Thoughts

I saw the film Julie and Julia last night. Along with giving me the desire to cook lots of extravagant French cuisine, the movie also reminded me a bit of me, back when I started this blog. It (my blog) was an outlet--a way to reassure myself that I wasn't losing the "me" that I had discovered in Athens, now that I was living in Macon, a very non-Athens type of place.

In a similar vein, I'm realizing more and more every day that, in my new roles as Wife and Mother, I need constant reminders that my life now, although unfathomably different, is still one in which I can be "me." I wish that somehow those reminders would be more easily accessible, found in more obvious places. I sometimes wonder where that spontaneous, wanna-be-edgy girl from those days is, where she's hidden herself in this flabby and frumpily-dressed housewife exterior. I know she's here.

Cal and I go back and forth on this particular issue. I feel badly for him as he struggles to understand this identity crisis that I'm facing. He automatically associates my wistful walks down memory lane as reflections of my feelings for him, or for Parks. Wonders if I regret my decisions from the last few years, decisions that changed who I was then into who I am now. And that is SO far from the truth, and I hope that I have convincingly conveyed that reality to him.

My life, though different now, is no worse, and I am no less happy and, actually, am often happier than I was then. It's just different. And my sometimes-inner-turmoil is not due to a lack of satisfaction in my new roles; it is, rather, a consequence of my trying to reconcile this new identity to my old one. To mold it into an identity that is uniquely mine, in some way. To somehow figure out the paradox by fulfilling that ever-present and always-strong urge of mine to be independent without compromising the wonderful fact that I am not, and don't ever again want to be, alone. I am an integral part of, first, a pair, and, next, a trio. And I love the truth of the fact that I am no longer one.

I merely want the segment of the pair (or trio) that is me to truly be ME. Not some watered-down version, or some vain attempt to squeeze myself into the typecast of a Christian housewife and mother. (Because I think we can all agree that, unfortunately, the "me" of which I speak is not found anywhere remotely close to that perfect, Donna Reed stereotype.)

I am blessed. I have an amazing husband who loves me for who I was before, who I am now, and who I am trying to be in the future. He has to speak the truth in love, occasionally (Miriam, you're 31. You're married. You're a mother. The three of us live on one teacher's salary. At some point, you've got to realize that it's just not practical to flit off to Las Vegas whenever you find a great deal on Travel Zoo), but he constantly reminds me that he did not marry me because I'm an impeccable housekeeper, and that he cooked (quite well) for himself in the 12 years or so that existed for him between living under his mother's care and living under mine.

I, on the other hand, remind him on the occasions when I long for my lonely days and he gets concerned that his presence is the problem, that my independence and utter contentment with my singleness is what drew him --lonely and DIScontent-- to me in the first place. That if I had never had that enthusiasm for the time in my life before I was married, he, perhaps, would have never found me as mystifying (and, therefore, attractive) as he did.*

What does all of this have to do with Julie and Julia? Well, Julie claimed that her blog revived her soul and gave her new life. While I won't go that far with the analogy, I do wonder if I, myself, shouldn't find some project about which to write on a regular basis. A new challenge, a fresh way to bring myself out of the identity crisis rut that I've been in for a while. A way to make my life uniquely my life.

Then again, you all know me well enough to know that if I were truly able to commit to anything of the magnitude of which a project like this would be, I would, once again, have a new identity crisis on my hands. Me? Commit? Finish? Ha!

Or would that type of crisis be similar to the one I'm plodding through now? An identity that's not worse. Not a regression. Rather, one out of which I emerge better, more complete, closer to the woman that God is molding me to eventually be?

I don't know. Maybe I never will. But it makes for an interesting thought, late on a Sunday night.

*Cal will likely wake up tomorrow morning, mortified to be reading such personal ramblings about our private life. But, hey. He's written about my breast pumps on numerous occasions. I think I have some wiggle room here.