The Isolation of Motherhood

Motherhood can be so isolating. And wonderful. So wonderful.  

But you kind of feel like you’re an island sometimes with wonderful little souls that give you life - and also suck all the oxygen right out of your house and for a split second there you think your hair is on fire, or you’re dying, or both. 

I went outside to our garage for a broom recently to sweep up a big spill of baking soda and in the 12 seconds it took to me to skedaddle out there and back, Thomas had gotten a dining chair and was standing in it getting water from the fridge door in our kitchen, while telling “charis” (harris!) to follow suit. Get a chair, Charis! No. Do not get a chair, Charis. 

And they're wonderful but... I just want to see my friends! In REAL life. I don’t want to just text or see their kids on insta stories- but scheduling is hard. And, my life has simply changed. Even if scheduling were easy:  my kids are in some ways my friends right now. 

Whether you work full time, or stay home full time, or somewhere in the messy middle like me, scheduling all the things you’d like to do is hard. 

I walked with a dear friend after work recently, and it was quite the challenge! We met to walk with our strollers around 5 pm, and I hit traffic getting home. One child cried most of the entire 20 minutes home because he was exhausted, and the other was starving and hangry and had already eaten the entire grilled cheese I packed for dinner during the walk. Thomas, shockingly, is too busy chatting with friends at his table during lunch time to eat much actual lunch on his school days. It sucks, but I don’t think I’ll walk in the evening with that friend again for a long time - it just wasn’t worth all those tears and the pit in my stomach that comes with hearing my babies cry and not being able to fix it right away because I’m driving, or getting their dinner ready, or whatever has to be done right that second. 

Houston has a lot of traffic. One of my best friends lives in the Heights, and if I leave her house after 4 pm, I’m looking at forty minutes home when it should be fifteen. After 4 pm, forget it. And while traffic is not an excuse to neglect great friendships, it is different when there are toddlers involved. And I know this stage is temporary, but do my friends know? Do I sound whiny if I explain it? 

So you end up with this time period in your life that can feel isolating on many days. There doesn’t seem to be much time for quality convo. We see friends after church service on the playground, but those conversations always seem interrupted with “don’t push” and “be nice... no growling, Thomas, just say hi. They don’t know you’re a dinosaur today.” 

I don’t really know a fix ... and the more I think about it, I don’t know that I need one. I cherish my days with my boys, days that we have “adventures” just the 3 of us. I’m also blessed to have both grandmothers in town (and my grandmother!) who keep the boys for things like monthly girls dinners. Part of life with toddlers means limited “free” time, and I want time with just Drew too, so there is just less “time” for friendships in real life. 

I’m not complaining. I’m just putting pen to paper to help myself process- I am surely not the only young mom who feels this way - or mom in general, forget the young. I never knew how much of self you give up as a parent. How wonderful it is for life to become about someone else, in a healthy way. I’m told my life is not my own at church, and that’s hard to live out. I feel though, deep in my bones, that my life is about a lot more than just me now. And I’ve seen people struggle to have children and I see friends yearning for a baby, and I’m reminded that this “isolation” is a gift. 

We’re all in this together. We can wave to each from our little islands of glorious terror - there is crayon on the walls of my island, cracker crumbs allllll up in the couch cushions, a dead plant by my back door that my three year old loves to pee in and tell me “I water your plant nicely mommy.” On my island, my nightstand is exactly Harris’ current height, so most of the contents of my top drawer have been redistributed by the cutest little chubby hands to places like our dirty clothes cabinet and the bathroom trash can. 

Some day the grubby chubby hands won’t be grubby anymore. My boys will be taller than me and move off this island someday. And we will be proud. 

I guess I’m sharing this just to acknowledge to some other mom out there, if you feel alone, you’re not alone in that feeling. There’s solidarity in this season of waves of isolation with young ones. I do think it makes the waves of connectedness that much sweeter. 

If you feel like setting fire to your house somedays, rest assured you are not alone. 

Maybe put those matches down and meet me at the fire station? Thomas Firetruck Prochaska and I will be glad to meet you there. (Yes. That is what he says to random strangers. “Hi, I’m Thomas the Firetruck.” Not fireMAN. FireTRUCK.) 

Thank you, as always, for reading. Much love to you & yours, whether or not they’re little minions who drive you crazy, and are the very best thing that happened to you at the same time.