In which a Mother has an Identity Crisis

For many years, I had become seated in this thing called motherhood.  It suited me.  It was an insignificant lifestyle.   It was nothing unusual or extraordinary.  I was content with being concealed in mediocrity.   I was living a rather mundane existence.   

In this sort of existence you start have your identity questioned.  Sometimes by others.  But mostly by yourself.  The world views you differently.  Your husband views you differently.  You view yourself differently.  How do you find the essence of who you truly are within the role of being a mother?

My youngest child is in his last year of elementary school.  It is excruciatingly sad to say goodbye to the young child and have them replaced with an older one that doesn’t really need you to do stuff for them. 

I found a pack of photos from about 10 years ago.  I don’t think I had even looked at them since they were first developed.  I had absolutely no recollection of taking them.  I just sat there looking at the photos of my children.  They were familiar ghosts of a past I don’t remember going away.  Who were these adorable little creatures?  It’s like they just disappeared off the face of the earth.  I never even had a chance to say good-bye.  Will this same thing happen in another 10 years?  Me looking back at pictures of my teenaged children and wondering where they are?

You can’t control life.  You can’t control your kids growing up.  You can’t control your neighborhood and where you are supposed to feel safe at home.  You can’t control time passing.  So either you fight against it and bristle in the face of it or you try to make peace with it and accept it.  –And try to find a way to live with it and some aspects of it.

A mother of young children is completely consumed with them and the identity of mother can fill many of the holes or gaps of your former self.  It’s so all consuming.  You go underground for years.  You are clearly devoted to motherhood and yet your children are secretly aging out of the intensive need. 

This is where I find myself now.  Forced to find myself.  I am suddenly looking around like I have woken from a coma saying, “wait!, where am I?  How did I get here?  When did I last do something important?  What now?”

I am full of loss but also seeking to find something.  I fell down a rabbit hole in my early 20’s and all of a sudden I am asking, “How the HELL did I get HERE?  What the hell happened to my body and my face???”

Sure, it’s magical and all that shit, but it’s a constant mind-fuck, identity crisis?  The result of my contentedness?  An uncertainty in what I have to offer.  My hiatus from ‘me’ resulted in a lack of confidence.  Doubt exudes from my pores. 

All mothers, working or stay-at-home, become frustrated by the loneliness of motherhood.  It’s classic to lose yourself in the petty details.  You get so caught up in the frustrations and pressures of daily life.  Small and insignificant things that really seem like no big deal, like sorting socks or folding underwear.  But they start to chip away at your soul.  This chipping away diminishs your ability to focus on almost anything else.  Bigger things, like ideas, or goals or dreams.

So Donna, why such a downer?  What do you learn at the end of the day? It’s so hard to put in a nutshell.  You learn to anchor yourself and know that somehow you are appreciated.  Accept where you are and accept yourself again.

I owe it to myself and my family to feel complete and believe in myself as being more than ‘just a mom’  and to not feel guilty from stringing the words ‘just’ and ‘mom’ together.  I yearn to have a bigger purpose. 

This is where Donna gets her Groove Back.  (Cue the music)

Remember Me - Tragic love story or something more to think about? (SPOILERS)

This is NOT my review of the movie.  Just my opinion on the 9/11 controversy.

So, like most of you I saw "Remember Me" over the weekend.  First on Friday afternoon.  Then again on Saturday evening.  I had not seen any spoilers beforehand.  I did, however, notice the date and had it registered in the back of my head.  I was not expecting what happened, to happen.

I originally commented on the discussion over on Twitarded and the more I thought about it the more I had to say.  

Did the filmmakers manipulate us by using 9/11 at the last minute?

I say no. 

While I find myself being very cynical with anything or anyone using 9/11 to make a buck, get a vote, start a war, etc. I don’t think this did that.  And not just because I am rooting for R-Patz and this movie.

Could they have killed off Tyler and gotten the same effect.  No way.  Sure he could be killed in a car wreck, plane crash or whatever, but we are so immune to those things happening everyday, it would be entirely forgettable.  And that’s the point.

9/11 impacted not just New Yorkers, not just Americans, but the entire world!  Even if you didn’t know someone personally who died that day, everyone felt loss.

What I seem to notice is when discussing 9/11, everyone and I mean EVERYONE has a story about that day.  If they were there, if they knew someone who made it home, where they where when they found out, if they knew someone who died, how they felt and continue to feel afterward.  You feel like you are the ONLY one with those feelings.  You are not the only one still on anxiety medication. 

Tyler was one of the many random faces of the “missing” posted on the side of the Armory Building.  All of those random people had a story and their lives were significant and made an impact on someone.  Tyler was just your average, pessimistic, 20-something, college student you see everywhere you go.  But he had a family and friends who loved him and were touched by him.  It’s as if we are part of his family and circle of friends whom he left his fingerprints on.

The same effect would not be felt if they had him get hit by a bus.  We would have said, “Oh that sucks.  No happy ending for Tyler and Ally.” Then it’s just another Nicholas Sparks movie.  And go on our merry way talking about hot sex scenes and how to go about actually marketing Aidan’s S.L.U.T. idea.   But now we are “Remembering” everyone and all the innocence that we lost that day.

I really don’t think they wrote this movie as just a tragic love story and thought to themselves at the last minute, “how can we kill this guy off in a big way?’  Ohh, people really cry when they are reminded about 9/11, let’s do that!”

No.

I’m pretty sure the writer, Will Fetters realized that so many faceless people died and gave one of them a back-story.  Was 9/11 the theme of that person’s life.  No, how could it be?  The theme of Tyler’s life was his brother’s suicide.  His strained relationship with his father.  Protecting his sister.  Meeting and falling in love with Ally.  Not 9/11.  Therefore, it is not a movie about that, but about Tyler. While Tyler was literally watching his life pass before his eyes on his Dad’s computer screen, there we know he has found redemption.

Why didn’t they promote it as such, or throw the year 2001 in our faces at the beginning?  If you paid attention to the clues, you should have known when it was.  But who pays attention to those details?

If summer of 2001 was made clearly obvious to us, then we would have known what was coming.  The monster at the end of the book.  Think back to that summer in real life.  We had no idea how our world was going to be rocked.  If you watched it a second time, knowing what was coming, how did it change your perception of his life?

The fact of the matter is, we don’t know when things like this will happen.  They just do.

Live in the moments. Yes.
That being said, when I get the DVD I will most likely stop watching after Dad bails Tyler out for the vandalism.  I like happy endings.  Sue Me.

What did you think of the movie?