I just finished reading a haunting and beautifully-written book called Revolutionary Road. Yesterday I was able to sneak away from the kids to see the movie, based on the book, which stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Kate and Leo play April and Frank Wheeler, a couple coming to terms with the timeless struggle of reconciling the life you have with the life you thought you'd have.
This novel, written in 1961, still resonates with readers (and film audiences) today because no matter the year when you find yourself married and with children, many of us still ask ourselves the same questions: "How did I get here? Is this all there is? Shouldn't there be more to MY life than this?" Now, before you get all hot and bothered and start shouting at me: "But wait! I like being a wife. I love being a mother!" never fear. So do I.
But I was also a girl once, a girl with elaborate dreams about the grand promise and tantalizing paths my future held. And those dreams, even the ones with children in the picture, didn't include cleaning up baby barf twelve times in one day or the arguments I'd have with my husband about who should bring in the trash cans. Ah, no. My dreams were about traveling to exotic locales, about the intelligent and thought-provoking chats I'd have with my adult children, about the amazing and renowned work I would accomplish in my profession.
But my life turned out differently than my dreams. Yes, I love my husband. Of course I'd be lost without my kids. But I haven't traveled very much. And while I still hope to have those fascinating conversations with my children one day when they're grown, all my daughter wants to talk about now is whether her birthday party theme should be Princesses or Bolt and my son, well, he's really into one-word conversations these days (Shoes! Juice! Dog! Ball!).
In Revolutionary Road, April Wheeler always appears either with her children, with her husband or, occasionally, alone but doing housework. She doesn't have a life. And the deadened, lifeless expression in her eyes betrays the isolation she feels even within her own seemingly perfect family.
I've had that look in my eyes before. It wasn't something I expected to happen. But shortly after becoming a mother in 2005 I experienced bewildering lows of isolation even as my baby nursed at my breast and my husband typed on his computer while sitting right next to me. If it hadn't been for an article I came across in a parenting magazine describing something called, "mommy blogging," I'm not sure I'd have been able to move beyond that isolation by myself.
That article led me to many now-famous mommy blogs. I became enraptured by the stories these mothers told. Their stories were my own. I immediately started a blog and began writing about my journey as a mother. While I had not actually traveled to a foreign land, there were days when my experience as a new mother felt akin to an Englishman landing in China. I didn't speak the language but I was always looking for chaps who did. Those chaps turned out to be my fellow mommy bloggers.
I was lucky. But, unfortunately, April Wheeler never got that copy of Parenting magazine. She was unable to connect with her tribe--a tribe of mothers like her, a tribe of individuals who also grew up believing their potential was limitless.
Mommy bloggers reach out to each other. We commiserate over sick kids. We make each other laugh about the ups and, mainly, the downs of potty training. We bitch about our husbands, those lovely men we'd rather not live without. We're smart, savvy and entrepreneurial. And, best of all, we encourage each other to keep fighting the good fight.
I don't want to spoil Revolutionary Road for those who haven't read or seen it yet (And by the way, I highly recommend reading the book and all its luscious prose first!) but what I can tell you is this: I'd like to think that if April Wheeler had had an outlet such as mommy blogging, a way of connecting to others who yearned as she did to get more out of life, things would have turned out much differently for her.
[photo credit: Theaipolis People]
