"Sleep is one of our most intractable attachments. We claw and clutch and crave it. We adorn and worship it. We four-hundred-thread count it. It is our sovereign domain. We hide out there; we fantasize and burrow there; we think we can't live without it. You will see that you can live without it - just enough."
- Karen Maezen Miller in Momma Zen, chapter called Night Watch
- Karen Maezen Miller in Momma Zen, chapter called Night Watch
I am no longer the mother of a newborn, and yet sleep or perhaps more lack of sleep is a topic that is never too far from my consciousness.
Take yesterday. It was a bad day. I was a bad mom. Short tempered, short tongued, listless, hot, irritable, unpleasant. We have our normal Indian Summer at the moment - but 90+ degree weather is not what I bargained for. Plus a toddler with a cold/cough and an emerging willfulness, made for a terrible, no good, very bad day.
At the end of the day yesterday when I was longing for a cold beer and some time to not be a mother, I started to think about what was different yesterday than the day before. And what I realized was that I was suffering from a great attachment: that of scheduled and predictable day time naps.
What was once solid and set in stone is now fluid and amorphous. And I don't like it. And I am realizing how inflexible I am in moving with the changing times. I LOVED nap time - for the quiet and the solitude and the productivity. And now, I am at the mercy of chaos, and the organized and determined parts of me are fighting it. I am clinging to the need to feel productive and successful, outside of my responsibilities as a mother or at least have the chance to sit quietly and re-charge. So when my day needs to be spent at the playground because 15 minutes of sleep is all he seems to need, I feel ambushed. And I unfairly blame my tiny little man who doesn't have any idea why I being so unpleasant.
One of my favorite blogs, nonchalant mom, recently posted a lovely take on back to school. I re-read it just now. And it remained me that I can be patient and grateful - for I do still have a little one and before I know it, it will be me dropping him off and then there will be this day, empty and ready to be filled.
Take yesterday. It was a bad day. I was a bad mom. Short tempered, short tongued, listless, hot, irritable, unpleasant. We have our normal Indian Summer at the moment - but 90+ degree weather is not what I bargained for. Plus a toddler with a cold/cough and an emerging willfulness, made for a terrible, no good, very bad day.
At the end of the day yesterday when I was longing for a cold beer and some time to not be a mother, I started to think about what was different yesterday than the day before. And what I realized was that I was suffering from a great attachment: that of scheduled and predictable day time naps.
What was once solid and set in stone is now fluid and amorphous. And I don't like it. And I am realizing how inflexible I am in moving with the changing times. I LOVED nap time - for the quiet and the solitude and the productivity. And now, I am at the mercy of chaos, and the organized and determined parts of me are fighting it. I am clinging to the need to feel productive and successful, outside of my responsibilities as a mother or at least have the chance to sit quietly and re-charge. So when my day needs to be spent at the playground because 15 minutes of sleep is all he seems to need, I feel ambushed. And I unfairly blame my tiny little man who doesn't have any idea why I being so unpleasant.
One of my favorite blogs, nonchalant mom, recently posted a lovely take on back to school. I re-read it just now. And it remained me that I can be patient and grateful - for I do still have a little one and before I know it, it will be me dropping him off and then there will be this day, empty and ready to be filled.
1 comment:
How blissfully perfect. thank you.
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