Motherhood
There is no beginning, middle, or end when it comes to motherhood. There are no arks. You are in it for life. Until death do you part. It is a delightful, beautiful, utterly exhausting, challenging, and never-ending job. A job I am so grateful I got to fully (and solely) experience for the past 10 years but now, now I am getting back to work. But more on that later. When they are young, you could argue that your mommy duties end when they go to bed. But then, when they finally do fall asleep after the millionth bedtime story you have read them and you wake up from falling asleep next to them - YOU, the mother, are so exhausted all you can do is roll out of their bed and into your own.
You learn, through experience, that the best bedtime routine is for you to do yours BEFORE you get into their bed for storytime. This translates to - wash your face, sprinkle it with all the anti-aging potions, floss and brush your teeth, a sleep CBD tincture under the tongue followed by a swallow of your bio-identical hormones so you don’t drown in sweat during your tussled night. So, when/if you actually wake up from your child’s bed after you both feel asleep - you can just roll right down the hall and into your own bed to (hopefully) glide back into slumber as easy as possible.
Unless, on the off chance this bedtime routine miraculously happens at an early hour and you do not fall asleep in their bed then, you fuck your husband if you are feeling up to it. Cause, let’s be real, some women aren’t anymore. Some women, at a certain age, just don’t have the desire or quite frankly the energy to muster. But again, taking into consideration the fact that motherhood exhaustion is a real thing - the most energy you can muster to signal to your husband/partner that you are actually in the mood is, to put it mildly - very subtle. So subtle, in fact, that it usually goes unnoticed until you wake up the next morning and say you thought you were gonna “do it” the night before. To which he (or she) responds with “but you were asleep when I came into bed". And it’s then, and only then you lay down the motherhood sexy time law with “I wasn’t wearing any underwear and my leg was out of the covers so…” to which they respond, “ok, so next time I see that I’ll just jump right on in there?” And you say yes. And that, is that. Cause when they do rub a dub dub it - you remember how much you love it. And, gawd damn it, your body is meant to be caressed and, ahem, expressed.
ANYWAY, my point - there is no end to motherhood. The days are long and the years go fast as every wise mother will tell you. And if, like me, you stayed home with them since you birthed them and then continued to when they started school (which is the first solid chunk of time you’ve had to yourself in years) you try to pack as much into your day as possible in between drop-off and pick-up. The days go fast and you can only do so much. But you do a lot. A tremendous amount of multitasking actually (without granting yourself credit or appreciation) - make them breakfast, school lunch, drop off, grocery shop, exercise, attack the endless mounds of laundry, clean the toilets, time to pick up, after school classes, snacks then home and STILL get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. You keep up with this routine, years pass, everyone gets older - until one day you can’t push things under the carpet any longer and you hear a little voice screaming from within that you can’t pretend doesn’t exist. That you must have your own creative life away from these little beautiful crazy creatures you birthed.
This is a moment. This is the moment you can either shit or get off the pot. This is the moment you realize that the ball is in your court (it actually always has been but sometimes hard to see). Now, the question is, what will you do with this information. Will you take this opportunity to move forward or will you continue on the hamster wheel driven by fear of busting out of your safe routine.. Cause, as we have established, there is no clear beginning middle, and end with motherhood. Not to get all dramatic but Death DEATH is the only end. Look, motherhood goes hand and hand with being a woman. With being a, let me be clear, caretaking kind of woman. Cause, we aren’t all like that ya know. Some will just go about their business and do the bare minimum of motherhood. Some have to of course. Some work many jobs, go back to school and are single moms. Those women are fucking superheros. I mean we all are (toot toot) but those women are next level. And, then some women (with means) are able to hire help and immediately go back to work and some just fill their days with ladies lunches, shopping and doctors appointments. All the while they walk around in a false delusion and pretend that their bubble of youth will never drip into old age. That their face and breasts will still be taut and perky. That their pussy will always be pink and tight. That their hair shall never grey.
Well, I am not that type of woman (maybe just the grey hair bit!). I am the type of woman that, when I started to pop out kids (2 to be exact) I willingly paused my own dreams to consciously and fully embrace the all-consuming role that is mother. And I am grateful I was able to make that choice. Cause that’s what this motherhood thing is - it’s a choice. We women, we mothers have to do what is right for us. It is our body, our life, our choice after all. We must be able to do what we can do with the means that we can do it. A choice we must make for yourself. Like having an abortion (of which I have unapologetically had 2). But I won’t get all political here. Not yet anyway.
My point! Having said all this (and a bag of chips) I am doing what I haven’t done before - write a script. Turn all this amazing motherhood material into some good old-fashioned television for the middle-aged woman. I am writing a show I will not only star in (of course) but one that I am longing to see myself. One that represents my take on things. I am writing a show about a woman waking back up into herself from years of being in the bubble of motherhood (shocker I know). How, when you are tucked cozy and deep in there you can (and do) easily forget yourself. From the moment you pop your baby out, your focus has solely been on caretaking your child. Your days are devoted to them. But when you slowly begin to wake up from this sleep - you suddenly realize that you actually had a whole other life before you had them. And in that life, you had passions and desires of your own. This awaking can take months, years, or seconds to realize. But when you do, when the ice melts and you see the budding flower awakening within (cheesy I know but a visual I love) or you finally notice all the dust under the rug that you never cleaned - and, more importantly, you realize your kids are getting older (and so are you!) and they need to see who their mama really is. This is a show about that. About the everyday stuff. The subtle things that are big dramatic ones no one takes notice of. This is a show about female relationships, marriages, friendship, and children. About growing older and all that comes with it. About reconnecting to yourself, about fulfilling your dreams later in life, and all the obstacles you need to overcome to make them happen. And, most importantly, this is a show about how to use a fucking dildo with a dry ass peri-menopausal pussy. HA!
And so, I have been writing alone for months now and am finally ready to gather a few badasses to join my team. SO, if you are reading this and are in the biz of Hollywoodland (or know some folks that are) and have been following me for awhile and appreciate my snarky dark humorous take on the world of motherhood (and aging!) - let’s tawk. I would welcome a conversation. Look, I have never been comfortable asking for help but I’m middle-aged now - I ain’t got time for that insecure bullshit. I am wise enough to know that it takes a freaking village to put a project together - just like raising a child.
Hollah!