I’m not enjoying my life right now. Is it ok to say that?!
Having a new baby has stressed me and stretched me more than I’d ever imagined. I am fully aware than many folks parent two children every day. Some, even three, four, or five kids. Some, even without the aids of anti-psychotic medications. But, I have come to a creeping realization that I am not cut out for this. That is not to say that I do not love my kids or love being a mom. I adore both of my children more than anything. Being their mom is a more amazing role than I could have ever dreamed (dreamt?) for myself. I am richly blessed. That being said, the crying, the feeding, the spit up, the changing, the snot… I’m drowning in it. And it took a weekend away from all of that to realize just how much I’m losing myself.
HH and I spent the weekend at our collegiate alma mater’s homecoming festivities. Festivities that for the past ten years have involved loading up and heading to a small college town a few hours away and acting like we’re still college students. It’s been fun and a much needed yearly escape from normal life. This year was different, though. It could have been the band that we heard on Friday night. They were fourteen. No, they didn’t look fourteen (they looked twelve if you ask me), they were fourteen. It could have been the young campus bookstore employee that “yes ma’am”ed me three times. It could have that all I really wanted to do while I was there was sleep without interruption. Or maybe it was just that the only time I felt really normal was at the game when I spent thirty minutes with my friend, J, talking about our children’s behavior issues. I’m pretty sure that it had nothing to do with the two young ladies that joined the group of us for dinner after the game who, despite having each bore a child, had tiny waists, awesome racks, and train cases FULL of MAC eyeshadows. Or maybe that had something to do with it. By the way, am I the only one who had no idea that “selling shoes” was a euphemism for exotic dancing? Just checking.
Whatever the exact cause, I felt all out of sorts. As HH kindly put it to me, so much in my life has changed in the two years since the last time I ventured to our college town… kids, career, church, etc. And, while it’s obvious he is a closeted Dr. Phil watcher, he had a point. I guess it is pretty normal to feel wonky when you leave the element that is home to revisit a place where you spent so many years being someone so different, especially when you are still struggling to find yourself in the place you are every day. (Trust me when I tell you that thought makes complete sense in my head and I amm therefore, deeming it too philisophically deep to properly translate into sentence form.)
Having the Bug has thrown me into a tailspin. I enjoy her coos and her smiles. And Woggie’s “terrible twos” are speckled with moments that make my heart want to burst, like when he sings his ABC’s or when he reaches for my hand so we can say the blessing. Those are moments that I love and I know I will miss. Those are moments when I want to stop time and just nuzzle squishy cheeks or squeeze little hands. Those are moments when I don’t want time to go by any faster. I do, however, realize that this stage of motherhood is not where my gifts lie. I have been putting too much stress on myself to be supermom and feeling too much guilt for not loving every minute of my day.
I think I now kind of have my head wrapped around how I’ve been feeling for a few months. Now, I can work on feeling like myself again, fully realizing that the myself that I am may not be the myself that I remember (ok, enough with the deep stuff). The first thing I need to do is admit some things:
1. I am having a hard time being a mom of two.
2. And that is ok.
3. This is just a season of my life.
4. And a season only lasts for a short time.
(I’ll be rereading #2 and #4 until I am 100% believing it!)
(Oh, and I know that all of you moms to more than two are totally laughing me for #1.)
The next thing I have to do is make adjustments to my life and my attitude to not only get us through this season, but to find the joy in it. I know it’s there. I read your blogs.
Let’s all take some time to absorb what we’ve learned today, shall we? We’ll revisit the adjustments later.
