I left NYC for the suburbs over ten years ago. I was a real city girl. You couldn’t get me to leave town if you tried. On weekends, I was off to Central Park, to the theater, to hear poetry slams. to eat sushi and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Then I met my husband, we danced around town for four years, got married, got pregnant and decided our one-bedroom on the Upper West Side was too small.
We knew it was time to leave the city. However, I didn’t really think about the major changes that lied ahead of me. Life was about to change DRAMATICALLY.
My old normal would disappear and I would have to succumb to a new normal, as Tracy Beckerman writes about her new memoir, Lost in Suburbia. In a nutshell, she got pregnant, lost herself and got her cool …and she lived to talk about it! Funnily, enough, that’s part of her book’s tag line.
I found it very comforting to read about another female feeling aimless after having children. Her identity was thrown up to the gods, too. Right when Tracy quit her job to stay home and figure that part of my life out, she got pregnant with child #2: “All I really needed to do to get pregnant was throw my underwear in a drawer with my husband’s.” Reading this book took me back to the painful days of joining a playgroup, getting stopped by a cop at 39 weeks pregnant (Tracy wasn’t pregnant, but she was wearing a very funny ducky robe when she was stopped), battling the unexpected weight gain, purchasing the unsexy minivan and discovering the need for something in life to take care of other than the kids. Tracy is a dynamo and she took her identity crisis head on – seeing a therapist, getting a dog and realizing that her ties with her young kids was fleeting and not wanting to miss anything. But this is a “what about me?” book and it’s refreshing.
The fact that Tracy started writing about her everyday life and made a success of it is one thing. The fact that she writes as honestly and realistically as she does is another. What a memory for details (although I suspect she took very good notes). She’s no liar and she tells a good story. She just wanted to find herself again, after being buried under dishes and laundry for so many years and hoped to find a more balanced existence. This book is a testament to her journey and the path that she took to get there and I salute her.
If you’re looking for an honest look at motherhood and want to be reminded that you are not in this alone, pick up a copy of this book. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll nod your head and you’ll remember that these trials and tribulations are all of ours.
Disclosure: I am working on the Lost in Suburbia Book Tour, but all opinions expressed are truly my own.
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