“Mommy” friends and more

I’m really beginning to see the wisdom in the idea of having babies around the same time as your friends. Having to share this amazing journey of motherhood with people who matter to you should be the best thing ever. Except that with me that wasn’t quite the case, considering the fact that most of my close friends are either single/unmarried or don’t have kids. That, or they live continents away from me.

This means I had to make new “mommy friends” so they’d understand what I was going through plus their kids could potentially hang out with D at some point. Not much luck there, but I did manage to connect with a few former classmates who’re now toddler moms and at least, they’re just a whatsapp message away. It’s not easy to hit it off with new people in your thirties – by then most folks are set in their own ways, their attitudes and priorities are drastically different from yours, and it’s tough to make a genuine connection. Especially if you’re a mom. Now you also have to think about what kind of a parent the other person is, if she vaccinated her kids, is her house baby friendly, do the kids eat too much junk, do they get too much screen time, the list is endless. There’s just way too much judgement here for the friendship to work. It’s easier if you’re already friends with said person but if it’s someone new, you’re too busy judging each other’s parenting styles. It’s petty I know, but sadly enough, very true.

My biggest fear is that I’d never be able to provide the right environment for D to make friends of her own or develop a healthy hobby. So I feel the need to step up and create an enabling environment – introduce her to good books, good music (something we’ve been doing since day one) good food and positive, kind people. It pushes me to be a better person. Sure I lose my shit, scream, cry and get unnecessarily worked up and anxious but I’ve devised a few methods to work around it and it helps most of the time. If nothing works, there’s cake and coffee to lift my spirits.

This period has also made me look back at the times when some of my then friends had babies while I was single. I realise that I just did not understand the enormity of this journey at that point and I somehow was never there for them. I don’t even remember asking them how they or their babies were doing; I probably did not even visit them. I was simply terrible with babies and I had no idea what expecting moms and new moms go through. Well, Karma is quite the leveller. Because today I understand just how much a simple message or a cup of coffee with a friend would mean to me at this stage. Thankfully my friends haven’t cut me off completely and I still get to share snippets of my journey with a few of them. I’m home with family now but I’m already anxious about the creeping sense of loneliness that tends to lurk around when I’m back in Hyderabad. I go through days without seeing or taking to anyone when I’m there and it dampens my spirits. Also doesn’t help D one bit – she thrives in company and is super social. Maybe that will push me into getting out of my comfort zone and making some genuine lasting connections with new people while nurturing existing friendships. Gosh, adulting is harder when you’re a parent.

You are enough

I’m going through an identity crisis of sorts. I spend my whole day and most of the night with D – nursing her, playing with her, lying next to her when she’s asleep, and I currently do not have the inclination or the time to work. So my career is essentially non existent. This is not such a bad thing because I only look at it as a temporary break. I have much bigger priorities than slogging my ass off and making some money. Im raising a baby girl and it is hard work; it’s fun yes, but it’s also a lot of work, and is the single most important thing at the moment.

I fully understand that this is a choice I made whole heartedly – the staying at home till D is old enough part. Yet, I cannot seem to shake off the feeling that something’s amiss; I want to be more than a stay at home mom, you know what I mean? Sure I run the home, nourish my child and I’m happy doing that. But is that all there is to me? When I was in my early twenties, I had a fire burning within me, a drive, to be the best at what I set out to do. I had good grades, I worked hard, got great feedback from bosses, colleagues, professors and some of my readers and I was confident I’d make it big. I could sense that I had potential, that I had it in me to do exceedingly well at work.

And just as things were beginning to work out and better opportunities promising more money and more exciting work came knocking at my door, I happened to be in a different place. I had to move to Jaipur to be with M and while it’s what I’d wanted ever since we got serious about each other, the circumstances under which I had to do it were just too traumatic and I literally threw away my career to just be with him. I did not regret it then but it kind of set the tone for a different career trajectory, one that involved a few breaks, experiments with freelancing, unfulfilling stints (moneywise) at leading national media houses, unfair appraisals and while the quality of my work was just as good, I found that I was becoming invisible and hitting dead ends and blindspots.

So I keep beating myself over the fact that I haven’t quite made it and I’m disappointed in myself for not reaching my potential. In fact, I worry that my whole family is disappointed in me for forgoing my career. And there’s the possibility that if I’m not in the market for long, I’ll be forgotten and will have to start from scratch once I resume work full time. My sense of worth has taken a beating and I wish it wasn’t tied to things like work and career. I’m constantly seeking to be more than what i am; while I used to think it would push me to be a better person, I see how counterproductive that exercise can really be. Maybe I’m enough, just maybe. Now hold that thought.