Monday, July 14, 2014

Brutally Honest

I've been a total wreck today, for lack of better words.  And for those who know me well, you know my tendency to exaggerate, my flair for drama, and my extreme emotional sensitivity.  But for those who don't know me well, I'll just say that I'm rather tired of getting hassled for it or for being made to feel like it's wrong to be that way.  If I could make myself NOT be emotional and sensitive, I most definitely would.  But yet...I don't really feel bad for being the way that I am.  After all, I was this person when my husband met me, dated me for 5 1/2 years and eventually proposed to me.  I managed to hang onto him all this time.  He's not tired of me yet!

Okay so back to being a total wreck....I'm a total wreck.  And I just don't really know why.  Why should I be a wreck?  I post on facebook daily--sometimes multiple times a day--pictures of my precious son and how sweet and cute he is.  He IS so dang cute and sweet.  I just love him to pieces.  I miss him when I'm not holding him.  I miss him when I'm away from him.  When I watch other people hold him I miss him.  I hope he knows how much I love him and how much I love being his mommy.

But then there's this other side of me.  The train-wreck side of me that feels so completely totally messed up inside over this whole new chapter of life I have entered and been in for just over a month now.  I think most moms know and well remember the emotional roller coaster that new motherhood brings about, but it also seems many moms have forgotten.  I hear a lot of pep talks about how I just need to "hang in there" and "it gets better" and "I enjoyed this time so much with my baby.  You should soak up every single moment."  I respect all of those words of wisdom and believe them and acknowledge them....But I am not buying into them right now...which is why this blog is titled "Brutally Honest."  To be brutally honest, I'm not buying that it gets better.  I'm not soaking up every moment and I'm definitely not enjoying every moment.

I'm enjoying some moments.  I love when my son looks right at me and it's like he just knows I'm his mommy.  I love those moments in the morning when he's first waking up and he's doing his little baby stretches and making funny little faces and making sweet sounds.  I love when he falls asleep with his head on my shoulder.  I love when my husband comes home from work and I can watch him bond with our son in his own special way.  Shane is such a good daddy.

But I'm not enjoying all of it.  I want to watch a TV show...all the way through without worrying about if my baby is spitting up, or if he's asleep or not, or if he might have a dirty diaper, or if he makes a little squeak if that means he's hungry or about to cry.  I want to go to the pool with my girlfriends and lay out all day until I get sunburned.  I want to meet my husband at a bar after he gets off work and have several drinks, maybe order some food, then come home late and go to bed, without a care in the world.  I want to go out spontaneously and shop for summer clothes without having to spend an hour feeding a baby until he's content, packing up a diaper bag, hauling his car seat into a shopping cart, carefully pushing him around a store, on pins and needles about whether or not he will wake up crying and end my shopping spree.  I want to lay down in my bed and just go to sleep....and sleep and sleep and sleep without setting an alarm, without listening for a baby, without worrying about what time I will get woken up, without worrying about my poor husband and his perpetual lack of sleep.  I want all of those things so badly that it literally makes me cry.  And I feel like such a terrible person because of it.

So basically I'm having extremely selfish thoughts....Almost 100% of the time.  And I'm not going to try to hide them.  I don't think I'll ever stop having these selfish thoughts.  But what I want is for me to just be at peace.  I'd like to go a full hour without randomly starting to cry.  I was on a roll for a few days where I wasn't crying at all.  Typically if there is enough going on to distract me I don't cry.  It's on the quiet days where nothing is going on that it all hits me at once and it's like Niagara Falls.  I just can't seem to find the peace that I know God will give me if I will only just have faith and calm down.

I look at all the women in my life who have had a baby and/or are raising kids.  They are okay.  They're "normal".  They're living life.  They're making it.  This encourages me and assures me that I will make it too.  I just wish I would've known about all these feelings so I could've been prepared.  These feelings are so strong that they're almost more than I can handle.  And for the mommas who have a baby and experience absolutely nothing but pure joy and don't have a single thought of their "old life"....I envy them.  But I question their honesty.


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