The One About Motherhood, Missing Parts and Me

Greetings from the Great Southwest! Now for a list of the things that are rattling around in my brain recently. There's something about this place that makes my brain work differently. Not better, mind you, just different. There are plenty of folks who believe that the desert has a different "energy" , and maybe, just maybe, that's true....

• The menfolk have spent the week traversing the links in the annual golf outing. Much fun and frolicking was had by all. All the men that is. As for the Eggroll and I, well, most of the festivities were for the grown-ups... and I had no babysitter....so....well.... To be honest, I missed the freedom of choice, not necessarily the activities themselves.
• Speaking of freedom of choice, motherhood leaves you with none. That sounds very dark doesn't it? I don't mean it that way...it's just become glaringly apparent that motherhood and I are often at odds. There is a lack of time and choice that happens with kids, and for me, that often poses a few difficulties. It doesn't erase the "wonderful" that happens with kids, it just underlines the fact that women are often shortchanged in the whole grand scheme of life. Still sounding dark?? Bear with me....
• As an adult, we first care for ourselves. And by care I mean it in the holistic sense of the word. We nurture our bodies, our minds, our spirits, and our souls. Then, we marry, and we put our spouses care ahead of our own. We love and adore them, so it's only natural to put their well-being ahead of our own. As we age (and in my case) perhaps our aging parents require our energy. We move their well-being to the top of the "energy" list, and our own well-being is now regaled to third-place. Next comes the child or children and we find ourselves in fourth or fifth place. Then one day we notice that there is not a hell of a lot of leftover time or energy to give to ourselves. We wither, we atrophy... and we discover that we're low on places and time to re-fuel... it becomes a rather bleak existence..
• Eventually, we will have nothing to offer our spouses, children or parents. Eventually we will have nothing left to offer anyone, not even ourselves... and for those of us who were or are self-aware..it's painful...
• We've all seen those women... you know the ones. They were beautiful once, they were intelligent, independent and brave.. and then you see them again, maybe a few years or a few kids later. They schlep around in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, babbling on about diapers, schools, and juice boxes. They've not read anything beyond US weekly and whatever the school sends home with their kid. Devoid of any kind of self-esteem, they move through life like robots, spending their days gratifying everyone but themselves. They use phrases like "when I have the time..." "I've been meaning to..." "As soon as..."
• The quest continues to keep that from happening to your lovely host. If anything, my time in the desert, my time here, may have just given me that little bit of perspective that I so desperately needed....