Thoughts From A Mom

"Behind every great kid is a mom who's pretty sure she's screwing it up."

I read this on Facebook the other day.  It was on a day when I particularly needed to read it.  And it's stuck with me ever since.  Sometimes I keep repeating it to myself like a mantra.  On that day particularly, I was feeling overwhelmed by my complete and utter failure to please my daughter or persuade her to do anything at all that needed to be done. She wouldn't eat anything I made for her, she wouldn't take a halfway decent nap, she wouldn't stop crying for her binky even though I'm trying so hard to start a slow process of separating her from it, while realizing I might not have the heart to do it.  (Yes, that will be MY 12 year old kid with a pacifier.)  Parenting is hard.  It's also amazing.  But wow is it tough.  It's amazing what a beating your self confidence and self worth can take from such a tiny little human. 

Parenting is hard whether you're a mom OR a dad, working or no.  But all I know is what my experience is.  I am a working mom.  It is freaking tough.  And I only have one child, currently, so there's that.  I feel a certain level of accomplishment that I no longer take medication to keep from losing my shit like I did when Ada was born up until about 8 months old.  That was a bad, dark, scary period of my life, and I kind of can't believe I was so out of control of myself.  I have a lot of regret and guilt about pretty much missing out on all the good things about her infancy.  I always will.  But what's done is done, and I can 100% truthfully say that I am a relatively normal person now, without any pharmaceutical aides.  (As normal as I could ever be, anyway.)  That is a good feeling.  I kind of didn't feel like I would ever be myself again.  Now I am myself, and in a lot of ways, a new self. 

The problem is that there are some things I don't know how to make room for anymore.  My body can adjust to rarely getting more than a couple hours of sleep at a time throughout the night, my schedule can adjust so that I have just a little extra time between leaving work and getting dinner on the table, then finding some time to play with my swiftly growing darling daughter before carting her off to bed, just to wake up and do it all over again.  All in all, spending approximately 4 hours per weekday with her, which makes me incredibly sad when I dwell on it. Bring on the never ending, always evolving mom-guilt.  So then after she's tucked in for the night, I get a couple hours to veg out on the couch with my husband and catch up on some tv shows.  Which is always enjoyable, and I look forward to that time.  But as much as I tell myself I don't need it, there are days when I realize I can't remember the last time I actually had a significant amount of time with myself and myself alone.  (What? You're thinking of yourself?  HA!  Oh, sure, just pile that additional guilt right here on my plate, which seems to never run out of space for it.)  I really can't remember.  At all.  I'm always, always trying to make sure that everyone gets a little of my attention, the best I can.  And that's hard enough without adding myself into the mix.  How are we supposed to do it?  I'm as positively certain that moms deserve the title of "superhero" as I am positively certain that each and every mom holds that opinion of every mother but herself.  It's not in our DNA anymore to recognize our own successes.  We just look at the other moms and wonder why we can't be doing it like that.  But they're looking right back at us with the same question.  And the cycle continues and we never feel like we're doing it "right", no matter how much of ourselves we give in trying.

Here's the thing - for as much as my insides get beat up now days, I cry less often than I ever have.  Not because I don't feel like I could.  But because I don't have the time or the privacy or the will.  I've gotten tougher than I ever thought I could be. For better AND worse.  Sometimes I feel like it's ruining parts of my identity as wife and friend.  That worries me.  I keep saying I'll do better, I'll specifically devote more of myself (wherever THAT is going to come from) to being a more attentive partner, more affectionate, more patient.  I keep saying it, I keep making note of the blaring alarms in the back of my mind that tell me it NEEDS to be done before it's too late.  And then the day is over and I have to promise I'll try tomorrow.  I don't want it to be like this.  I hate feeling this lack of feeling in these areas.  And it's just more guilt.  More, more, more.  I just have so much going to this little person that relies on me for everything in the world, even though she clearly doesn't want to.  I'm not usually "present" anymore at any given time.  When I'm not physically taking care of her, my mind is churning with all the things I need to do for her tomorrow, next week, next year.  How can I make things even better for her?  What should I be doing to aide in her development?  Am I giving her enough of anything at all?  It's truly never ending.  And in this process, my marriage gets shoved farther to the back of the stove so that I can focus on the child-rearing not boiling over.  Then there's yet another thing I'm failing at - being a wife.  And instead of being depressed about it, I end up just feeling annoyed, all the time.  And it's really stemming from annoyance with myself - that I can't do everything, and be everything, and make everything work.  But it gets displaced toward people who don't deserve it.  And I am scared I'm going to pay the price for it, but I genuinely don't know how to pull it all together.  And this is why my mind is NEVER quiet.  There is always something to worry over.  And it's always something I'm not doing well enough.

All of this being said, I love being a mom.  It's made my life so incredibly full and satisfying.  I keep hoping that with enough time, I'll figure out the balance of it all, and that it will come before I lose something to make room for everything else.  I know hoping isn't going to make it so, but at this very moment it's all I can do.  Time always seems to be the key.  But time is the thing that feels like it's slipping through my fingers.  My baby girl is not a baby girl anymore.  I'm turning 30 in a month.  Everything is getting older. I just more than anything want to keep every single moment preserved in a book so that I can give them all the attention they deserve, eventually.  But I can't do that, and I'm just trying to figure out how to be the best I can be for everyone in my life.  Who knew that would be so hard?  Should it be?  Is it just me who can't get a handle on it?  I don't know.  Maybe I never will know for sure.  But at the very, very least, I can tell everyone that I am truly trying to figure it out.  Bear with me.

Dear

The wheels have been turning again lately.  There are no more chemical cocktails coated in a little pink casing that I take every night before bed to keep the wheels idle.  To keep them from running me over.  But I don't feel like they're running me over anymore when they start turning.  They don't scare me anymore.  I've made progress and I've come out of a long, dark tunnel just a little different, a little better even.  And I don't need the little pink pill to protect me from myself anymore.  So when I say the things I have to say, they are coming from me.  Real, authentic me.

 

I can feel again.  Not everything beads up on my surface and rolls off anymore.  And I want it this way.  It was a nice break, not having to be so overwhelmingly affected by life. I needed that reprieve, and it allowed me to step back from it all, to breathe and to take a rest.  It allowed me to re-center and to recharge, and now that I've come back from that break, I'm better equipped to handle life's challenges, and the feelings that arise with all of them. I am more mature, more seasoned, more aware, and more durable.  I thought that voluntarily checking out with the help of a pill taken every day for the 5 months that I did, was a sign of weakness and inability to handle my own life, but it turns out it was a sign of strength.  And for once I was able to wave away those preconceived notions and rise above them.  And now I am here, feeling my feelings, thinking my thoughts, laughing and crying from an unobstructed core once again.  It's taken me a little time to get sturdy footing here on land again, and sometimes I can still feel a little shaky, but I know that's okay, and I know it's the right way to face myself again.  This time kinder and wiser.

 

I need you to hear me.  I need you to really listen, and really hear me.  I need you to see me.  I need you to look up from all of the noise and distractions and entertainment, and I need you to really see me.  I never feel those things.  We talk to each other and we hear the words, and we look at each other and see the faces, but that's not really listening or seeing.  I'm still learning how to communicate - in general, and also with you specifically.  Everyone has a unique way in which they need to be heard and understood, and just as I feel you haven't figured out my needs here, I know I haven't figured out yours.  I will continue to try.  In this moment, all I can do is speak from my own place of need. 

 

I need you to focus on just me sometimes.  I feel that I am always sharing you with a computer screen.  I don't feel that you ever look up and see me, and all that I do.  I don't feel my efforts and work to keep our family chugging along are validated or even realized by you.  And then sometimes I feel that maybe you don't want to look up and see how much I always have on my plate, because it's more convenient not to.  And I don't know which one is more painful to me - to not be noticed, or to be disregarded.  And I don't even know for sure what you really see or hear or feel, and what you don't.  But what I feel is invisible and more than anything, underappreciated.  I have balls in the air every day of my life now that we have a family, and I only ask for your help when I think that one of them is going to drop.  What my heart aches for more than anything is for you to look up and see it sometimes before I have to ask.  Just see me.  See the full plate I'm always balancing and rearranging to make room for more.  Acknowledge that I am working far longer than the 8 hours I sit behind a desk each day, and far harder before 8:30 in the morning and after 5:00 in the afternoon.  I love building our family, but I need your help to do it.  And part of that help is seeing me, hearing me, and by doing that, knowing me more deeply and fully, and being in tune with me enough to reach out and steady me before I have to tell you I'm stumbling.  That's what I want more than anything in the world.  That's what I fantasize about.  That's what my heart braces itself for.

 

I appreciate you. I want you to know that.  I appreciate and I love you.  You genuinely want me to be happy, and I love that.  You make sure all our bills our paid, that I have enough food in the freezer to make our dinners throughout the week, and enough beer in the fridge to soften the edges of the work day, and I appreciate that.  You take care of the yard work and take out the garbage when we have tacos even if it's not full, and then you let Ada help you load the dishwasher.  You fix things, and change light bulbs and you let me nap for as long as I want to on the weekends.  And all of these things I love and appreciate much more than the words on this screen will ever communicate to you.  I also love that you like good music and want to share concerts and bottles of wine with me, that our senses of humor have cozied up to each other in such a perfect, inseparable and nearly telepathic way, and that you still check to make sure sometimes that I'm not really mad at you when I'm giving you a hard time.  These things make my life fuller, easier and more enjoyable, and nobody but you could offer them adequately.

 

I know that I can be better at letting you know I appreciate you and love you, and even see you and hear you.  I don't always give as much as I think I deserve to be given.  And I want to take more personal responsibility to make sure I more regularly show my gratitude for you as well.  I just beg you to read these words and know that I'm reaching for you now.  I need you, and I need things from you, and I hope that you will try for me.  I'm not strong enough to always let the love I feel overshadow the negative things I feel, and I wish that I was.  But I truly believe that to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are making an effort for me, that you are seeing me and all that I do in my part of our family and marriage, will make it easier for me to learn how to overcome my own faults. 

 

Don't forget about me. There is a me that is not just your wife, your friend, the mother of your children, and your co-habitant.  All of those things contribute to who I am, but they don't encompass all of me, even as large and important a portion as they are.  I'm still an individual, a woman, a work in progress, and I'm going to be evolving for the rest of my life.  My needs will shift and grow and diminish, depending.  I need you to keep seeing me through all of it, and I promise to keep seeing you, so that we don't realize one day that all we're holding onto are fossils of each other, and how we once existed together.

 

Oh, hi 2013.

It seems like I've fallen into a pattern of updating every 2 months. I guess it could be worse. It could definitely be better. At any rate, it's a new year. My daughter is turning a year old in less than a month, and I don't know where the time went.

Things have been really good for the most part. Ada is more fun and entertaining every day. I've started a new position at work which I love, and have wanted for a long time. I look forward to most days during the week and am just generally more content. There was a time when Ada was tiny that I felt the ground had been yanked from under me and I'd never find my footing again. But now I feel that everything has fallen into place so amazingly and I love each day's challenges and rewards.

Ryan and I have tentatively decided that come June, we will stop actively trying to NOT add another little human to our family. Assuming we are still in an ok financial situation. It doesn't mean I'm going to start charting my ovulation and basal temperature fluctuations like a crazy person again just yet, but I won't be taking my pill anymore. I'm excited to be nearing that time again. And nervous of course. But 100% happy.

So that's where I'm at right now. At the end of the day, I'm in a good place right now and feeling fulfilled and confident. I'm going to ride it out as long as I possibly can.