My Year without Makeup

I seem to recall mentioning recently, several times in fact, that I often have ideas for posts that I mull over for weeks before I decide if they’re blog worthy. It’s a fine line this mulling – mull too long and the timeliness of the topic jumps out the window of opportunity. I had an idea for a post nearly a year ago, after my daughter was born and after I decided I should spend more time on the blog, but before I wrote the first post on the birth process. The title was going to be My Month without Makeup. 

I was planning on discussing the absence of routine in that first month home with the baby, when you’re in survival mode and things like showers and teeth brushing take a vacation. I didn’t get to writing the birth post until two months after my daughter was born. My Month without Makeup turned into my two months plus without makeup and, with no plans to powder my nose in sight, a non-starter of a topic.

It turns out that if you wait long enough, some topics crawl back through the window. Eleven and a half months after my schedule went rogue I started wearing makeup again, and My Year without Makeup sounds like an even better post than a measly Month. So let’s get to it, toute suite.

My Scrunchiness

There is a point late in pregnancy, or at least there was for me, where you start to feel like an old person. Your back hurts, your feet are swollen, you’re hunched over and waddling, you can’t get up from the couch, you can’t bend down which is a pity because you’re dropping things left and right, and you decide it’s time to stop driving because you can’t get your foot from the gas to the brake in a timely manner. Yes, as any woman who has ever been nine months pregnant will tell you, it’s uncomfortable.

But giving birth alleviates almost all of those symptoms almost immediately, or at least it did for me. I remember dropping something on the floor of the hospital, picking it up and thinking “yay!” However having a baby, both the birth and upbringing processes, create new symptoms. Some are short-lived but some, again at least for me, are lingering around ten months later.

For instance, I can’t seem to shake that stressed out, scrunched up feeling. That’s probably because I am stressed out and scrunched up. There is just so much to worry about now, and my brain seems to be taking it out on my body. I’ve been grinding my teeth so hard that I’m cracking fillings. Sometimes when I wake up, my chest hurts, like I’ve been pressing on it all night. Though my posture would never have been considered one of my strong suits previously, now my shoulders are at my ears and should I lean any farther forward, I might fall off the chair. I feel like I spend my day doing isometric exercises designed to keep my body in the most uncomfortable, anti-ergonomic positions.

I know a big part of the problem is a lack of movement. I used to try to do my part, exercise-wise, but I gave up at about 8 months pregnant and haven’t looked back. Somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not, I feel stronger and more energetic now than I ever have before, but I use both the muscles and the energy solely to carry the baby around. So, finally fed up with the scrunchiness and some stubborn ab fat (I’m back at my pre-pregnancy weight, but apparently my stomach didn’t get the memo) I found, in my little hometown, a Pilates studio.

Pilates is like Yoga though not quite so crunchy granola, and focuses on the “core” muscles. Since my favorite exercise tapes back in my exercising days were the ones that combined Pilates with aerobics, I thought I might like the introductory mat class. You should know that I’m not usually one for gyms or classes, but I was desperate. I needed to get out of the house and focused on exercising or it was never going to happen.

I’ve taken two classes now and except for a harrowing incident in which a spider crawled dangerously close to my mat, I’m pretty pleased. It’s not that expensive, the instructor is friendly and it doesn’t seem like much of a workout when I’m doing it but I can definitely feel it the next day. Believe me, that part where it doesn’t seem like much of a workout is crucial. I don’t like to sweat.

I can’t say my two classes have alleviated my scrunchiness yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. I leave the classes with more energy, a straighter back and the motivation to do more. Finding the time to do more is still an issue but one hour a week is better than none. Baby steps. Maybe by the time my baby is walking, I’ll be able to set a good example by standing up straight.

My Difficult and Tepid Return

I frequently think of things I think might be worthy of a post, then spend an enormous amount of time mulling whether or not I wish to share that information with the baker’s dozen of people who read this blog.

All that is to say that about a month ago, I returned to work. For the half-dozen or so random readers of this blog, I am a freelancer, so I didn’t decide on a particular amount of time for maternity leave. I figured I would go back to work when there was work. A couple of months after I had the baby, when most moms who had decided to be working moms would have been going back to work, my place of employment was having a bit of a dry spell. And thank God for that.

I tell people that it took me a looong time to even think about going back to work and that my recovery was really hard. And I’m not kidding about any of this. I’m prone to hyperbole but in this instance I may be understating things. I’m no good with change and a baby is a big change. It changes your day-to-day activities, your circadian rhythms, the appearance and functionality of your body. It changes your conversations (who knew poop was such an interesting topic?), increases the time it takes to get out the door ten-fold, and involves you in conversations with strangers you would have previously nodded at and sidled away from.  It changes your mindset. It ups your empathy and skyrockets your worry. It changes your definition of love.

So yeah…It was hard.

In fact, I only went back because it was a temporary gig and I had family available to watch the baby during the day. The paycheck did factor in to the decision-making process, but had those other two criteria not been met, it would have been a much harder decision.

The experience has been both challenging and freeing. I miss my baby and I worry about her, not so much that she is not in good hands but that she is not in my hands. Actually I often worry she is in better hands. My experience with babies prior to having one was limited, and other people seem better at entertaining her, focused as I often am on getting housework done. Then again, she’s a baby, and helping mom take the stuff out of the laundry basket is a very entertaining game. So looking after a baby is challenging, but work is challenging as well, being that it’s – well – work. But being amongst the polysyllabic bipeds is refreshing, and having a few minutes by myself at lunch when I can read and keep my food to myself (and off the floor) is relaxing.  So I’m glad I have this brief opportunity to work but I won’t be sad to return to my baby either.

Which is weird. The last thing I ever wanted to be was a housewife/mother and I often consider my job in television to be the most interesting thing about me, because all I ever wanted to do was work in television. And yet, the old adage/Pampers commercial “having a baby changes everything” is true, and it has left me wondering why writing became the hobby that took a back seat to everything. My renewed interest – no, not interest – commitment – to blogging is to document this unique period of time for myself and my daughter, but what blogger doesn’t secretly hope their quotidian musings will get them discovered and they will be paid upfront to write that book, because the only thing stopping them is some sort of subsidy. (Isn’t that what happened to Diablo Cody?)

As with any big change, the arrival of a baby makes you take stock. What’s changed that you wanted to change, what’s changed that you didn’t want to change? Does the way you’ve chosen to provide for your child create the image you want to project to an impressionable young person? Perhaps I need to work towards that long-shelved goal of staying home to write. But the simple act of going to work sparks a creative desire that may be lacking when I’m simply trying to make it through the day. It’s a catch-22. Still, I’m going to be okay with being home for a while longer because I know something now that I could not fathom after my baby was born, and it is that this time will not last forever. (Seriously, the first four weeks felt like four years.) There will be time to work, there will be time to write. The time for stopping to smell the roses is now.

One final thought, going out to Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo! who is pregnant with her first child. She plans to take little maternity leave and work from home during whatever leave she takes. Here’s my thought: HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I know she’s wealthy and I know she’s going to have help but I still think she’s dreaming. She’s acting like those people on Pregnant in Heels who think having a baby isn’t going to change their lives. Guess what? It will. Compromises will have to be made, and I think six weeks of maternity leave would be a great place to start. Also, just wait a week or two until those hormones drop. That’s going to be so much fun and not stressful at all for a person trying to run a giant corporation. Good luck Marissa!