Random thougths

For the past weeks, I have been trying to get my ideas together and share some of the reflections I have had in this attempt to be, to build a way of being a feminist parent. But I am scattered, I feel everywhere, like the back room of my house the day we finish laundry. I know, there are some socks there, some ideas worth exploring there, but it takes too much energy to find them.

 It has been two years since home became the borders of my world. A world that I built on the assumption that I could get home in a direct flight from anywhere. A world where miles, airports and languages were common. The demands of that kind of life and that kind of world were carving pieces of me. By this time two years ago, I was feeling that this idea of being a loving, caring, present parent and a devoted to equality partner were incompatible. I started to dread the next plane, the next hotel. I worked so hard, so hard to find that world, to make myself fit in that world and yet, by becoming a parent, I found myself confronted with the feeling, the overwhelming feelings of the epiphany that something had to give.

 I just finished cleaning the kitchen and today was a good day. My child and I engaged in puzzles, coloring, painting, and making experiments with water and freezing temperatures. I did not get hit today randomly or yelled at. I was as present as I possibly could. Sometimes, I catch myself refreshing the news or other apps on my phone like trying to not miss the final answer to all this mess. I think a lot about the things my kid, our kids are losing. The lessons of friendship, the challenges of difference and the appreciation for the big personalities of other kids. It is not natural to spend all this time together. I am an awful partner to play games I don’t get but I try. I try to see in my kid the vivid principle of staying in the present and I keep failing at it. The good news is that he keeps trying.  

In Colombia, the last day of the year, we eat twelve grapes and make twelve wishes as we eat them. That and the yellow underwear will make you recognize us from afar. As we sat around the table and shared our hopes for 2022, the first thing our child said was “I want to get vaccinated”. At three and peanuts, he already knows that there is a key for him to join the world of community even though masks and long q tips on his nostrils are part of what normal is for him. The news of the failed trail on the vaccine for kids under 5 were quite hard. I know in the long run, this shall pass too, this will happen. Yet, there was a part of me that felt the defeat and anger of uncertainty crawling back, moving back in as it did before. The difference is that the world, the workplace, some families and friends live in a new normal, but not me, not us, still stuck in 2020.

Sometimes, I feel relief that I am on work duty and not on care duty. I can talk to adults, make jokes, talk about intellectually stimulating things. It feels nice. As I closed the page on 2021, I also realized that the hope of coming back to the office is fading away. The new office is home, at least for me. Then, how am I going to make sure I take care of myself and support the collective care of others? It takes a conscious effort to create space with others virtually to talk about the challenges and beauties of life and parenting. There are days when I am so tired of parenting that it takes so much of me to focus on work. Sometimes, other parents are on the same boat, and we actually get to work because we spent time providing emotional support and compassion to each other. We might not get the complexity of each family and their situation, yet, the feeling is pretty much the same.

There are days when I open the door at 5 pm and insert myself back in the household domains and I am so depleted that I have to make a big effort not to cry. Not because crying is something I don’t allow myself, but because I would not know quite why I am crying about.

Many of us are barely making it. One day, one hour at the time. I can do this because I have a steady job, loving co-workers and friends, a true partner and the privileges and perks that come with the life I have enjoyed before the world changed. Still, the grief is real, the exhaustion is real, the loneliness is real. In that we are together.

Sending love and discernment your way. While this pass, let’s be for each other the light we are seeking for.