Goodnight, Nobody

Why did no one tell me what an engaging author Jennifer Weiner is? I've heard you all talk about her books but somehow, on some subconscious level, I doubted anyone with the surname "Weiner" could write interesting, intelligent stories. Shame on me.

Goodnight Nobody: A Novel

Jennifer Weiner

It was actually my sister (single and childfree) who got me to read this novel. I got the title right away, as anyone with a slightly OCD toddler will- it's a line from the old classic, Goodnight Moon. This book chronicles the adventures of a not so perfect mom in the perfect Connecticut suburb. She's a Manhattan transplant in a mediocre marriage and bored out of her mind, and when a murder happens in the midst of her utopia, she pounces on solving it with a vengeance- not because she is so distraught over the murder, but because it's something to do.

So it's part murder mystery, part social commentary (standard fish out of water fare, and who can't relate to being the disheveled size 12 in the midst of Pilates perfect soccer moms?) I wouldn't call it Nobel Prize material, but it touched me in a way I wasn't expecting.

Being a stay at home mom can be dull. I wouldn't say I dislike it, nor do I want to go to work full time- I am very grateful to have the ability to be home, and this is what we wanted for our family. But in those quiet moments when the kids are sleeping, those rare but precious moments my mind is free to wander, I look back at who I was 10 years ago and who I am now, and I feel a sense of loss. So much of my life, OK, all of my life right now, is defined by my children. As much as I long for adult conversation, am I capable of it at this point? Do I have anything interesting to say any more, or is all I can come up with a discussion of my favorite Backyardigans episode? In the book, the heroine is struck by the line Goodnight Nobody- because that is what she has become, so defined by her kids that she has nothing of her own with which to define herself. I know being a mother requires a degree, a large degree, of self-sacrifice, but when does "large" become "total"? Does that mean we have to relinquish everything that makes us, us? Because when you do that, what happens when they inevitably grow up and let you go? I see a rash of parents attending college with their kids, setting up shop in the dorms, and I think....no.

The feeling that you are nobody is the worst sensation in the world. When you are with your kids, you are the world. You are more than somebody, you are everybody. But if you step outside that circle, with the somebodys out in the world as you once were, you find yourself marginalized. "Oh, you're a stay at home mom?" "Uh huh." "Oh....that's nice," and then the awkward pause. You see the pained look in their eyes as they wait for you to launch into the long winded exhortations of how wonderful your family is, the endless attempt to convince them as well as yourself that this is worthy of Somebody-ness. You attempt to say something engaging, witty and adult- something a mom wouldn't talk about- and you draw a blank. And then they leave to go back to their business lunches, neat and tidy, chatting away on their cell phones to other adults about events in the world, while you brush goldfish crumbs out of your sweats and realize yet again, you forgot to put on lipstick.

They say drowning is not an unpleasant sensation. It's not painful, you just sort of gently lose consciousness and drift off into oblivion. Drowning in motherhood is kind of like that. You step off the platform of your prior life into a sea of binkies and diapers, pleasantly surrounded by giggles and toothless smiles, and you float off with the dull roar engulfing you until one day something triggers a memory- a song from college, a picture of an old boyfriend. You reach out to touch the dock to reassure yourself it is still there, and it's gone, fallen off the horizon.

It's too late for me to be 25 again. I don't want that. I don't want to be so wrapped up in my career that I only hear about the kids' weekdays lives via the nanny and spend a few quality hours with them on the weekend- I want to be the defining force in their lives as they are in mine. I just want to be able to detach here and there often enough so that me, the self that resides inside the mom uniform, doesn't get permanently melded to that uniform until I'm unable to extricate myself. I want to keep that part of me apart and vital, not dusty and torpid, with a frozen smile on my face as I talk about how my kids are my world and make creative celery/ raisin snacks, so adamant in my protestations of happiness that I can't remember whether or not I really believe it.