An Explanation

So if there is any bone to pick with motherhood, it's this: Motherhood is slow work. Very slow. What I mean is that I will spend years and years at this "motherhood" thing before I can ever really stand back, take a look at my work and say "Hey, look what I did!!" Motherhood is a work in progress. It's never done. Maybe in about 30 years I'll be able to look at my 2 children and beam in the afterglow of the wonderful adults that I produced. Until then, it's just slow.

Lots of jobs have endings. If I was an architect, I would design a building and then I could watch it being built, and when it was done I could say "Wow, didn't I do a great job? That turned out swell." Or if I was an airline pilot, I could fly my passengers safely to their destination and when we got there I could say, "Wow, I'm glad that's done!" Oooh, how about an actress! Then I could make a movie, finish it, watch it come out, and then go to an award show where EVERYONE would oh and ah about what a great job I did.

It's not even about the praise for me though. It's just about being able to look at a finished product and feel good about accomplishing something. Motherhood, with all of it's wonder, doesn't provide that satisfied feeling of a job well done (at least not yet - I still have a long way to go.)

All of this is an explanation for my project obsession. Drew is always complaining that I have some sort of project going on (and that I'm dragging him into it.) Always. The aforementioned painting and curtains, etc. I've explained to him my need for job completion and he tells me that I finish the laundry every week. I should feel good about that. Um, exactly. It's EVERY WEEK!! It never ends...

So my new project, inspired by the lovely weather we've been having, is a huge garden along the back of our fence. 27 shrubs and 1 crape myrtle. I dug in the first 6 yesterday and I can't tell you how good it felt to get outside and dig in the dirt. Between two summers living in apartments and last summer with an infant, it's been over 3 years since I've been able to do any gardening. Drew mentioned something to the effect that he really didn't think that we needed any more shrubbery and that 27 shrubs seemed like an awfully big project. In my own special and subtle way, I told him to stuff it and pick up a shovel.


Anyway, hopefully in 7-10 days I will have a beautiful new garden in my backyard that I can look at and say "Gee Golly, that looks terrific and I made that." And then the next 50 years of motherhood won't seem so daunting.