Is there anything else you can do that is related to painting or some other creative outlet — a lateral shift — that you can enjoy during short windows of opportunity without worrying about where to stick the wet canvas? Could you work in pastels? Something with minimal set-up and clean-up requirements? I think it’s dangerous to tell yourself “My only creative desire is painting and I’m in a situation where I can’t ever paint.” Don’t lock yourself in a dungeon. Maybe push the boundaries a little bit and explore what’s possible, so that you can invest time in something that informs your painting, which you WILL get back to eventually, but that fits within today’s parameters.

Although as far as the oils go, so long as you can find a high flat surface for storing your wet canvas, and maybe a jar of terp in the garage where you can store your brushes if you need to stop painting on a dime, you may find that with practice you really CAN paint in windows of small opportunity. Maybe you can paint straight from the tube so you don’t have to worry about wasting mixed colors. Can you brainstorm ways to cut corners — and maybe make a few compromises — but still do what you want to do, essentially?

To my mind, the problem is when I’m not being regularly creative and I get all worked up about having “a session” and then the moment arrives and turns out to really only be a moment. How depressing! But if you’re in the habit of just getting a bit of paint on the canvas in 10-minute chunks here and there, it doesn’t feel so defeating when you have to pack it in. You are better able to surrender to that moment and just be grateful that you got a few strokes down. And then comes that occasional gift when you’re prepared to only have 10 minutes but you end up with an hour or even two. How exciting to have actually made excellent use of that time, and have something creative to show for it.

I know this is hard for artists who need hours of planning and solitude for creativity, but the fact is, you don’t have that luxury right now. You will again, one day, but for now, maybe turning your artistic need on its head will actually yield better results than you ever could have imagined!

Been a long time. Yeah. I got sucked into that vortex of mothering the little ones, and the 16 year old who decided to rebel to the extreme which involved a psychiatric hospital stay, and I’ve been struggling to resurface for a week or two now. I found myself in a horrible depressed state, called a counselor who said, oh big surprise, “you need to do something for yourself.” And she suggested finding a closet to keep my paint stuff in to pull out when the kids are napping. For real? Painting is messy business and you can’t stuff a wet oil in the closet just like that when the little ones start to shriek. Anyway, I’m trying to be back now, trying not to sound like an old broken record of how I feel sorry for myself, trying not to hate my spouse for his free time and office space, his work time and time out in the sun, but mostly trying to reconnect with the me that I am (?), that I was (?) or who I might want to be (?).

I recently spent an hour driving with my nineteen year old, she drove, down to our new home in the country, and it was incredibly different than being with the babies (baby girl is now 35 months, baby boy is 20 months), and I found myself feeling like a different me, relaxed, like the “keep everyone alive” mode was switched off. I felt somehow free! And young! (I’m 40 too.) I wanted to run through fields and feel the wind in my hair. Amazing. Unfortunately, those alone moments are few and far between and I am usually trapped in the vacuum of never ending motherhood, being sucked down into some soulless, depressed, mind numbed state where I feel guilty about being too tired to find time for myself. I’m working on it. This week is not too bad.

I finished paying off my school loans before we moved back to SC, and when we moved here, got pregnant right away. In the months before Sam was born, I put my writing life on warp speed, finished a novel with NANOWRIMO, joined critique groups, established a presence among the Greenville writing scene… Was beginning to feel all was grounded and right about my life–and then I had a baby–a very demanding, energetic, inquisitive, darling baby who obliterated the life I’d worked so hard to create for myself.

I will be very honest here. I have always been VERY ambivalent about having children. And do not much care for infants. In fact, I always told Tom I’d rather adopt a toddler because I didn’t want to deal with a baby. His need to imprint his genes on our offspring won out over my desire to adopt, but the last few years have been hard on me because, in wanting to get the whole infant thing over with, we had two children back to back.

Only now that John is nearly 18 months old and showing a measure of independence, do I feel at all like I can breathe and parent the children naturally. Parenting infants forces me to go on Auto-Poppins and while I loved my boys at every age and stage, I honestly enjoy mothering them now.

Which creates a real conundrum because the more distance between me and the writer’s life I created for myself, the harder it will be to reclaim it. I feel like I am lost in that vortex Miranda speaks of, and sadly, Studio Mothers is my last tie to my writing self. I’ve had to sever everything else because without a strong past to anchor myself, or the ability to plan for the future, I’m left adrift.

I don’t think the age we have our children is as important as the strength of our sense of self. I know I whine and cry and Poor Me a lot because who I wanted to be pre-mother was only a vague outline I needed to fill in and my boys have gone and scribbled all over the page.

and i’m glad charlotte chimes in! one of my best friends chose not to have children and i always appreciate her take on things as well.

running, or i’d say more or better than that.

Mary: about the coming back to an empty house – yes, I get that. I’m trying to work out right now what it is I can make for myself that I can hold on to.

I feel like a bit of an interloper here because, as some of you know, I’m not a mother. So obviously I can’t directly relate to much of what this blog is about; it’s not really “my” place, it’s yours (studio mothers). I wanted to say, though, that from my perspective it’s such a relief for me to hear you all not simply talking proudly about the difficulties of motherhood as if this entitles you to some kind of medal (I’m sure you must all have met mothers who do this), but actually telling it like it is, and saying how frustrated and angry you often feel, that becoming a mother does not automatically turn you into Superwoman.

I could scream sometimes when people go on to me at length, but *vaguely*, about what hard work it is but it’s the best thing they’ve ever done (and how I really should have children, without asking why I don’t). I’m sure they mean well, but to me it just sounds smug and patronising. What you are all writing here makes so much more sense, and is rather more as I imagine it. It makes it possible for me to relate to you as *people* rather than Mothers (capital M), and to what you’re saying, without feeling like it’s a club I’m not allowed to be part of and cannot possibly understand.

Also, because you’re all being so honest about it all, and despite the fact that the topic is the sense of loss of self as a result of being a mother, when reading each of your posts I get a VERY strong sense of each of you as an *individual* – someone whose core (yes, Miranda! we can all see yours shining very brightly – maybe it’s easier to see from the outside?) I can relate to. Someone who also happens to be a mother.

This is of course the way it is with my good friends, who I knew and related to as Real People (winky smiley things here to indicate humour ) first and foremost, before they had their lovely children. I feel very privileged that they make it possible for their children to enrich my life as well as theirs. I get to dip in and out and enjoy the cuteness, then back out while they do all the hard work.

I hope none of the above is out of line and that it does have some bearing on the discussion.

When I had my daughter two years ago, my husband had a more stable job (long hours but at least no more traveling), we moved into a better house and better neighborhood, and I was in a position where I could quit my high-stress full-time job and go part-time freelance from home.

I also spent the years before my baby was born networking with my writing as much as possible: writing groups, workshops, conferences, etc. By the time I was ready to have a baby, I was able to focus solely on my new job as a mom because I felt I accomplished everything I needed and wanted to do up to that point. I could work at home, raise my baby, and write. I was ready, and I truly feel the reason I don’t feel the depression and frustration that other moms do is because I feel I’ve already lived my other life “out there.” I can return to my other life after my daughter is grown. I don’t necessarily miss it because I know I can and will return to it when the time is right. I’m content now to focus on what I need to do at this time in my life.

I truly understand, however, that not everyone is so lucky or fortunate to be in that position. I really do. And I don’t take my position for granted because I know that in an instant, everything could change. I also just have one child right now as opposed to other moms who juggle more than one (Or in Miranda’s case, FIVE–I don’t know how you do it, girlfriend.)

Not to say my current situation isn’t challenging some days, especially when I’m working until 2 a.m. because I’m on deadline (like tonight), haven’t written anything on my novel in a week because I am too tired or too busy with the demands of chasing a toddler, and can’t even go out to get a cup of coffee by myself because my husband has to work a stretch of 14-hour days.

But I try to take it all in stride. There’s a time and place for everything…even if the place you want to be right now is somewhere else.

i def parent much differently now than i did when the boys were little. my take on toddlerhood is very different. i’m not the totally frazzed wreck i was when i would try to *make* the non-sleeping boys sleep at a decent hour. now c stays up til ten, i grumble that it’s ridiculous, but we get more hours in a row with her that way. but my heartrate isn’t in duress like with the boys. an example since sleep dep is such an issue with a little one in the house.

however, i was 29 when i started, not 21. but i was always slow to develop in certain areas (remember, our college was designed for teens, and i transferred there, and yet it was the perfect school for me at the time, averaging 3-4 yrs older than most of my classmates.)

Very interesting question re introversion/extroversion. Brittany, I’m a bit like you. I like to have my social opportunities, but assuming I’ve seen a few friends in the past couple of weeks, I would most likely pick jammies and a book over going to a party.

I wonder, though, if this issue doesn’t have more to do with the age at which a mother begins having children. I was just barely 21 when I had my first, and had three by the time I was 27. I’m confident that that has something to do with the frustration I experience.

I used to think that it was easier to have kids so early, because you haven’t become accustomed to adult life of your “own” before having to put that on hold. So you’re less aware of the sacrifices. But I’ve changed my mind about that. I think it’s the opposite. While it may be hard to have found yourself and then have to dilute that self for a time, it’s easier to maintain your center WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE. I’m not saying that I was a total loser when I started having kids, but obviously, at 21, I hadn’t developed quite the sense of self that one has 10 or 15 years later. So maybe when you have kids starting in your 30s or closer to 40 you actually have less difficulty staying in touch with who you are, because that self was more defined to start with.

Anyone else see a correlation?

so… Yup. i get it. both the working and the not. and everything else. i think the key is to notice that “me” that is found in those quiet moments alone, and hold on to that, tap in to it during the chaos… instead of separating it as a “when i’m away from the kids” thing. not that that’s easy, but that stillness is always there, somewhere.

excuse my rambling incoherence. i’m writing a novel, you know.