What I know to be true for me.....

When Lily was born I was overwhelmed with everything. Bathing a baby? Oh my no, who ever thought bathing a baby was easy? You get a helpless yet squirmy thing wet and soapy and try and hold on, over water?! It was scary. Everything was like that, like I was holding her over water while she was squirmy and slippery and yowling.

I went back to work. I asked the day care lady to bathe her instead of me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do any of it and I was overwhelmed and feeling like a failure. I enrolled in more classes, took on more hours, and yet everything was falling apart around me.

My day care lady quit with just about no notice and no reason. I had one semester left to finish my MA degree. My job was getting frustrated with my "mommy" hours. I struggled with breastfeeding, but was committed to it. My baby would scream if she wasn't in my arms, probably why the day care fired us.

Then one day, it got easier. I quit my job and found a part time one that paid just as much. I found a better child care option for us. I finished my degree. Bathing and feeding her was less scary. It felt like it all got better overnight. It was at the 9 month mark though, not overnight, and learning to babywear helped 100% in how I unfolded into motherhood.

So I threw myself into motherhood full on. I resigned my committee obligations, scaled back on volunteer work, stopped writing, stopped wood working, gave up all my personal hobbies and focused on motherhood. of course that meant....more children.

When Holly was born I felt like I really had this parenting thing down. She was the easiest baby ever, even when she was fussy. She still is my easiest kid, though she feels like I don't always hear what she has to say.

Then we moved to the farm and Isaac was born and he was not easy, he was complicated from the pregnancy on. His diagnosis of 22q was one of the most difficult things I have had to emotionally process as a mother and as a person. And somewhere in this fight, I threw myself into motherhood more.

Except I was no longer succeeding at this whole thing. My house was messy, I have never been a good housekeeper, and my relationships were either crumbling, on fire, or just slowing sneaking out the back door and then full on running away from the train wreck of me. (This is where I am so thankful for those who stood by and held me up anyway). I hired someone to come help with the house stuff, and like Nanny McPhee she put more than just the toys in order.

But that is not what I want to write about now. Not my point. That is all just background so you understand where I was at the moment things changed.

One day a friend posted how much she was struggling too, with motherhood. Me? I was still on the shore sopping, dripping wet from almost drowning in it, I knew and felt exactly what she meant. I wrote her a poem about it. I had not written poetry in 15 years, even though it was one of the great loves of my life, motherhood had pushed out the time for it. I had let it.

Penning those words imploded something inside me.

We shared tears and this deep emotion that was inside of us both. That's what art should do, connect us through shared experience and emotion. I was blogging again at that point and raising livestock that connected me to Georgia and in my email and news feed an advertisement for a writer's retreat kept appearing. It showed up for family members and friends too, and they kept sending it to me.

The deadline to apply approached. I had a HUGE list of reasons not to attend. My kids needed me. Chad would have to take vacation to care for them. Isaac's immune system might tank, he wasn't even weaned yet. I had never been away from my kids since Lily was born, save for a few overnights at grandma and grandpa's. Money. Travel complications and cost. Goodness, how could I even think I would be good enough to get in? And what would I send them? Old stuff from when I was a teenager or blog posts? Ugh.

Then like dominoes, excuses fell away. Isaac weaned. Chad suggested I go to work on the farm cookbook, bus ticket was $50 round trip, and a friend offered to take me from Atlanta to Savannah so no excuses for travel. None. Money happened for tuition. I sent the new poem and a few from 17 years ago with the application. I got in.

My only real obstacle at that point was me. I was anxious about going, about leaving the kids at home. 8 days is a long time. I was so intensely immersed in motherhood that I could not imagine myself outside of it, nor did I really want to. That's right. I didn't want to. I was scared spit-less of what I might find, who I might be outside of that framework. What if they suffered without me was not as scary as....what if they were fine, just fine without me? What if I am not really needed? What if there isn't a me outside this.

I got on that bus trembling with fear.  That bus ride was a story or horror in itself and someday I'll write about it. Maybe. But really it was a lot like childbirth, excitement, thinking yeah ok, labour is fine I can do this, then scary unexpected layover in an ice storm in the middle of the night, the folks in charge are fucking insane, and then after 36 hours I was disoriented and DONE. Just done. But I couldn't just get off the bus. I had to ride it out. SO MUCH LIKE LABOUR. At least that's how it was for me, well, but without stranger's sticking their hands in my business. Thank God for that. 
I got there. I did it. I did it alone without my husband, kids, or friends. Except that isn't really true, is it? I had my kids cheering me on, my husband (eventually) sending me off, and my friends and family at every doubt volleying back my excuses and then actually getting me on that bus, on the other end driving me to the island and back. There is no mistaking that this community of incredible, inspirational people (many of them named Jennifer) got me safely there.

And where is there? A year later I am preparing to return to the island. I have had work published, performed at an art festival, which was a big deal for me and my stage fright, and I actually feel like a writer again. I am excited to return to this magical place, but the truth is this: I inhabit it everyday. It isn't the island itself that holds the magic at all but the community of friends and support that hold me up everyday. Many of them are writers too, but not all.

Photo by Maggie Howe

I didn't give up the intensity of motherhood to find myself again. I always thought that it was a choice between the two, and no doubt that my kids needed me to be there in that intense way for the time I was, but having this creative side nurtured and traveling all over the world makes me that much better of a woman to be a mother to my children. I feel more alive and more in love with my own life. That is so important.

That is the back story behind the adventure.  The adventure continues.