2004-10-18, 8:49 p.m.

I'm not psycho, just slightly neurotic.

I have the distinct feeling I'm treading old ground here, but since it keeps coming up, here goes...

I don't miss the heartburn, or the not being able to get off the couch, but being pregnant was part of my identity for 9 whole months, and it made a lot of connections with people. And it gave me something to always Be. I was Pregnant. Now, when I'm not with Leon, I find myself wondering who I am, which is sad and frustrating, since I used to have a really strong sense of my own identity as an artist.

It's especially weird since I don't often do stuff without Leon - he went to work with me back in NY, and now that I'm not working, we spend most of our time together. So when I do go out without him, I have this annoying identity confusion, this odd sense that I'm missing my 'identifier'.
Sure, there are times when I love being just me, like when I am shopping for clothes. It's much easier to try stuff on when I don't have a baby attached to my body. But a lot of the time it feels really strange to be without Leon, like when I'm in the grocery store buying lots of bargain domestic stuff, and a part of me wonders if other people can tell from my shopping cart if I'm a mom, or if they even care. Do they even notice me? Do I actually have any kind of identifier beside the baby?

I talk to Leon all the time when we're out. I talk about us as 'we' to other people, as in "we went to the post office today", or even, foolishly, "we had coffee and wrote thank you notes at Borders today". No, Leon didn't write thank you notes, but he was with me, so it's a 'we' activity. And I never feel lonely when I'm with him - Leon is such a great companion, and he's the ultimate social ice-breaker. People are always talking to us because of him. But when I think about how much I enjoy his company, and how much my identity revolves around being with him, and helping him to grow, I start to get a little scared and freaked out. I REALLY don't want to turn into that mom who can't let her son grow up because he's too much of her identity, or who is heartbroken when her son doesn�t need her anymore Not that I think that will truly happen, but one can always worry, right?

So I want my identity as an artist back, but not at the expense of my boy. But I know I need more than just being his mom, particularly so that I don't get neurotic. And round and round and round I go...

And of course, as I write this, I'm procrastinating making slide labels. So that I can apply for a job. Teaching ART. Dumb. Back to those darn slide labels I go...