The Grass is Always Greener Life Story #12

A common disease among young mother's is brain meltdown. This disease manifests itself in many ways and has several symptoms. Some of the more common aberrations include inability to concentrate for more than 30 seconds on any one thought, using one's nose and sense of smell to determine all future actions from changing clothes to selecting food from the fridge, accepting spitup as an accessory for your wardrobe, and adapting to constant noise as the norm, thereby becoming jittery when there is no noise.

A great strength is the ability of young mother's to adapt to this disease. Your brain is melting and so you accept the fact that while you can still do two and even three things at one time, you often cannot put simple sentences together. While you can repair the most complicated train-track layout and successfully install teeny tiny batteries into even smaller places, you cannot remember where you placed your car keys or why you just ran upstairs leaving both small wonders to their own devices.

Ninety-nine percent of mothers live through the disease which can last for several years even. Society does not talk about the other 1%. Usually you know you are over the disease when you sit looking at your bare toes one day and have the urge to paint them; or you look in the mirror one morning and, in heart-attack horror, think you see your mother; or you walk back into a very quiet house and realize it is quiet because you are the only one there.

Thus, in a moment of idiocy, you feel you must start volunteering or go to work to pay those mounting bills. The house is too quiet and the hushing silence is getting on your nerves. It is too clean and you begin to think you are turning into Heloise.

Doing adult activities with other adults outside of the house begins to look inviting if not downright exotic, especially as it requires new clothes. (You have forgotten the Benjamin Franklin aphorism you learned in school: "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.")

Mmmm..! Black nylons and a short skirt and cute high heels and a new haircut and you look almost sexy...wait isn't that what exposed you to the former disease in the first place? You push that thought to the back of your mind and put on make-up and nice pearl earrings and feel oh so grownup once again. Your brain even seems to be humming like a fancy sports car motor.

You get into the car with your new leather purse and head out to office that in its wisdom saw your intelligence and creativity and hired you. You pull into rush hour traffic and feel more grown-up than you have felt in years. You look into each car and wonder if the drivers notice how you are now one of them. You are part of that busy bustling machine that makes the world go round. This glow lasts several weeks and maybe even into the months or years if you like the job or volunteer work that you are doing.

Unfortunately, you will catch a new disease down the road. This disease is like a leaky gasket that pulls the energy from every pore of your body. Getting out of bed and into a car to fight the headache of traffic becomes a monotonous chore. That neat gray suit is starting to hang funny, especially across your butt. All of those people at the office that admired your creativity and energy have changed their tune and seem to feel you are way too energetic and too creative and are actually making them look bad. Just because you are young and cute doesn't give you the right to outdo them. They were there for years working their asses off while you sat at home and played with babies. They won't say that, but they do think it. And then the worst happens with this new disease...you become one of them! Every idea you get is echoed with "been there, done that.' You find the new young staff so annoying and so cliched and so very naive.

You begin to count the days when you can sit home in a quiet house with the hushing noise and the "Heloise" kitchen and the grandchild baby for playtime.