"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.
