Living in a No-Grown-Up World

My ineffable thoughts have been churning away in my head, coming together over a few weeks into something more solid. Something more expressible.  Something more.  And throughout this process I contemplated if I would blog this and decided that there was a very good reason to do so.  At the end of every calendar year, I take all of the entries for the past year and have them published in a book.  A real, tangible, on-the-shelf book as a future gift to my children.  They will have stories of their childhood, documentation of things we have done together, proof that I was trying my hardest because who knows what will become of these intangible bits and bytes on the web.  And, with entries like this, they may have something to draw on if/when they are parents themselves.

The hard thing, the really damn difficult thing, is the loss of grownups in my world.  I have been a parent for five and a half years and at first there was a slight drop off in the number and types of activities to which I was invited. Then, after bringing Joseph home, a precipitous drop happened.  At first, I thought that people were just giving us space, but the invites to attend adult functions, both casual and formal, dried up. We are more than willing to hire baby-sitters and get some adult time with others, but the invites aren't there. When we try to initiate, we end up disappointed.  

We know a few wonderful families with kids and sometimes have the pleasure of hanging out together, adults and kids and chaos, and that does provide a modicum of adult time and some fun for us and the kids.  But this doesn't happen often.  And I still really miss the people I used to hang out with: the ones who don't have kids/ don't want kids/ whose kids have grown and I feel so isolated from.  Some very important relationships to me have atrophied in the presence of my kids.  I have put in efforts to revive them, but they are not met with what used to be.  It seems that People With Kids and People Without Kids are two non-overlapping circles of a Venn diagram.


I found this on the Web.  It seems mostly true for me.
I don't want them to remember me tired, but if they do,
and this is why, then that will be okay.