It’s been almost a year

Since I’ve sent you anything

I’ve always said that you can tell I’m the most happy and fulfilled when I am not writing.

So, the good news about not hearing about me for almost a year is that I have been doing well. As you may know, my main focus in life is my family, and that keeps me very busy and fulfilled. Writing is a vocation, something I can’t imagine life without. However, my need for it has often had to do with my own struggling to make sense with the world and to help me cope emotionally.

So, if I’m not writing, I’m pretty content.

So, why I’m I writing now?

I’m recovering from being sick with some virus for the past few weeks (not COVID, not Flu, maybe RSV) and secondary bacterial infection after a few years of literally not being sick thanks to a world-wide pandemic (the irony.)

And I’m starting to feel back to normal. Still on meds, still not physically capable of doing everything normal, but normal enough to think again about something other than feeling physically miserable.

So what better time to reach out?

Although I haven’t been communicating via this newsletter in a long while, I have written a few things that I’m proud of. This is one I’d like to share called, “I Guess We Are Horse People Now.”

Its focus is on a topic that I think is entertwined with the idea of motherhood—being of service. And I think the idea of being of service is one of the reasons I’ve been content not to write for quite awhile. Writing is one way I’ve felt I’ve had a purpose, but it isn’t as much as being of service.

I’m not sure I can elegantly delineate the two approaches, but for me it seems like having a purpose is a clear, steadfast guidepost. It’s a kind of unifying principle.

But, being of service is almost a higher purpose. It’s more spiritual. It’s going beyond yourself.

Writing can obviously function like that, serving a higher purpose, but it also is very ego-driven.

But, mothering in its purest form is a breaking down of the ego. (Good writing usually benefits from less ego, too.)

You may or may not be a fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, but if you have seen the finale episode of this latest season, there’s the final scene that I think really encompasses the lack of ego necessary in mothering. I’m not going to spoil it here, just in case, but it made me think about how even the most ego-driven, cruel, misguided, selfish woman is made of service when she becomes a mother. That service can be inservitude, involuntary, and stifling. It’s not fun to be made to service others. But, when you choose to be in service to others, there is that higher purpose. It’s really the crux of the dilemma in that book. The belief that mothering is a higher service for humanity without being enslaved by it.

And in a postfeminist world, it’s one that I find fascinating and we see playing out politically and practically in real time without simple answers for resolving that dilemma.

Regardless, I’m not sure when I’ll touch back again. My days are focused on homeschooling, my pets, my family, and enjoying the mundane. Unless something compells me to share, like the article above, I’m content with this season of service I’m in.

I hope everything is well with you, too.

Best,

Melissa