Party Girl #Not
I love my life as much as the next middle-aged-happily-married-
I don’t want a different life.
But I do fantasize about running away for an indefinite period of time.
Go ahead, flame me, judge me, hate me. Then show me an engaged, attentive mother who doesn’t want to flee some of the time. I’ll have that mom telling me her escape route within ten minutes!
We all feel it.
Some feel it more than others.
Few of us act on it because ultimately we want to be where we are.
To tuck drop and roll into the fire of freedom won’t really give us what we need- in fact it will burn us. But dancing around that fire, stepping an inch or so too close may be exactly what we need.
I would guess those who’ve lost their mothers might have the urge to flee more than those who still have their moms.
But we all have that little Houdini in us.
When my mother died seven years ago this summer, I had just an inkling of understanding the level of impact her death would have on me.
I anticipated sadness, and confusion. I expected the longing that was pretty immediate. I was not surprised by the second, third, fourth, fifth guessing of the decisions I encouraged be made regarding her treatment. My anger toward her doctor after she died was typical. .
My overall rage and need to flee who I was though (after her death) was a colossal shock.
In her bestselling memoir “Wild,” Cheryl Strayed writes about being lost and broken after losing her forty-five year old mother and then walking away from her life to go on an extraordinary one woman’s journey to find herself again. She gets to walk 1100 miles on the Pacific Coast Trail for 94 days to find her way back to home and back to her good character.
After seeing the movie “Wild” based on her memoir, I am envious how free Cheryl was to rage and run into her demons, while at the same time furiously running from her pain.
She tried to stave off her inevitable fall into despair through all sorts of debaucherous, risky and crazy behavior. In order to combat the excruciating never ending emotional discomfort, she buried herself in a lifestyle that rendered her unable to feel.
Cheryl Strayed was twenty-three years old when her mom died, married without children and essentially free to fuck up her life without real damage or accountability to anyone but herself. (Yes, she ruined her marriage but wrecking a marriage without children is different from ruining a marriage that includes children.) Ultimately she was able to set out on a path literally and figuratively for one hundred days (or so) to reclaim her sense of self and purpose lost in her mother’s death. And of course to finally grieve the loss of her mother.
I admire Cheryl Strayed’s strength. I admire her ferocious fearlessness. I couldn’t walk the Pacific Coast Trail alone. I can barely walk alone around my neighborhood!
I am lucky beyond lucky my mom lived until she was sixty-five and I was thirty-eight.
I have an adult life rich with memories of my mom and my husband and children intertwined.
But when my mom died, my foundation fell out from beneath me and then seemed to scurry away.
And I couldn’t run off somewhere to try to find it. How do you run away from who you are and all you know when you’ve got kids to tuck in at night and a husband to hold. You don’t. You don’t run away because you can’t run away. And yeah you don’t really want to run away.
Grieving while raising kids and catering to a husband and every other obligation sucks.
I would argue it makes the process take longer.
Then again, I am not sure this process of grieving the loss of a mother ever ends.
Hi Jenny
I can’t believe its been 7 years already that your mom passed.
I remember meeting your outgoing, fabulous, fun loving mom at Friends and thinking WOW what a lady.
My mom died when I was 23, she was 61.
It was hard…I still think of her, feel her and truly believe she is around me always
I guess that’s how I get by.
I saw the movie Wild and that was her therapy
I too needed therapy and found it by going back to school, I became a chiropractor
Somehow, we find our way….that’s exactly what our mom’s would’ve wanted!
xoxoxo
This is normal for any mom I have ever known! I feel this weekly! I love my family and most days my job as a social worker but that doesn’t mean that life doesn’t consume my every being to a point that a week in Bali or on a trail somewhere looks like a luxury vacation for any mother! I would come back, but a busy momma can dream right?!
Jenny,I SO understand your feelings and emotions!! I was 31 when my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. …stage 4. She was single so she came to live with me, my husband and my 20 month old son. During the time she was with us I found out I was going to have another little boy. She tried to hang on to see him but ended up dying three weeks before he was born. I have never been in a situation where I was truly feeling emotions on both ends of the spectrum…..complete sadness and complete joy. I too felt like my whole world had been pulled out from under me. It has been ten years and I now have three boys. I don’t think I have yet fully grieved. Every major life event reopens that wound and puts an exclamation point on the fact that she is not here. I also do not want to”get away” from my family but, yes, there are times when I just want to get drunk and not worry if someone is going to wake up with a fever or wet the bed! God bless you!
Oh Jenny, I was listening to your radio show and crying and laughing at the same time. I lost my mother 3 years ago at the age of 37, had a baby at 38, and lost my dad this past November at 39. I am with you. My world and identity in it is gone. I was a daughter then caregiver then….what am I. What category do I fall into now? Besides the obvious Mother, Wife, full-time employed woman going through each day wishing that she could just drop it all and RUN!! Where to? I have no idea. I probably couldn’t make it to the cornerstore! But the thought of letting it all go for just a minute, a few hours or days is enticing! I don’t want to be responsible I want to lay down and cry until the tears won’t flow anymore. But do I…..NO. I have a wonderful husband who’s been there for me through everything and adorable children who need their mother. But darnit I need my mother and father too! I would love to be Julia Roberts and eat pasta and learn Italian or go to Bali and meditate. But can I? I guess I could but just like I need to figure out my new role in the world my family needs me and I need them! So I will stay and love my family but search for that missing piece that is lost within!
Love your show. Keep up the AMAZING work!
Hey Jenny,
So understand your fleeting thoughts of need to flee. Just realized that “flee” is half of the word “fleeting.” Maybe that’s just it for us moms. We have only fleeting thoughts about fleeing because we know, in our hearts, that there is no where we would rather be than home, safe and sound with our family. And, as we all know, “wherever we go, there we are”. We are who we are, whether we are in Dubai or driving our kid to the dentist. Bottom line, for me, is to appreciate the sh!t out of each day of your life now because we are so lucky to have such great kids and, in your instance, a ridiculously good looking husband who keeps you just on this side of the line of sanity and prevents the everpresent anxieties from taking hold.
I cannot even begin to imagine the pain that you experienced when your mom died, the “what-if’s” that likely played over and over in your brain, the undeserved yet probably ever present guilt you might have had over having done or not done something, the loss of identity as “”Bunny’s daughter” and all that that entailed. I give you tremendous credit for having had the strength to accomplish all that you have in the wake of her passing. You should pat yourself on the back on a daily basis as we are invited into your home to watch you interact with your family (except for Jacob, of course; he’s a boy) on Periscope. You have a lot to be proud of and we have a lot to admire about the way you have grown and matured into “the forth-five year old mom of two kids” (as you constantly refer to yourself on Periscope) in this crazy, scary world. You’ve done good, Jenny!!
Jill