Filling My Cup

So, the thing is… I've been filling my cup back up.

No, not wine –although I've been doing some of that, too! Not coffee –although I've been doing a LOT of that. And not water –although I should be doing more of that every day.

I'm talking about my cup of joy and blessings. I have this theory that we moms are like cups and we pour out and we pour out and if we don't do something to fill our cups back up, while we might still be doing motherly nurturing things, we are missing our joy in them, and what's the point of THAT?

There are lots of things I do to fill up my cup again –some of them arduous (like going to the gym) and some of them easy. In this spirit, I took Smiley Jane to visit my best friend Linda in Indianapolis. We had such a wonderful visit! Linda is like a calmer, Midwestern version of me. It's a little bizarre actually. We are VERY alike—right down to some strange things like we're both allergic to sulfa drugs and we both love raw bell pepper. Neither one of us has ever delivered a child without benefit of a c-section (Linda has had three). We're both writerly/wordy types and we are voracious readers. We are both very happily married, which is kind of restful, actually. (I find male bashing strenuous.)

It's always interesting to me when I hear women say that their HUSBANDS are their best friends. I understand the sentiment but it's just not my experience. For me, it comes down to two important differences: I don't WANT to see my best friend naked. (Sorry, Linda.) And I would NEVER take my husband with me for moral support when going to Petticoat Fair, where the zeal of the clerks to get you into a properly fitting bra makes the event a cross between a shopping expedition and an assault. On the other hand, having a best friend who is also an experienced mom makes for some strange happenings that sort of cross that line between friendliness and intimacy. Like the time I was worried that I'd heated up a bottle too warm for Jane and made Linda test it. “It's fine," she said, handing it back to me. “And I now can say that I've had your breast milk on my wrist.”

I am not really prepared to be best friends with my daughters, either. I hope that some day we'll achieve a very strong friendship and that I'll be able to let go of my need to mother them long enough to appreciate them as adults and girlfriends but that's a long time in the future. Right now, my children are my JOB and no matter how much I want them to like me, it is also my responsibility to see that they take their medicine, observe some boundaries and learn some manners. I have never once told Linda to turn around, face her food and chew with her mouth closed and that if I have to tell her that one more time, we are looking at a Big Time Out. (Linda says the answer to the question “How many times do I have to tell you...(whatever it is)?” truly is thousands and thousands of times.)

People are always asking Linda and me how we met. I'm only going to say this once: we met on the Internet. I've stopped apologizing for that --well, sort of. Actually, I just stopped telling people. Now I say that we met as part of a National Moms Group --doesn't that sound so much more respectable? I WILL say that I haven't quite decided what I should tell my girls about how we met since I sure don't want THEM meeting anyone over the Internet!

After we’d been e-mailing for a while, I took a leap of faith and went to visit her in Indiana. I didn't take Ana and I figured if I got off the plane and Linda turned out to be some lecherous, overweight carpet salesman from Hoboken who had been impersonating my friend, I'd just turn around and come right back home. But honestly, you can't MAKE up those stories about your kids unless you've lived them so I felt pretty safe. And since we've exchanged more than 3,000 e-mails in a scant two years, she'd have to be the best liar on earth never to slip up. But she wasn't. She was Linda. And I was so grateful.

Because for me, this motherhood gig has been a pretty isolating experience so far. I feel somehow cut off as a mom. My family lives elsewhere and my children are younger than those of my siblings by a good twelve years. I'm a relatively old new mom so most of my friends either have already had their children and have moved on to having their LIVES again, or they're just getting started in the baby business. I know lots of other mommies but it's so hard to get together and then when we do, we always have our children in tow and so we never get to really connect. Or I'm so shell-shocked from the effort of trying to get two children ready to go somewhere (with the six tons of gear that is required) that I sit there afraid to open my mouth for fear that in the Great Exit, I forgot to brush my teeth. I go through many days where the only other parent I talk to is my spouse –and he's very wonderful but I gotta think he's not getting that much out of MY rather sleep-deprived conversation.

I don't know. It's hard. Because not only do you have to meet other moms who have children at approximately the same age as yours, they also have to be somewhere near your same style of parenting. I have a friend who spanks her children and since I don't, I find it hard to be around her. I'm not sure I want Ana and Jane to see that. (Don't get all up in arms at me –I’m not faulting her for her choice. I'm just saying it conflicts with MY parenting style.)

(Well, okay, I hate it.)

I hope all of this will change as Ana goes to school and we'll meet a lot of local parents who have children the same age as ours (and who feel the same way we do about spanking.) But for right now, I find that I get most of my adult interaction through e-mail with friends and relatives. I can't tell if that's totally pathetic or not. In a way, it makes me sad that we live in a time when we have every modern convenience, every form of transportation and communication and yet I feel so isolated. Here I am, pouring my heart out to people on-line who I may never meet but I can't seem to cross the street to meet my neighbors.

On the other hand, without the on-line community of moms, I would never have met my very best friend. And I wouldn't have gotten this most recent chance to fill my cup back up. I really needed it this time. I struggle with the issue of balance --I have a tendency to be an Uber-Mom. And that’s a problem because when I don’t invest a little something in myself, I get cranky and short tempered and everyone suffers. While I know that cognitively, I have a hard time translating it into reality. One thing I try to keep in mind is that I am modeling the type of behavior I want my children to learn. So I want them to see a healthy woman who exercises and eats healthily and has a life outside of being a mom, complete with good friends.

And I’d like for them to think of me as someone whose cup is always overflowing with joy for them.

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (almost three) and Jane (four months). She lives in Austin, Texas.