Dear Daughters,

This may sound shallow, but I wish I were the kind of person who saw all the Oscar-buzz movies, threw a party on Oscar night, and cast a pretend ballot for the nominees I thought would win, all the while drinking champagne. Because I love movies and the Oscars and reading about celebrities and subscribing to Vanity Fair (and Vogue, go ahead and judge), but let’s be real:

I fell asleep at 9 pm last night.

Also, many modern movies make me feel all panicky and unsettled inside and can’t be watched before bed, so I tend not to have actually seen any of the new releases. I just read about them in my magazines instead. It’s not the same.

Girls, I’m okay with the me I am, the woman who falls asleep. Because she is also the woman who cuts off her daffodils and brings them inside, the woman who makes the most stupendous dippy eggs, the woman who adores the kiddos she works with at an after school reading program, who has found such joy in homeschooling you and watching you become a stellar reader, the woman who makes beautiful things and writes beautiful things and loves people well and reads good books and is always asking questions.

But I’ll be honest that I do have glimpses sometimes of a me I wish I were, a me that I’m not.

It’s not a jealousy thing. It’s not, “Hey, look at what that woman over there is doing, I wish I were doing that.” It’s not, honest. It’s not that I want to do more and achieve more and have more.

No, it’s more like I have an idea of a person I want to be if I were an imaginary version of myself.

For example, she would be better at caring for her skin and her teeth and exercising, but I would want her to be someone who does it because she enjoys it. Because it brings her joy. (I’m not great at these things, and honestly I kind of resent them as necessary parts of self-care. My imaginary self would not.)

This fictional woman doesn’t necessarily have a clean house (though that would be nice, especially if she enjoyed cleaning, as some of my friends do), but she probably doesn’t lose her temper nearly as much as I do. She would be better at some things (gardening, for example) and less stressed about other things (replaying conversations in her head, for example), but overall, it’s more the fun things I think about. I wish I were someone who liked camping, for example, but I really just don’t. That’s a pretty random example, isn’t it? Let’s see… I wish something like pedicures or massages sounded like fun, rather than one more thing to schedule. (I can’t even get doctors appointments scheduled, so I’m rather hopeless.) I wish road trips sounded like adventure rather than to-do lists. I wish I liked shopping. I wish I could listen to podcasts, but I can’t. They take too much attention and I can’t multitask. I prefer silence. Ah, yes, there’s another one, I often wish I didn’t need so much silence, and I wish I could multitask.

Ah, and there is irony in admitting this one: I wish I didn’t over-think everything.

I wish I weren’t burdened down by the struggles around me, didn’t have physical reactions to stress, that I could just let things go. I wish I didn’t need to process process process.

But that’s the me I am, the woman who falls asleep watching the Oscars and instead just reads about the highlights the next day.

Girls, don’t get me wrong. Here in my mid-30s, I’m at peace. With my daffodils on the dining room table. With my dippy eggs for breakfast. We did readaloud and learned telling time and had piano lessons this morning and I had reading camp this afternoon and leftover beef stew for dinner and I’m about to pick up a good novel.

So there is peace here.

Still, I do want to be someone, someday, who doesn’t fall asleep during the Oscars.

But I have a solution for that. Someday, maybe, we can watch them together and you can keep me awake.

Love,
Your Momma