Separating

There comes a time in a baby's development when she begins to realize she's not truly just part of her mother but that she's an independent person, that she is her own entity.

I'm beginning to feel like this.

For the last twenty years, I've been a mother before everything else. In the very beginning of motherhood, I was a working outside-of-the-home mom.  I juggled a career as an editor and had a young daughter, before Internet, before email...dragging large manuscripts between my work and home in a sturdy bag, working from home some days, in the office on others.  It became clear to me when I was pregnant with my younger daughter that I wouldn't be able to do both, at least for a while. My husband and I weren't sure if we would be able to afford life on one salary but we decided the wear and tear on my was too much...almost exactly seventeen years ago, I quit my job.  We decided we would re evaluate after a year. . .

Year turned into year turned into year and I became a dedicated stay-at-home mother. Most everything I've done, even though I'm also a writer and a friend and like to go to movies and out for dinner, to discuss politics and social issues, and to read, has been about my daughters. I was active in their elementary school activities.  Then we transitioned into the tough teen years, with me being available for every time they needed to talk, or to think out loud, to drive them to activities, to advise them on classes, to pick them and their friends up, and then teaching them to drive themselves....and now, it's almost over.

Yesterday I took a day to be not-a-mom.  An author friend and I went into the city to a book launch, where people we knew were celebrating the publication of their book.  We had lunch,we walked around, we met people we had only social media-ed with. Of course I thought about my kids, but my pressing thoughts were not about where to be to pick one up or how to help one through a crisis or school or...anything, but writing and reading and books. I felt like an entirely different person.

My older daughter is home for college for the summer; the younger is going into her Junior year of high school.  In just a couple of short years, daughter number 1 will be launched, fully, and daughter number 2 will separate herself to college.  I'll still be their mom, but I won't be the appendage I am now.  But I'll be a person.  And a writer. And someone I may, some days, not recognize.

When Perfect People Turn Out Not to be Perfect

A reader once commented to me that one of the hard parts of The Opposite of Normal, for her, was reading about the rabbi and some of his failures as a parent. (I don't think this is giving anything away if you haven't read the book yet!)  She was bothered by the idea that she had such high ideals about rabbis, and she didn't like to think of them as not being "perfect" or at least, shining, in an area they are supposed to guide us in, like parenting.

Recently, someone I trusted to be, maybe not perfect, but certainly someone I thought was on my side, who I looked up to, surprised me with doing something I thought was wrong.  Now, while I didn't expect her to be perfect (or maybe I did), I did expect something other than I got when we were dealing with a thorny issue.  

It's hard when there are people in your life who you greatly admire and you find out they are not always so admirable, but it happens to all of us, I think. This isn't the first time I've been disappointed by someone I've always looked up to or admired, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

It's important for me to remember that no one is perfect.  Even our strongest leaders, people whose opinions we value, people who are supposed to be our greatest examples -- parents and grandparents and teachers and clergy and doctors -- they are all fallible. When we put our head in the sand about their imperfections, we hurt ourselves.  I was hurt by this person I thought was on my side, and turned out, kind of wasn't, but I learned from it.  I reminded myself not to be so one hundred per cent trustworthy of some people. I usually have good instincts, and I need to be a little more wary, I suppose, because while I have good instincts, I can put all my trust in some people when I shouldn't.

I hope my reader learned from The Opposite of Normal that yes, rabbis make mistakes, even in their own families, and that's okay. And I learned from my experience. Imperfection is perfectly reasonable. Perfection is not.

Impatience!

I am an impatient person.  I've never been good at waiting for something to happen, waiting for people to do what they say they will do, waiting for the next step in a process.

Two things have helped my impatience: Motherhood and being an Author.

Everything in the publishing world works at a snail's pace.  Finding an agent, getting an offer from a publishing house, receiving the contract, and the actual publication of the book all generally take months and years.  As an indie author, I bypass a lot of this stuff, but I can't avoid certain aspects of the process.

I finished my new manuscript last week.  When I say finished, I mean, the first draft, plus my own first edit, are both done.  I've decided on a title -- The Place We Say Goodbye -- and I'm feeling good about it. The next steps are hearing from the beta readers and my editor's work.

I sent my manuscript off to three beta readers last week. Beta readers are the people you choose to ready an early version and then give you honest feedback about your manuscript to make sure it is working the way it's supposed to.  Who you choose as beta readers can change from manuscript to manuscript and indeed mine do. I try to find people who are heavy readers in my particular genre and who may have more than a passing knowledge of my topic.  Of course, none of my beta readers gets paid, and I'm so grateful to them for being willing to read for free; I know they all have other jobs and families and lives; they are doing me a huge favor. I expect that it will take them a while to read for me. Still, though, I get antsy the minute I send the manuscript out. Now I have nothing.  

I try hard to fill the time. I read more than usual. I try to sleep a little later. I bake. I work on the book's blurb -- those few paragraphs that will try to sell the book for me. I think, in the most general terms, about my next book. I should look at this time as special. My brain is getting a break from thinking about my characters and my plot and who is going to do what next and how I'm going to solve their problems.  But instead, I just feel, well, impatient.

I know two of my readers haven't even started the manuscript yet. I don't blame them. As I said, they are busy. But part of me wants to go to their houses (which would be hard to do since one lives several states away and the other lives on the other side of the country) and shake them and sit there and force them to read.  Of course, I am calm and cool and collected when they tell me it might be "awhile" until they start or they will get to it "soon." I smile and nod and say yes, of course I understand, take all the time you need.

Then I sigh and go try to entertain myself with something else.