An old friend joined FB this week. I’m a little bit addicted to FB, and so when I saw his name pop up on another friend’s wall, I sent him a friend request. His response was polite but the message was clear–he was glad I was doing well, but we were not going to be FB friends.
I shot a message to a mutual friend about it, basically shrugging and saying, ‘I tried’, and this friend said something along the lines of, “That’s okay. He’s boring. We’re more fun anyways”.
And I wondered. Am I? Fun, I mean? Or am I just a cliche?
I mean, let’s take what I did yesterday. I’m a stay at home mom with one child at home, and she’s 4. Which means that she’s old enough to get her own breakfast, but young enough to spill it. Old enough to play by herself, but young enough to want me to play with her. Old enough to go potty, but young enough that she might not flush all the time, or she might do something creative with her toilet paper. In short, she’s old enough to not really need me every minute of the day, but young enough to still need me paying a modicum of attention to her.
To fill the days she’s not at preschool, we used to do soccer twice a week. That didn’t work out, so we now have our Tuesdays and Thursdays utterly open and free. You’d think that would the time I would be able to make up creative and exciting things to stimulate her mind and mine, but I confess, yesterday I mostly spent way too much time catching up on Downton Abby while she built towers out of playdough containers and poured cold cereal from one container to the next.
Not exactly exciting, or fun. Actually, the day was kind of… boring. (shhhhhhhhhh, don’t say it out loud)
And the idea of a stay at home mom sitting in her unmade bed watching what is essentially a high brow soap opera (at least I think it’s highbrow–I mean, they have those cool accents and everything) is SUCH a cliche, it makes me cringe. I did take my daughter to a play area in the afternoon to blow off steam, and we had a busy evening when my son got home from school and the after school schedule kicked into gear, but the truth is, right now my days with my daughter are slow. And I know that this is a good time, and I’m certainly not complaining, because I do know how short-lived these days will be.
I’m just worried that in the process of becoming a home-maker (something I’m not really very good at anyways. Just ask the pile of clean laundry stacked on my bedroom floor) I’ve become…boring.
And while boring isn’t the worst thing in the world (right? Or is it?), it still isn’t exactly something I ever aspired to be. And I’m not even complaining that my life is boring, because it isn’t. My life is rich and full. I just wonder if I, as a person, would be recognizable from the girl who once sang on stage with an East Germany grunge band in an old burned out weapons factory.
That was an interesting day.
Are you a fun person? And how do you keep it that way?
Related posts:
Continue reading at the original source →