Monday Musings: Remember Why You Started This

From the time I was twelve until the time I was twenty-six I kept a journal every day of my life. Every single day. Sometimes, in fits of masochism, I go back and read some of these volumes. There are embarrassing odes to denim jumpers my mom wouldn't let me buy, self-righteous soliloquies on the perennial journal subject that "nobody understands me," and please oh please don't get me started on the bad poetry (For about six months, I wrote various renditions of "Leda and the Swans"...I can still hear WBY groaning in his grave...)

I'm not sure exactly why my "journaling" (I wonder how many words owe their existence to Oprah) ended. And it didn't exactly end. But, regardless of my efforts to the contrary, I have not kept up a daily journal since I was twenty-six. Which doesn't mean I don't try. In fact, for the last months I have been attempting to do some consistent writing again. And the other day, turning the page of my journal du jour, I came upon the following phrase, greeting me on what I thought would be a blank page:

"Remember why you started this."

Remember why you started this?

At first, I was creeped out. It was as if my journal was auditioning for a bit part in a horror movie. But the thing is, although I felt immediately affronted by my very own journal...the quote was in my handwriting. I had written it. It was me talking to me.

Since I was a kid, whenever I got a new journal, I would flip to random pages and write short notes to myself. I'm not sure why I started doing this but, as the years went on, the little blurbs became time-capsules of sorts. Reminders of the moment in which I began a particular journal. In one of my early journals, these snippets included such choice aphorisms as "Stay real" and "Be you." Gag much? They got a tad bit better with swiped phrases such as: "It's never too late to be the person you want to be." And in later journals, they became a little less yearbook-y: "Do you still like the phrase about the blue canary in the lighthouse." (Confused? Google "They Might be Giants.")

But this one? "Remember why you started this?" I couldn't remember when I wrote it, or what it meant.

Like I said, I hadn't kept a daily journal in a while--did I mean remember why I started writing again?

I got this beautiful, leather, handmade journal (thank you E.) right after I got married--did I mean remember why I married my husband?

I hadn't written in the beautiful, leather, handmade journal since I had had D.--did I mean remember why we decided to have kids?

Truth be told: I don't know. But the somewhat amorphous fortune-cookie advice couldn't have come at a better time. I was having one of those weeks when one part of my head was perpetually devoted to waxing nostalgic about my life pre-kids. We went to a party with all three kids and, in the course of 2 hours, I didn't manage to have a full conversation with even one person. We spent an entire Sunday in what we call "survival mode"--the world in which once breakfast for the kids is over, and the kitchen is clean, it is time to prepare lunch...and once lunch is over, and the kitchen is clean, it's time to prepare dinner...and, oh yes, there are myriad bouts of crying and whining and negotiating with 3 year olds in between.

I know you know what I mean yes?

Of course you do. And those days/weeks/months are horrible. And anybody who claims not to feel like that sometimes post-kid? I don't understand them. But...Remember Why You Started This....

Because those long days and those parties where you leave more exhausted than fanciful? Those days when you are solely taking care of little people's needs, those countless hours of cleaning (organic) Goldfish crackers out of various crooks of your home (Is that just me?)? Those evenings without concerts, those afternoons without cocktails, those days of derrieres and those fortnights of absolute fatigue? They're hard. But they are the the short term. They're the price to pay. They are the admission ticket for holidays of boisterous dinner tables, reliving beauty through the eyes of our kids, being able to give unconditional love, and learning how to receive it in our adult-lives...On and on...

There are so many moments of motherhood that are pure beauty. On good days it is all "Madonna with Child(ren)", with perfect lighting, a great soundtrack, the wind whipping through our hair, propelling the little sailboats of our maternal lives on their charted courses. But sometimes? Sometimes when it's a little tougher and the waters get a little choppier? Remembering why we are doing this--remembering why we started this--it can get us through the day. It can give us solace. It can propel us to safe shores during those moments when the wind just isn't there.