More Than a Wife and Mother
Words by Jacey Rogel
I hide in my room once my children are tucked into bed. I pull out my journals and a book and slide under the covers. I keep one eye on the door and wait for the moment a child will, inevitably, walk through and begin asking a thousand questions or tell me they just love me so much. Rarely do my kids fall asleep quickly, they are champion sleep fighters. Even with distractions a door away, these next few hours before I go to sleep are pivotal for my mental health. I open my journal and write.
I place my journal inside my nightstand and glance up to see the tv light dancing across the walls outside of my bedroom. I know my husband is laying across the couch watching the shows he’s missed the last four nights of work. A pang of guilt hits me, I should be out there with him. We don’t spend a lot of time together alone, our conversations are always interrupted by little voices vying for our attention. But my body refuses to move. He works nights and is gone three to four nights a week, this is the time I look forward to all day when he is gone. It is hard to break the routine when he is home.
I am alone, it is quiet, I can release the burdens that have gathered on my shoulders throughout the day and bury them in words.The guilt lasts only as long as it takes for me to become engrossed in my latest novel. I know I am not doing enough for my marriage, I should be making sacrifices and spending time alone with my husband. When I take care of my mental health, support the highly sensitive person within me, I fail as a wife.
*****
Beep, beep, beep. My alarm jolts me awake at 4:50 am. I press snooze and pull the covers tighter. It has gotten easier to wake up when the sky is dark, but my body still craves the quiet stillness of sleep, the warmth of my blankets around me.
I roll out of bed, grab my glasses and my slippers and clumsily make my way to my desk in the corner of my bedroom. I turn on the light and open a book of poetry. I turn on my computer or open my writing notebook and find my latest essay to work on.
My alarm beeps again, pulling me out of the trance I have found myself in. It is six am now. It is time for me to put away the writer in me and replace it with mother. This time in the morning that I have carved out for myself is never enough. I wish I could ignore the sounds of my children stirring in their beds and continue doing this work I love. I wish I could have hours in the morning to work, to fill my empty cup with words. I wish I could drown out the voices of my children that overtake the words in my head and silence them. It is a dream to spend hours or days alone with just my pen and paper, my laptop.
I shouldn’t fantasize about leaving my children for days at a time to be alone. That makes me sound like a terrible mother. It seems when I encourage the writer within me, when I set goals and work to achieve them, I fail as a mother.
*****
I figured once I got married, had children- fully entered adulthood- I’d no longer question my identity. I’d be a wife, a mother, a grown-up. All grown-ups know who they are. All mothers are confident (oh how wrong I was). I thought everything was black and white once you reached a certain age, all your doubts and insecurities went down the drain. I didn’t know the grey areas I was dealing with in adolescence only became more grey as I got older. If anything, coming into these roles made me question everything even more. They made me ask “Is this who I really am? Is this all there is for me?”
It has taken me 30 years to get a grasp on who I am. I had to lose myself first in the depths of depression and motherhood. When I was able to write myself out of the darkness, the person I have been searching for my entire life began to take shape. It was a process to get to know myself again.
I am more than a wife. More than a mother. There are pieces of me that have been sitting dormant in my mind for years, itching to work their way out and become part of me. Now that they are emerging, the hard work of figuring out who I am and how to make the pieces of me fit together is just beginning.
I thought once I knew who I was, the goals and dreams that live inside of me, everything else would make sense. Moving through so much of my life without a solid foundation has rocked me. Being a wife and a mother longer than I have been myself has made the ground beneath me crumble. I don’t know how to make the different pieces of me fit together, how I can excel at being a wife, mother, writer.
I want to snap my fingers and have everything make sense. I want everything to be perfect. As I get older, I know there is no such thing. I look at myself in the mirror and see all of the ways I have failed the people I love when I should see all of the ways I am trying to love myself better.
About the Author:
Jacey is a wife to her husband of seven years. Together, they have three children. She writes in the early hours of the day and reads during her spare moments. She finds solace in words, between the pages of a good book, and in the kitchen. Her writing has been featured on Coffee + Crumbs among others. You can find her on Instagram @jaceyrogel or jaceywrites.com.