Last week marked the halfway mark of my following the Train Like A Mother Half-Marathon Own It! training plan. It also marked the week I decided to stop following said training plan because I was finally able to be honest with myself, and my goals. I realised that I wasn't enjoying running anymore, and my body was feeling the strain from the lack of cross-training. The training plan itself wasn't terribly demanding, with two hard and two easy weekdays with the option to skip one easy day, and one long run on a Saturday, but I had to stop RPM and cut down on yoga to have enough time to fit all the mileage in, get strength training done, and get some rest days. Jon was right, as he always is about these things - the point, really, is to enjoy the movement. I will still be running the GEWR in mid November, but I'm not going to tire myself out trying to sub-2. There's always next year, when I will be better prepared.
Consequently, tomorrow is a rest day. The kids are fast asleep, Jon is on a business trip, a washing machine cycle is ongoing, and I am going to catch up on two episodes of Hospital Ship before going to bed. I could, of course, just log on to Dramafever right now, but there are words that have been on my fingertips for over a month now, demanding an audience. So here I am, trying to get all that I want to write about down before I have to hang up clothes and before Hospital Ship starts at 12.10am.
***
It has taken about three years, but I am finally starting to feel normal again. Whatever that means.
***
About two months ago, I was idly scrolling through Facebook (when is scrolling through Facebook ever not?) during an ugh-I-am-so-sick-of-this-document moment, and it just so happened that I was met with a deluge of posts about babies and small children (or maybe the algorithm is biased. Maybe). Some of them were celebrating a birthday, others were just giving whoever was holding the camera toothless, beatific grins or starting to toddle about on chubby legs. So sweet! So cute! So loving! Don't grow up too fast!
Now, I have nothing against these posts. It is nice to see pictures of other people's cute, sweet, and chubby children, and it is nice to know that people you grew up with (but don't talk to anymore in real life, haha) are settling down, and experiencing the joy of having a child.
But then I got to thinking about Daniel's birthday, which was coming up in September, and idly wondering what I would want to say on social media about him.
I came up with nothing. I couldn't think of a single nice thing I wanted to say about him. All I could think about, in that instant, was how my skin crawled the night before as he tossed and turned and fussed and kicked me, as he reached out his arms and demanded that I bao bao him. The battle we had had before that over the simple act of brushing his teeth. How all I wanted, desperately, was to be alone somewhere, preferably in a hotel room with snowy white sheets and a firm bed. Alone, and left in peace to fall asleep on my own terms. Was that so much to ask for?
***
I was obsessed, in the year after I had Daniel, with getting back to the gym and running as soon as possible (if that has not already become apparent to you). There was the issue of vanity and wanting to "get back in shape" and also have social media bragging rights (being completely honest here. Don't tell me you have never felt this way). I felt somewhat similar in the course of the year after I had Andrew (that year having just ended in July 2017), but it was after I did the Income Eco Run earlier this year that I started to realise something was wrong - I wasn't finding joy in working out anymore, and it didn't bring the peace and satisfaction it used to. This was due largely to the realisation that I may have been free, truly free, to be alone with myself for an hour, or three, or four - does it matter? - but when I got home, I had to deal with Real Life. I couldn't accept it. It felt terribly anti-climatic, after the anticipation of a good workout, a race, the wonderful feelings during the activity itself, to come home to Lego everywhere, books strewn all over the floor, cushions piled up in a dusty corner, and in the case of the CSC Run, a crushed piece of Styrofoam (i.e. there were small white balls all over the living room floor). It wasn't so bad in Daniel's first year because he wasn't as inquisitive and destructive, but now it's like he and Andrew solemnly swear that they will get up to as much no-good as they can before Mummy comes home. I felt like I was being punished, in a way, for not being around to deal with the morning whining and milk-making. Why do small children insist on waking up in a temper and making their mothers deal with it?
(Jon said my discontent and lack of joy with working out was due to a lack of rest days and perpetually low blood sugar levels from not eating enough. Maybe.)
(Yes, okay, that too).
And then, last week, after I'd finally given myself a break from running and had time to think instead of just surviving from the start of the day to my lunch workout to fetching the boys after work and coming home to cook dinner then deal with dirty dishes and bedtime then repeat the whole routine again for days on end, I realised that what I had always been seeking, been yearning for these past three years, wasn't the races or workouts themselves, but the feeling that I had before we had kids, the feeling before I got pregnant perhaps. When I was truly free to do as I pleased: the luxury of recovery after a hard gym session, a good night's sleep, a movie in a movie theatre at a moment's notice, staying up all night to finish a book, an uninterrupted meal with Jon. When it was okay to be irresponsible and sleep at 3am after watching one too many episodes of The Big Bang Theory because there was no one to worry about but myself (Jon could more or less fend for himself, and anyway, he was working way too hard back then. Which meant more gym and reading time). It's a feeling I will never have again, as long as I live, because I now have children. Sure, there will come a day when the boys will be able to clean themselves up after they poo, have their own mobile phones without any restrictions or checks, buy alcohol if they want to, move out, get married. But they will always be my children, and to some extent, I will always be responsible for them. Even if it's just something as simple as keeping them in my prayers and checking up on them once in a while, though I do hope we will be closer than that.
Jon pointed out that a lot of the above was due to my refusal to hire a helper, to which I responded that it had, after all, been worth it. I never thought about the type of mother I wanted to be before I had children, save that I knew I would probably let them eat french fries and chocolate ice cream for dinner sometimes. Now I know that in addition to that, I am the type of mother who doesn't really mind cooking and washing up, and would maybe even prefer to do it herself. Most of the time. The best part is that it gives you the moral authority to let your children watch TV, shove and snatch toys from each other and generally kick up a ruckus over the sounds of the Dinotrux building something to save the day while you blithely ignore it all because hey, you have stuff to do in the kitchen and that's the only way to keep them occupied while you make sure that your husband has a home-cooked meal and a shirt to wear to work the next day.
***
I did think of something "nice" to say about Daniel on social media eventually, although it was more "neutral" than "nice", and I didn't post it because it felt trite when his birthday finally rolled around, exactly a month ago. It was this: I prayed that he would learn to be obedient to me and Jon not because it pleased us, but because such obedience pleases God.
Happy Belated 3rd Birthday, my FBC. Jesus loves you and didi, and is always with the both of you.
