Mommy Syndrome

A few nights ago, Jeff and I were lying in bed, side by side, on our respective computers. He glanced over at my Facebook page and asked about an old friend, which led to the topic of another old friend and an even more random old friend. “Are you in touch with xxx” he asked? I wasn’t, but I looked her up and, God love Facebook, there she was.

Our jaws simultaneously dropped—she looked nothing like what we’d remembered from 8 years ago when we last knew her. Her hair was glistening and sun-kissed. Her smile was bright and shiny. She was thin and groomed and practically glowing.

“What did she do to herself?” I gasped.

It didn’t look like plastic surgery, and she really wasn’t the type anyway. But, she looked a decade younger, at least. Gone were the sweats that were once her uniform and her hair was actually washed and out of the permanent pony-tail I knew it in. Her previously pasty skin was bronzed and vibrant. Her house looked neat and orderly in the photos, not the disaster zone I remember having coffee in. She was almost unrecognizable.

Suddenly, a light-bulb went off in Jeff’s head. “I know what it is”, he said, like he’d discovered the cure for cancer. “She doesn’t have young kids anymore. Think about it– what do you look like most days now that we’re the ones with the little kids? Look at our house.”

My life flashed before my eyes. The slippers I wear in public and the never-ending yoga pants. The lack of makeup and perfume and scheduled brow waxes. The house littered with crap and bathrooms that reek of little boy piss. I’m her, eight years ago, when I thought she was such a mess.

Is that what people see me like these days? As frumpy and unorganized and just… a mom?

Maybe so. But, at least there is some good news: In eight years, I’m going to look fantastic.

Jill Smokler (who blogs honestly about motherhood at Scary Mommy) is currently writing her first book, Confessions of a Scary Mommy, available Mother’s Day 2012 from Simon & Schuster. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland along with her husband and three nearly perfect children.