Day Thirty-Two: Mindfulness, Multitasking, and Motherhood

Two years ago, I became a mother.  It's hard to capture the profundity that the addition of this role has on a person's life.  That first moment when you hold your new baby in your arms marks the moment that absolutely everything in your life changes, and you can truly never go back to the way things were.

Before I was a mother, I was a novelty seeker.  I filled up my life with experiences, education, and travel.  I took impulsive road trips without set destinations.  I hiked, and kayaked, and did yoga.  I stayed in an untouchable village in India.  I earned a Master's Degree while living in Boston.  I played the flute.  I lounged in hot springs at the base of a volcano in Costa Rica.  I spent two years as an AmeriCorps volunteer working in rape crisis centers.  I went on a camping safari in Kenya.  I learned to knit.   I climbed a Mayan pyramid in Mexico.  I taught classes at the local community college.  I saw shows on Broadway and in London.   I watched the sunrise above Table Mountain in South Africa.    I worked at MIT in Information Systems.  I swam with sharks and stingrays in Belize.  I attended protests in Washington D.C.  I worked as a flower gardener on a college campus.  I went rock hunting in Nova Scotia.  I spent 100 days going around the world on a ship.  Everyone of these experiences was wonderful, but there was always something missing.

The moment I held my son in my arms for the first time, I knew that I had found the missing piece in my life.  Some level of anxiety and urgency that I had been carrying with me disappeared and I found a peace that I had not previously known.  This sense of peace has been a constant since the moment my little Liam was born and I became a mother.

Liam

However, the transition from novelty seeker to mother has not always been easy for me.  While I had prided myself on my sense of adventure, mindfulness, self-care, and freedom prior to motherhood, it quickly became clear that the very foundation of how I had lived my life needed to change.  Gone were the days when I reveled in all of the possibilities that were available to me and I could choose how I wanted to fill my time.  Guaranteed free time became non-existent and every activity had to be done with full awareness that it might be abandoned part way through in order to care for my baby.  If my son was sleeping or content and I did have a free moment to shower, cook, clean, or do laundry, my focus would continue to be split between Liam and what I was doing.  The mindfulness I used to enjoy while completing tasks had been replaced with the sense that I was constantly multitasking.  The umbilical cord might have been cut, but there is an invisible bond between a mother and her baby that keeps her attention anchored to her child.  Try as I might, I could not wrench my attention away from my son to be fully present.  I struggled.

Liam

Except, when I was able to be fully focused on my son.  During these precious and frequent moments I experienced a sense of mindfulness that was sweeter than anything I had ever known before.  I drank my son in with my senses and was filled with wonder at the very sight of him.  His expressions and movements could bring tears of joy to my eyes.  When I was fully with him, enjoying the present moment we were sharing, I was fully at peace and filled with joy.  These moments together are sweeter than anything I have ever known.

Gracie

Enter my sweet little Gracie.  While I have fully adjusted to the sense of being constantly on call and being flexible about how I get my own needs met, I now have the needs of two babies to juggle.  With my second child, I have been blessed with the easiest, most adaptable baby.  She takes long naps during the day and sleeps basically through the night.  Liam, on the other hand, is now into everything.  While he is much more independent than he used to be, he is also much more apt to get himself into trouble.  So while I have double the potential for beautiful, mindful moments, I feel badly that I simply do not have the opportunities for one-on-one time for Gracie that I had with my firstborn.  After Liam and my husband have gone to bed, I savor the brief window of time I have with my little girl before she falls asleep for the night.  Then I take a few moments for myself before going to bed.

So tonight, after a full day celebrating Liam's birthday with family and friends and Gracie asleep in her swing, I contemplated my need to have a novel experience and decided to attempt a candle meditation.  With my gaze focused at the candle in front of me, I tried to clear my mind and focus my full attention on the flickering flame.    I spent a full fifteen minutes seeking out the mindfulness that I used to know but could not keep my focus away from my daughter's peaceful breathing a few feet away from me.  

While initially, I was frustrated and continued to try to force my focus back to the candle I eventually gave up, gathered my sleeping baby into my arms and tried it again.  Miraculously, with my daughter cradled against my belly, her home for those 9 months, I was able to experience a different kind of mindfulness.  While I was still fully aware of my baby girl, she felt like a part of me once again and I was able to incorporate her into the meditation.  My attention no longer felt split in two places when she was against my body.  Instead, we had a beautiful, mindful, loving novel moment.  My post-motherhood novel experiences might not be as glamorous and exciting as before, but sometimes they are exponentially more beautiful.