it's not always graceful
I have so much to say.
I lay awake last night dreaming about writing, all of the words swirling together in my head. I feel like I've been set free.
There's this shifting in his seat that happens when I talk about sharing pictures of our baby. Colt, who swore off Facebook for a lot of reasons, but one being he didn't want pictures of our child on the internet, has really done me a solid by giving in to this blog. During pregnancy I was right there with him. The world is scary enough as it is, but to put your child out there into the universe not knowing who's watching adds a lot more fear. I agreed at the time it would be better to stay private and quiet with Lane.
But then we moved across the country twice in a year and the friendships I had became thinner with the distance, and my growing stomach prevented me from going whitewaterrafting or whatever, and my job changed twice in four months and things became isolated and small and uninspiring. I watched him every night in our tiny apartment with no rooms to escape into working on comics and I felt like I had no release. Once Lane was born, my friends would call every now and then to check in, they'd come over for a few minutes, but having a baby changes everything about your world and they can sense it.
I think young mothers without friends-with-children feel this same isolation and loneliness all the time, like they've been forgotten. It doesn't help that your boobs are sore and your child screams for two months straight and you don't know how you're going to get groceries or coffee and you start to long for movie theater popcorn and dark liquor and your hormones are totally wacked out. The walls close in for a little while.
My lowest point came in the evenings. For one hour, I would just kind of lose it. I wouldn't want to speak to anyone and I couldn't articulate exactly what was wrong. I'd sit in front of a computer screen with my hands resting on the keys and nothing would come, so I'd fall into bed way too early to try to sleep it off.
That's when I started going mommy-blog crazy.
I found the words of other mothers with children that weren't falling apart- in fact they were thriving. They had survived the first months and their babies were starting to giggle all the time and sit up by themselves, and THEN they crawled and THEN they pulled themselves up in their crib and, and, and...
Seeing it written there like that, where I could click through their children's transformations in a matter of minutes reminded me that everything changes fast, especially brand new babies and what may feel like an impassable obstacle today can be completely unimportant tomorrow. I also started to feel the web of humanity again. I wasn't really alone in my experiences at all (are we ever?).
The joy I have from Lane these days has been a struggle to get, not because I don't love the hell out of him, but because I had a harder time adjusting than I thought I would - yet I do get joy from him, every day and now that I've let go of the pressure and expectation about how I would feel as a mother, the air seems clearer and my baby seems easier and things are starting to turn bright again.
I lay awake last night dreaming about writing, all of the words swirling together in my head. I feel like I've been set free.
There's this shifting in his seat that happens when I talk about sharing pictures of our baby. Colt, who swore off Facebook for a lot of reasons, but one being he didn't want pictures of our child on the internet, has really done me a solid by giving in to this blog. During pregnancy I was right there with him. The world is scary enough as it is, but to put your child out there into the universe not knowing who's watching adds a lot more fear. I agreed at the time it would be better to stay private and quiet with Lane.
But then we moved across the country twice in a year and the friendships I had became thinner with the distance, and my growing stomach prevented me from going whitewaterrafting or whatever, and my job changed twice in four months and things became isolated and small and uninspiring. I watched him every night in our tiny apartment with no rooms to escape into working on comics and I felt like I had no release. Once Lane was born, my friends would call every now and then to check in, they'd come over for a few minutes, but having a baby changes everything about your world and they can sense it.
I think young mothers without friends-with-children feel this same isolation and loneliness all the time, like they've been forgotten. It doesn't help that your boobs are sore and your child screams for two months straight and you don't know how you're going to get groceries or coffee and you start to long for movie theater popcorn and dark liquor and your hormones are totally wacked out. The walls close in for a little while.
My lowest point came in the evenings. For one hour, I would just kind of lose it. I wouldn't want to speak to anyone and I couldn't articulate exactly what was wrong. I'd sit in front of a computer screen with my hands resting on the keys and nothing would come, so I'd fall into bed way too early to try to sleep it off.
That's when I started going mommy-blog crazy.
I found the words of other mothers with children that weren't falling apart- in fact they were thriving. They had survived the first months and their babies were starting to giggle all the time and sit up by themselves, and THEN they crawled and THEN they pulled themselves up in their crib and, and, and...
Seeing it written there like that, where I could click through their children's transformations in a matter of minutes reminded me that everything changes fast, especially brand new babies and what may feel like an impassable obstacle today can be completely unimportant tomorrow. I also started to feel the web of humanity again. I wasn't really alone in my experiences at all (are we ever?).
The joy I have from Lane these days has been a struggle to get, not because I don't love the hell out of him, but because I had a harder time adjusting than I thought I would - yet I do get joy from him, every day and now that I've let go of the pressure and expectation about how I would feel as a mother, the air seems clearer and my baby seems easier and things are starting to turn bright again.
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