Mindlessness

When I graduated from college a few years ago, I freaked out…just a bit. Pretty much my entire life had involved going to school, doing homework and learning new things. And I liked it. Suddenly I was handed a diploma and booted into the “real world.” To be honest, I didn’t like the looks of things, so I started planning to go back to school. I read a lot, took some continuing education classes and explored graduate school possibilities. I just wanted more…more education, more knowledge, more exploration of what was out there. I had a deep thirst that could only be quenched by more and more information. But two years ago that thirst disappeared. I can’t say it disappeared because it was satiated, but more like diverted. After having Jonas, I could barely focus long enough to get through an article in Real Simple magazine, let alone the New Yorker. But slowly my mind came back to me and I was once again able to read in-depth and with clarity.

Now, here I am a month post-baby number two and suddenly my brains seem to have once again taken a sabbatical. Instead of kicking back and cracking open the latest Updike novel at the end of the day, all I want to do is veg out to repeats of Smallville. Some of my most beloved magazines are up for renewal and I question whether the commitment would be worth it. Will I actually read them? Of course my New Yorker subscription lapsed over a year ago. I wonder if I will ever have the focus for that again. But while my brains seems to have been pushed out at the same time Kenna was, my heart wants so badly to feel that thirst again and to so passionately try to quench it once more. For now, I will settle for Smallville with a side of the Daily Show and the occasional Diane Rehm Show. Hopefully they will keep that thirst burning somewhere deep inside so it may once again rise to the surface with an intensity that will make up for this lost time.