Clubhouse, Motherhood, and the Technicolor Cannabis Quilt
Social media is not a place I like to spend my time. In all honestly, too much time on it makes me feel nauseous. And I hate to admit that, despite my wisdom and age, if I don’t get enough likes I feel badly. Crushing one’s self-esteem feels like an unnecessary trade-off to find community in the virtual world during a pandemic. But how are we supposed to connect to real people when we can’t leave our house?
We can listen. That is the genius of Clubhouse – and my new afternoon obsession.
My life turned outward in ways I couldn’t have imagined when, in March 2020, my children returned home, my husband set up his office in our den, and my daughter’s childhood bedroom transformed into a cannabis podcast studio. It all felt a bit sitcomish, if it weren’t for a world-wide pandemic. And in a matter of days, my life that had been easing into a sort of middle-aged self-discovery, pivoted into a life of meeting other people’s needs and expectations, again.
My Clubhouse obsession began in the darkest nights of winter when the sun set before five o’clock and I wasn’t ready to face the dinner hour. I would take a break at 4:20 to sit at my window and watch the sunset, pastel skies behind dark silhouetted trees and houses, and listen to “chats” on the audio-based social media sensation. I sat in virtual rooms where people were sharing stories on topics that ranged from “Christianity and Cannabis” to “Empaths and Co-Dependency.”
In the “Empaths and Co-Dependency” room I learned that co-dependency means loving a person so much that it physically hurts, which leads to doing everything to keep that person alive and happy. To me that sounded a lot like motherhood.
But the objects of my painful affection and unrelenting devotion are two people who, if I do my job right, should leave me. That’s an ironic truth. It’s a tricky balance of emotions to build a human into a person who doesn’t need you anymore while engaging your whole self in them and, for the most part, ignoring your own needs.
But this is a truth about modern motherhood.
The thought I had upon having the revelation that co-dependency looks a lot like normal motherhood in America, led me down a rabbit hole of questions. What would happen if I cared for myself like I cared for my child? What if I fed myself with the same frantic energy I fed them at each and every meal? What if I cared for my body the way I obsess on how my house looks? What if I stopped working when my body had pain, like I would insist my husband do? What if instead of allowing ourselves to disappear, mothers were cared for?
During my Clubhouse sessions I feel cared for because that is what being listened to feels like. I know that I can simply listen and learn, but when I want to talk in a Clubhouse room, I know that someone is listening, and that the people I am talking to can hear me without wanting anything from me other than my thoughts.
Like many mothers, for years I felt like a failure when my time was not used on monetized work, like I wasn’t part of the “real” world, and that I was not contributing as I “should.” I thought this because monetized work is respected, serious work, so that is what I needed to do to feel “successful.”
But no one pays mothers and maybe that is why we get no respect.
Like all women I’ve felt fear and anger and sometimes filled my head with the wrong voices, and have often felt alone. And although by nature I am happy to be by myself, I also like to be with my family who may not always hear me and who can need too much of me. But I’m the mom who created all this, so I can’t really complain.
There are things that we do and there are things that we are.
I podcast.
I write.
I quilt.
I create.
But I am a mother.
The job of a mom is to add value to the days of those she loves and cares for by being present, direct, and sometimes stupid, with the best intent. A thing I do to help me be a better mom is consume cannabis, and I know lots of other moms do, too. I wish I could do more to help moms, I really do, and I hope my micro-leadership and sharing stories eases the burden and loneliness of motherhood for a my canna-sisters listening for a bit each week.
What I do know is you will never be lonely if you care for yourself, and The Canna Mom Show wants to support all of you in that.
In May The Canna Mom Show is going big to support the moms we love. First, we’ll debut a list of some of our favorite things that you can give to your favorite canna mom (or give to yourself). And, The Canna Mom Show is going to offer you the chance to win the Technicolor Cannabis Quilt, which I stitched during pandemic hibernation, while also supporting the work of ELEVATE Northeast, a women-founded cannabis education organization that I admire and to which I belong. Details coming very soon, so listen in and be sure to subscribe to The Canna Mom Show e-newsletter for updates!