostalgic yearning for my blogging-self that I had preserved in these posts. She was so optimistic. She enjoyed the process. I envied her. I’d become so pessimistic. So… sad about the whole pursuit of publication thing. But that girl was naive, I told myself. She had no idea the heartache in store for her.
So for a while I forgot about blogging. I resumed life as usual, or rather my new life: going to toddler baby gyms, meeting for playdates, constant laundry, and cooking. The moms from my Mom’s group, however, knew I was writing in pursuit of publication and would often ask me how things we going. I would demure, but they sensed my discouragement. “Don’t give up,” one of them told me. “You’re doing a great courageous thing going after a dream like that. Not many people would.” I nodded, though courageous was far from how I felt. Another mom decided to go back to work part-time. “My son is growing and evolving. I need to grow as a person too. I need to go back for my physical and mental health. I need my own thing like you have writing,” another said. I was happy for her that she found happiness going back to work, but my own ‘thing’ didn’t pay the bills, it was a purely selfish endeavor as my husband had to pick up the bill (on literally everything).
But it didn’t make sense for me to go back to work doing a job that I didn’t like and when the salary would just pay for child care. We had decided that it was better for me to stay home to give my son the care that only I could give. One thing I didn’t realize that came with the territory of being a SAHM though was struggles of self-worth. Though worthwhile, being a stay-at-home-mom is a demanding job. There is no reprieve. There is no ‘thanks’ or reassurance that you’re doing a good job. There is no lunch break. Yet, it is a joy to see a human being learn and flourish in a way that I found myself wishing I could be like my son, who got up after he fell. Who would cry when he’d get a bloodied lip, but then a hug from me was all he needed to keep at whatever toddler thing he had been doing.
“This writing thing is making you miserable,” my husband said one night after I wallowed over a rejection I received. “I come home and you seem so sad. It would be nice to go home and see you happy. Do you want to go back to work?”
“Maybe I’m just a naturally sad person,” I said, embarrassed he had called me out on what was so obvious. The writing thing wasn’t making me sad. It was my own expectations of what came after, though I tried to ignore it and not get my hopes up.
“You’re doing this for self-validation,” he continued on. “Is the only way to do it through writing? Can it not be something else? You could be successful at anything you chose to do. You have the work ethic. You have the intelligence. Why chose something as difficult as this? Something wildly out of your control?”
It was as if he was holding a mirror to my mind, forcing me to dig deep. I knew my whys. Because I loved writing. Because I needed it for my mental health. I loved stories. It helped me learn about the world when I felt like I had no guide to light the way. It was my escape from reality. I needed to write as much as I needed food or oxygen to live. But the publishing part was simply the icing on the cake. If it ever happened, that is.
My husband was right though. Why did I need the self-validation? Why couldn’t I just write for the joy of it without the pressure? Like how people enjoyed running, yoga, or any other hobby? Just write to be happy. Forget the expectations. Forget what people think. Why was this so hard for me to do?
One of my sisters called me when I was wallowing and she told me, “You’re living the dream. You have a beautiful baby boy who adores you. A husband who takes care of things financially so you can experience life with your son. Enjoy it while you can. The writing stuff will happen for you eventually, just keep at it.”
So I promised myself I would.
It’s funny. I try to practice gratitude on a daily basis, but sometimes a person just needs to be reminded of it from loved ones. So, sitting at my favorite coffeeshop on a Sunday morning, I’m writing this post, hoping to return to my optimistic self. After all, this post didn’t end up being titled ‘2020’, and that’s a start, right?
