On Past and Present Futures

The other day I got to thinking about this blog and why I started it in the first place. Why I left behind my stream-of-whatever-I-felt-like-writing-about and decided to blog with parameters, sing a new tune. Why I went from pointytoeshoefactory.com: no shoes, no service (as of this week, defunct) to GGC and the new and improved titty-flashing all nighter.

Girl's Gone Child, the blog about parenting and my life as a mother and Archer's life as my child and the adventures in urban-motherhood, and me and my obsession with baby hats and indie rock and how I make it all work. How I have transitioned from life as a writer/odd-job-working/commitment-phobic/care-free/ chain-smoking/table-dancing/thinker to my current life as a work-at-home mother. A mom. Mommy. Woman with offspring.

When I became pregnant, the record stopped. It had been broken, so it wasn't difficult to finish it off. A karate chop to it's ridged heart and CRASH! The pieces were on the floor. A broom and dustbin and all was gone.

I wanted everyone out of my life who had taken from me, taken and not given back. I wouldn't let them near my child. I wouldn't let them near me as he grew inside me. I erased phone numbers, contacts, friends, mostly men who had drained me financially, emotionally-- societal orphans, misfits with skateboards and spiky hair who needed Mommies. I was saving the world, one lost boy at a time but I was killing myself, without even realizing it.

I was never able to ask anyone for a favor. It was hard for me to except a gift, borrow money. I was unable to call for help, call for a ride, tell my truth. Instead I gave everything away, opened myself up like a shelter, let the world inside. Up all night to talk a friend off a ledge or away from a needle or a married man. Flying across the country to hold a hand.

I didn't want to bring Archer into a world where drug-addicts might pass-out on our doorstep, even though they were at a time, my friends. I didn't want Archer to see where I had been and who had joined me. All of my life I had taken in stray dogs, and now I would throw them out. On their asses. Because of Archer. Because stray dogs never become men. Because lost boys live in never-land and girls aren't allowed there. Or women. Or my baby.

When one has a child, one changes. More than I imagined. No longer is at all about you. It can't be. I may have played the part of mother and acted like I cared about the world, wanted to join the peace corps, hold the hair of the puking drunk, love everyone unconditionally. I may have acted like I was selfless, honest, real but I was a good liar. Even I believed me.

I said I love you to everyone who needed to be loved but did I love them? Of course not. I loved saying so. I loved that my love was enough to make a difference, at least until morning. I loved that my words could be an easy fix, could numb the pain. Fix a moment. Fix an hour. Fix a life. I loved that I could be the strong one, even though I was falling apart. I felt like I was worth something. I was alive.

When I got pregnant with Archer I started screening my calls. I stopped answering my phone after midnight. I stopped giving money to every bum who begged for it. I stopped pretending to care about friend's affairs with married men and drug-problems. I stopped pretending I could make a sick child well again. I stopped trying to save the world. Friends had become leeeches and I was just as at fault for offering my blood.

I wasn't afraid to be alone. I wasn't afraid to start over. I was excited. I was relieved.

Girl's Gone Child is supposed to be the new and improved titty-flashing all nighter, because there is nothing wrong with yesterday. There is nothing wrong with my BC* blog and my past. There's nothing wrong with the original titty-flashing all nighter or whatever I was doing when I knew people were looking, even though I pretended I did not. There is nothing wrong with my days of mothering fuck-ups and losers. There is nothing wrong with who I was. Then plus now equals tomorrow. I have no regrets. Just epiphanies.

And the words will continue to crawl across the computer screen like insects, bloated with everything that nobody knows, the white space full of secrets. And I will marvel at what has changed since my biological makeover.

I am not and never will be defined by motherhood, but I will wholeheartedly admit that motherhood has inspired and enabled me to define myself.

Girl's Gone Child is proof that parenting has changed me, moved me, agreed with me, that having a child has given this girl more than she could have imagined. Mommy. Mom. Woman with offspring...Whatever people are saying this week.

I would have grown up eventually. I would have been fine, more than fine even. I would have found happiness and love and dot dot dot, but that's not what happened. This is what happened. I got pregnant. I had a baby. I became myself, and THAT is what this blog is all about.


GGC

*Before Child