HUNKER

A Mother Finds the Beauty in Having a Dressing Table of One's Own

by Anna Lane

I'm not one of those women who can naturally make time for herself. Even during the long stretch of years before I had children, I rarely allowed myself enough time to get ready in the mornings. There was always work that needed to be finished, or dishes to be done, or a New York Times article just begging for my attention, thereby ensuring that I consistently found myself half-groomed and entirely frazzled. Motherhood, and the all-consuming nature of it, exacerbated this problem to an extreme. The demands of my son, followed by the birth of his sister just 18 months later, coupled with work, running a household, and connecting with my spouse, meant that I had little to no energy left to expend on myself.

When I was pregnant with my first child, seasoned parents loved to tell me that once the baby arrived I would never again have uninterrupted personal time. I sensed that my friends got some secret amount of joy out of telling me this, as if letting me in on the private password to the parenting club. I, of course, assumed that I would be different, that by some miracle of divine parenting I would still be able to enjoy plenty of alone time while simultaneously raising a human being. [Read more at Hunker.com]