Everything Happened | vol. 217

How to have fun

Earlier this summer, I helped myself to one of those indulgent AMA question boxes on Instagram. One question has been sticking with me:

How do I have more fun as a mom?

I say, with much reverence to my folks, that I did not grow up in a “pro-fun” household. I was loved and supported, but weekends were for yardwork, church, homework, piano, and chores. I was a spacey yet social kid who loved both staring into the middle distance and chatting people up. Neither of those things made me very productive, useful, or compliant.

If my older sister and I were assigned to pull weeds, she would want to accomplish the task as efficiently as possible so she could go back inside and read books. I wanted to throw dirt clods in the air and watch them crash, and get my other siblings to join in. My inborn wastrel qualities did not make me a good unpaid backyard laborer, this is true. But I like to think they made me a good hang.

Being a good hang came naturally to me and eventually became a trait I wanted to foster within myself. In school, I did sports, drama, speech and debate, student government, all the ambitious suburbanite stuff. I was mediocre across the board in these environments.

I watched my friends become virtuosic in their talents. They formed bands and played gigs. They carried teams to championships. It was okay, though. I didn’t mind not being cast in a principal role in the fall play, because the bit parts got to goof off in the green room more anyway. I loved goofing off. I wanted to goof off with my friends forever.

Because of my family environment, simply screwing around was an act of rebellion. Achievement did not appeal to me because it seemed to require a great deal of discipline, solitude, and focus. I did not know then, and wouldn’t for a long time, that becoming good at something could make it fun. I was not interested in things I was not automatically good at, and I did not view fun as anything other than a team sport. Enjoying myself alone made no sense.

Now, in some ways, becoming a teen parent (29) was not a natural fit for me. An unforced error for a committed slacker to assign herself decades of responsibility, not to mention a heart held hostage for a lifetime. But in other ways, wasn’t it obvious for me to have a baby as soon as possible? Create a new person with whom to goof off? My very favorite thing to do?

If your stated goal is to goof off with your friends forever, having a baby is a pretty serious detour! I don’t know what it’s like to be in your thirties and not be a primary caregiver because that never happened for me. I imagine there is still a social narrowing. People get partnered up, you start getting sick for two days off a cheeky third glass of wine. There seems to be a period of eighteen months in the late 20s and early 30s in which a friend group goes from getting blackout drunk three nights a week to waking up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday to be early to a plant sale with a guy named Josh.

Or in my case, waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday to watch a guy named Desi demonstrate all the ways in which your apartment could kill him.

I had to completely redefine my relationship to leisure when I had a baby. Because I was breastfeeding, my time was metered. Because my baby was wakeful at night, staying out late and using substances lost its appeal. When you have to work first shift every day for the foreseeable future, you are forced to take care of yourself or perish. And the more you take care of yourself, the less fun it seems to not take care of yourself. This may have all happened if I hadn’t had kids, but again, I’ll never know.

Anyway, because my “hobbies” were all centered around having a good time with my friends, I experienced a major erosion of self. At one point in the early weeks of Desi’s life, my mom and Nick pushed me out the door to take a few hours to myself. They correctly sensed that I was about to crack…the fuck…up.

I remember sitting outside at Caffe Apropos (RIP) that day with my beer and my brownie. I’d brought a book with me but I was too cognitively destroyed by sleep deprivation to chain any sentences together. I stared into the storefront of the new nail salon across the street and cried effortless and confused tears. I literally did not know what to do with myself, and this was humiliating. I had built a life around being a good hang, yet could not tolerate my own company.

So began what I think of as my life’s work: paying attention to what I enjoy, so that I can stand to be around myself, since I am the only home I’ll ever have. It’s a privilege to do it.

This sommmmewhat prepared me for two more big changes. In 2018, we moved from a city with a dense network of strong friendships, and extended families within a few hours of us by car, to a rural small town on our little peninsula where we had no friends, no Doordash, no Target, nothing open past 8. Then in 2020, we had to put a freeze on any relationships we were building in our new town and hang out with our children (by then we had two) 24/7. This felt like the monkey’s paw wish fulfillment of “I want to goof off with my friends forever!” Oh fuck, not those friends!!!

By now, I expect these changes to keep coming. They are not the aberrations I once saw them as; they are life itself. The architecture of my days will continue to shift as I age, as my children grow up, as our life circumstances change in ways I can’t pretend to anticipate right now. And I will have to keep paying attention to what amuses me. Good work if you can get it.

A few times a year, I am able to get away with my friends for the weekend and have my caregiving identity completely suspended for those few days. If you had told a younger version of me that that would be enough, I’m not sure if I would have believed you.

Day to day, I edit the shit out of my responsibilities so that I can be less resentful and annoyed. Desi has to get school lunch because it’s free at his school and I don’t like packing lunches. Activities with aggressive time commitments get axed. We spend $200 a month on house cleaning services. I put the kids in childcare at the Y so I can work out in the evening, instead of carving time from my own sleep to make a 5 a.m. class, lest my needs disrupt anyone else’s schedule. If they’re being maniacs at bedtime, Nick and I lock ourselves in our own room and do the day’s Spelling Bee puzzle until they can pull it together. It’s not chic, but it’s a good life.

Having fun as a parent for me is less about pursuing fun experiences (often backfires anyway since a kid will burn it all down at Disney World because they wish they’d gotten a different type of ice cream) but about dialing down the things that put me in a bad mood. Like packing lunches. When I’m in a good mood, any dumb bullshit is fun. It’s part of being a good hang.

By the way, don’t count my parents out completely. They put in a hot tub this summer and got a little floating Bluetooth speaker for it. They’re still addicted to chores but at night? They fire up the jets and crank the jams.

Polly tries out the hot tub, June 2022

yr mate,
Evie