As the December 31st deadline looms, I still haven't decided if I'll continue this blog or not. The task of moving the content to another website feels so overwhelming, it's easier for me to focus on what I'll make for Christmas dinner than be a grown-up and make a decision. I'd kind of decided to hang up my blogging hat--although I love writing about Eliza, it's starting to feel like it's time to get back to writing what I did write before motherhood came along and made me into some one else.
You see, the truth of it all is I've always been a writer. I started writing nursery rhymes and fake biographies in grade school. By third grade, I had written full-scale novellas about orphan pioneer children. They were mostly copies of "Little House on the Prairie Books" but I wrote for enjoyment and loved telling stories nonetheless. I got into working on television to write for TV because my fiction writing career never really took off. Unfortunately, neither did my television or screenwriting career. So many other TV writers have told me "I don't know anyone who persevered who didn't make it eventually." Then I had a baby and it became easy to walk away from all that. I still have mixed feelings about working and what I really want.
This blog satisfied my need to write. And to have feedback on a regular basis, most of it positive, has been one of the most satisfying experiences I've encountered. Suddenly, I wasn't asking people to read my work. People were reading it of their own volition and instead of waiting for weeks to hear back from my readers (usually with a rejection letter), I was called an "inspiration" by some, a "good mother" by others. My work was finally out there reaching an audience of people I truly respected and admired. Because no job is tougher than parenthood. There's people marching through the desert during war and coal miners entering dark caves they know could be dangerous. However, stressful these jobs are, they do end at a certain time while parenthood is forever. So I revere mothers and fathers everywhere.
I've been thinking about the short film I didn't make, the one that almost got me a directing fellowship last year. When I was a finalist but didn't get the fellowship, I decided that was it. I'd forget about this silly film career I'd pursued for years and focus on the wonderful task at hand. However, as Eliza gets older and the reality of Eliza starting school and making friends and getting a life outside the home closes in, what Lisa the person wants becomes more important. I want to make this film. I want to make a living as a writer. I want to be more than simply Eliza's mother.
So I'd made the decision to shut down here when I got another email from a long lost friend. Suddenly, I felt like I didn't want to walk away from the writing world I'd created as Eliza's mother. I want to find a way to do both.
So hopefully, I'll find a way to move my content and continue life as midlife mama. And I'll clue you in on how to follow me when and if that happens. I have to add that while I've been writing this, Eliza's been marching in here to show me how she's now wearing three headbands.
"I so pretty, Mama," she said the last time as she came into my bedroom. There are so many stories and so many wonderful things I can say about my daughter. With the good comes the bad, the moments when I really think I can't do this anymore.
(Ooh, Eliza just marched past my room and said "Mama's busy." How cute. Oh, she's saying "I so pretty" again. There's so many ways to love a child, all of which seem infinite)
The other day, while doing laundry, Eliza perched on the washing machine beside the dryer, I quickly loaded the dryer. The dryer door is hinged that it doesn't stay open, in fact keeps banging into my head as I toss the clothes in. Annoyed by the dryer door, how rushed I felt and by the fact that some one had left a napkin in their pants pocket that now clung to all the clean clothes like a leech, I started to bang the dryer door back like a two-year-old. Eliza's face suddenly took on the shame of a person embarrassed.
"Mama, don't do that," she said, with the tone of some one supremely disappointed in me.
I laughed, the intelligence and sensitivity of what she'd said so funny and so impressive. I've always felt like a big kid myself. I kind of look like one, I act like one and I worked in a business that canonizes youth. Having a little daughter made me want to be a grown-up and as much as that scares me, it's a lovely way to feel.