Remember learning back in junior high or high school about the baths that used to occur in ancient Greece or Rome or somewhere or another? I don’t really remember where or when they were. I just remember that there used to be big old bath houses where old rich men would get together and bathe and talk about important issues of the day. I thought it was gross when I was twelve, and I think it’s gross now that I’m 36.
These days we have different gathering places. Kids have schools and playgrounds and day cares. The majority of adults have work places. Some people have golf courses. Some have country clubs. Some have bars and night clubs. Not all of these places are made specifically for conversation, but they are all places where likeminded people can get together and accomplish a task while usually engaging in some sort of social or professional discourse. Playground and possibly night club aside, when someone speaks, you listen. Then they listen to you. It’s all great and civil.
Sure it sucks because there is work to do and people to share with and politics to deal with. There are commutes and colleagues, and late nights, and missed promotions.
But some nights I find myself sitting on my couch at 9pm quite literally shaking because I absolutely need someone to hear me. It eats my stomach apart. I can feel the tension starting somewhere deep inside me and seething all the way out through my toes. My tears sting my eyes. Because just for five minutes out of twenty four hours, I want someone to hear me.
Sure my kids listen to me. They like telling me everything. Everything. I know the color of their poop, and the content of their dreams, I know every word spoken at school, I know every new task learned, I know the lyrics to every song they have ever heard and every song they have ever made up, I know what they learned how to finger knit, and I know how they made up and taught themselves the very disgusting task of toe knitting. (Sorry Magoo. I won’t say it to your face, but that is seriously gross.)
They tell me everything. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But the overwhelming majority of the time, I consider it a great honor to be the one who gets to hear their stories and their songs and their poems and their every thought. I absolutely and totally would not change that for anything.
And they kinda sorta listen when I say things. If I ask them to do something, sometimes they have a little bit of difficulty hearing the words, but if I say they can go outside to play or they can watch an episode of Mickey, they hear me loud and clear.
And they love me. They love me with every inch of their little hearts, and that’s a miracle because baby hearts might be smaller than grown up ones in size, but in all other manners, they are so much bigger.
And they want me around. All. The. Time. It’s devastating to them if I have to go to the bathroom. If I have to run upstairs to grab some socks, their whole little worlds fall apart. Because they are little and because they love me.
But they can’t really listen, and they can’t understand. And they shouldn’t understand.
And sometimes I want so very, very, very much for someone just to understand.
But it’s hard. I talk to other moms. Moms I have the utmost respect for. But typical conversations with moms when there are little ones present go something like this… “What did you…stop biting your sister… think about the…scissors are for cutting not for flushing down the toilet… news article… please stop wrapping that yarn around your sister’s head…”
We try. We try really, really hard. But with littles underfoot, not much talking gets done.
And then there are the conversations with people who go around other grown ups during the day. Those conversations are usually rather silly.
“What did you do today?”
“Well I did x,y, and z and then this and that. And then this happened. And then that.” All of which sounds so interesting, and your brain hurts because it really misses being used and you are hearing someone talk who gets to use their brain all the time, and you can’t even remember what that is like.”
Then to be kind, they ask you what you did. And the answer is often a blank stare. Well, you drove in the car a lot. And you changed a lot of diapers. And you believe you must have done some dishes because your sink is empty.
But really, it’s all a blur. And none of it sounds interesting. And none of it is exciting or newsworthy. It’s hard to even explain what you do all day.
But the thing is that inside of you during all of that doing you do all day, there is a person. A person with thoughts and opinions and wishes and intelligent ideas. But they get lost because you are so busy doing.
And you remember back to days when you got to use your brain. When people sought out your opinions. When people listened to them. When you knew things other people didn’t.
And you wouldn’t go back to those days. One day, yes. But not now. Now you are exactly where you should be and where you want to be and the beauty of these days are enough to break your heart a dozen different ways each day.
But still. Sometimes you just need to be heard. Not the you that’s a mom. Not the you who handles play dates and car pools and snack schedules at baseball. Not the you who reads bedtime stories and advises and comforts and cradles. But the you who is a person.
And so that’s why I have decided we need some listening posts — kind of like those good, old fashioned bath houses. But we’ll keep our clothes on because… well, we’ll just keep our clothes on. And we’ll go to this magical place and we’ll just talk. When someone talks, we’ll listen. We’ll ask questions. We won’t ask for as much as a tissue and if anyone uses the word, “potty” or “pee pee,” they will automatically be banned for a week.
A place for moms to be women again. We’ll read books and we’ll talk about the ideas. We’ll debate politics. But most of all, we’ll listen to the pain. We’ll listen to the frustration. We’ll nod in frustration at the challenges of this blessed vocation. We won’t one up each other. We won’t compare. We won’t judge. We’ll just listen, and we’ll understand, and we’ll know that even though our lives are anything but glamorous, they are important, and we are important, and just because we became mom and just because we gave up most of whatever we did before we earned that amazing title, doesn’t mean we gave up being people. With feelings and opinions and desires and frustrations and triumphs.
I’m lucky. I have this little listening post of mine, and for whatever reason, I have been blessed to have all of you here to listen to me. That is a blessing beyond compare. And yet, I know so many of you don’t have your own little listening posts. So please, did you have a frustrating day? Did you have to figure out how to clean grape juice out from beneath a refrigerator that you can’t move? Did potty training go bad? Or did your little girl become a tween and stop listening to you and stop seeming to look up to you? Or did you have one of those days that you hope to cling to and remember forever because it was just so perfect.
Please tell me about it. I would love to hear. For all of you who have been listening to me for so long now, please let me return the favor. I would love to hear about your day.