Posted on 03/24/2015 8:55:40 AM PDT by qam1
In her breathtaking new memoir, Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World published Tuesday, Leigh Ann Henion, 37, writes of the birth of her 5-year-old son Archer: “I love and marvel over him as if he were my own heart pushed into the world and, still beating, set on top of my chest. Yet I cannot help but mourn the loss of something I can’t quite place. I have an inner emptiness—literal and figurative—that I’ve never felt before.”
What follows is a raw, sometimes gut-wrenching account of the dark and lonely place Henion finds herself in as she cares for a colicky, wakeful baby. Eventually Henion, a travel writer, realizes the only way out of her identity crisis is to leave her home in Boone, North Carolina and venture out into the world that once provided her so much peace and purpose. So shortly after Archer’s first birthday, Henion embarks — sometimes alone, sometimes with her husband — on a two-year trek around the world (with some stops home in between).....
When the ‘bonding process’ happened after the birth of both of mine, I would’ve ripped anyone to shreds if anyone tried to harm them. Still would.
You violated the Freeper prime directive of posting etiquette: Do not read the article until AFTER you posted your first comment. Or is it, don't read the entire article, unless you don't plan to post a comment? I haven't figured it out for sure yet, but it's definetly some combination of those two.
If you are a liberal, anything goes.
Why do you think that each trip was only a week?
That or something similar.
I remember sharing with my 12 month old first born the wonder of an earthworm. I also remember leaving my 4 year old and my 18 month old to go sailing with Mr. M and some friends around Martha’s Vineyard. When I got back the 18 month old was really angry. In fact I think at 35 he’s still sort of pissed off. But once I read that she would only leave for “a week or two” I was sort of okay with it. Didn’t it say that she was a travel writer? So in the theme of “If mamma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” then this is who she was and it needed to still be part of her.
Like no mother in all of recorded human history had to deal with a colicky baby without having it turn into an intense personal crisis.
Nevermind. I missed the “read more” part of the article. Duh.
If she were really remarkable she would have taken the child along with her. Now that is adventure!
Freepers don’t read and ponder much hon when we’re rolling
She is a major progressive literary darling though
No question and her book is very self obsessed
I can’t imagine giving so much time to my needs in my brain
Not with NINE dependants
Women are by nature and understandably self orbited
But today’s world is full of women who are pathologically self concerned
I venerate women of pre WWI era
Now those are women who did it all in a tough space and didn’t whine and self obsess
And that notion would totally escape a fembot in today’s pampered world
It’s just silly people buy into this neurosis
We have 5 kids
My wife would never leave them for weeks to find herself
But she’s not lost
Well anchored
There was a British TV series about a decade ago called The 1900 House.
They moved a modern British family into a 100+ year old row house, and forced them to live for a year using only technologies that existed at the time.
Life for women before appliances was REAL WORK!!!
Just the laundry alone would have put most in the rubber room.
Yet my great-grandmothers never up and ran off to Nepal in an effort to find themselves.
Does this girl have a husband????
G_d
Spouse
Children
Others
Self
Looks like it is impossible to be fulfilled using her order of spiritual life.
The amazing thing about this article is the question; Why is it published?
"Even though I don’t go to Mexico every year to watch the monarchs congregate, I can step outside into my yard with him and see that first monarch arrive on the milkweed in our yard."
YGBSM. This woman should never have had children.
She is 37 years old, which means generationally she is falling on the fringe between GenX and the Millennials.
The "Late GenXers"/"Early Millennials"/"In-Betweeners" might be the worst. They generally had a later generation of parents than the early GenXers (Baby Boomers vs. The Silent Generation). They seem to be more likely to be hippies than the Millennials born a few years later.
Are you kidding? You can make a lot of money writing navel gazing articles. Especially if you are a woman.
I kick myself that I haven’t done it. I mean, how hard can it be? Just write a bunch of self referential drivel with some kind of sensational headline.
Pure gold.
In my travels, I’ve met many “travel addicts”. They’re the ones that love to boast about the remote locations they’ve been to, and who can’t wait to make it to the next minor festival at a small village, or see the remains of a thousand year old tomb in the middle of nowhere, being the first foreigner there since the Lonley Planet writer.
If she can afford this, and I can't, then obviously they are NOT paying their fair share.
She needs to be slapped hard. So does her husband for putting up with her carp. Their poor child doesn’t stand a chance.
Without Jesus that sense of emptiness will remain no matter what she does.
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