The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. -Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC)
I mean WTF? I have a toddler, I am not permanently brain damaged. The world is still my oyster. I think M did me a huge favor by giving me some "tough love." I have been wrestling with some major -ME- issues for the last couple of days.
I wonder if it has something to do with the maternal instinct. Whatever is happening right now is always going to be. This part will never end. Then when it does, it is a happy surprise every time.
Right now, in this moment, I am doing exactly what I want to do. I love my kid (duh). I want to be with him. I have accepted this time before pre-school is ours. It is finite.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
UGH
Today started shitty.
Usually jon gets up with E if he gets up before 7:30. Because, well, I am a fucking bitch. J will get him started with breakfast and then I come out and j gets in the shower.
Today, E got animal crackers for breakfast. So of course when I tried to give him yogurt or bagel or non-ice cream food he rejected it. I was really mad at j for giving him cookies and e for waking up so early and me for always being too angry.
Anyway, we go the Exploratorium. It is Spring break and therefore a nightmare. E is crabby as hell. He keeps running away and not listening. I start losing my patience more and more and my reactions to E's running away becomes less and less respectable, more reactionary and hysterical and grabby every time he runs away from me.
We were there with our dear friends M and her son L.
My response to E crying and acting up is I just stand there and look at him. He is literally on the floor crying in the middle of this place and I am standing over him waiting for his tantrum to end. I know M finds this abhorrent and is always trying to comfort E as I grow increasingly stony. After the museum I am anxious to get home, however I don't say anything because I don't want to be an inconvenience. She is driving. I want to put E to bed and she wants to walk around ( her son doesn't nap anymore ) Admittedly, I was acting like a sullen child watching my own sullen child cry by the duck pond.
M starts to talk to me and telling me I need to get some distance and some perspective. I need to put him in childcare and I need to try to find joy or purpose in my life. My giving in and reacting with anger to his typical 2 year old behavior is bad for everyone involved. She offered to talk to her childcare person for me, I told her I couldn't do that. M has her dream job, I said if I had work or something that I cared about maybe I wouldn't mind putting E in child-care. But to put him in childcare just to get away from it all and work at a coffee shop isn't something I can or want to do.
Putting E in childcare will help him to share with other kids better and not to hit (he loves to hit L, 'cause guess where he learned it, (not that I blame L because it would have been another kid I didn't love that taught him otherwise)) I was getting really angry at E for repeatedly hitting L at the museum.
So she said, well what is your dream job? What are your dreams? What do you want to be when you grow up?
I started crying, like a lot, and very suddenly.
Cause the reality of pre-school is coming. I am supposed to hand my kid over to someone, pay them $89 per day, and go and find out what I am. (and pay for pre-school)
This is the reason I had a kid. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I don't know what I love, I don't know what turns me on, what gets my blood boiling. I am so out of touch with my own needs and wants.
I don't know what my dreams are. I don't even know how to play a game like "what would your dream job be" as my mom is always trying to make me play.
I am scared. Everything feels like a cop-out. I am scared to admit or acknowledge my future is coming, am I going to miss it?
I can't talk to j about any of this, his response is "go back on the anti-depressants." Dr Liza wanted me to treat my depression as a disease (if you had high blood pressure you would take your meds wouldn't you?)
But I think I am just scared and lazy and have bad social anxiety. I can't blame it hormonal fluctuation anymore. This is the real deal. I am fucked up. I am not PMS-ing. I am supposed to be feeling good.
The real deal is not pretty. That my son would probably be better off with someone else taking care of him. I don't feel like I can give my job away, i feel like it is the only thing defining me. God it is an ugly cycle. I have no "skills" per se. I have to get a sitter to get a job and I have to have a job to get a sitter. I know I am using that as my ultimate excuse
I wished for the Goblin King to come and take him away yesterday and I swear he disappeared for 5 seconds.
God I can hardly stand my fucking self-involved, bourgeois, problems.
Usually jon gets up with E if he gets up before 7:30. Because, well, I am a fucking bitch. J will get him started with breakfast and then I come out and j gets in the shower.
Today, E got animal crackers for breakfast. So of course when I tried to give him yogurt or bagel or non-ice cream food he rejected it. I was really mad at j for giving him cookies and e for waking up so early and me for always being too angry.
Anyway, we go the Exploratorium. It is Spring break and therefore a nightmare. E is crabby as hell. He keeps running away and not listening. I start losing my patience more and more and my reactions to E's running away becomes less and less respectable, more reactionary and hysterical and grabby every time he runs away from me.
We were there with our dear friends M and her son L.
My response to E crying and acting up is I just stand there and look at him. He is literally on the floor crying in the middle of this place and I am standing over him waiting for his tantrum to end. I know M finds this abhorrent and is always trying to comfort E as I grow increasingly stony. After the museum I am anxious to get home, however I don't say anything because I don't want to be an inconvenience. She is driving. I want to put E to bed and she wants to walk around ( her son doesn't nap anymore ) Admittedly, I was acting like a sullen child watching my own sullen child cry by the duck pond.
M starts to talk to me and telling me I need to get some distance and some perspective. I need to put him in childcare and I need to try to find joy or purpose in my life. My giving in and reacting with anger to his typical 2 year old behavior is bad for everyone involved. She offered to talk to her childcare person for me, I told her I couldn't do that. M has her dream job, I said if I had work or something that I cared about maybe I wouldn't mind putting E in child-care. But to put him in childcare just to get away from it all and work at a coffee shop isn't something I can or want to do.
Putting E in childcare will help him to share with other kids better and not to hit (he loves to hit L, 'cause guess where he learned it, (not that I blame L because it would have been another kid I didn't love that taught him otherwise)) I was getting really angry at E for repeatedly hitting L at the museum.
So she said, well what is your dream job? What are your dreams? What do you want to be when you grow up?
I started crying, like a lot, and very suddenly.
Cause the reality of pre-school is coming. I am supposed to hand my kid over to someone, pay them $89 per day, and go and find out what I am. (and pay for pre-school)
This is the reason I had a kid. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I don't know what I love, I don't know what turns me on, what gets my blood boiling. I am so out of touch with my own needs and wants.
I don't know what my dreams are. I don't even know how to play a game like "what would your dream job be" as my mom is always trying to make me play.
I am scared. Everything feels like a cop-out. I am scared to admit or acknowledge my future is coming, am I going to miss it?
I can't talk to j about any of this, his response is "go back on the anti-depressants." Dr Liza wanted me to treat my depression as a disease (if you had high blood pressure you would take your meds wouldn't you?)
But I think I am just scared and lazy and have bad social anxiety. I can't blame it hormonal fluctuation anymore. This is the real deal. I am fucked up. I am not PMS-ing. I am supposed to be feeling good.
The real deal is not pretty. That my son would probably be better off with someone else taking care of him. I don't feel like I can give my job away, i feel like it is the only thing defining me. God it is an ugly cycle. I have no "skills" per se. I have to get a sitter to get a job and I have to have a job to get a sitter. I know I am using that as my ultimate excuse
I wished for the Goblin King to come and take him away yesterday and I swear he disappeared for 5 seconds.
God I can hardly stand my fucking self-involved, bourgeois, problems.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Do they have a name for this?
In the present I am very narrow. I rarely think past today. Sometimes when someone asks me what's for dinner before noon I panic.
I am in the now. I think it is probably the place for all SAHM with a toddler. I think of our next meal and our next activity. The present is long. The present right now means, x hours till bedtime (seven but who's counting). The present seems like forever. E will always be a pain in my butt that doesn't listen to me.
I made this big confession today to my friend M.
"I don't like being a mom. There is so much ingratitude. I am starving for the 'good' parts of it."
"The thing is, I am pretty sure you are going to look back at these days as the best of your life, it only goes downhill from here."
Even as the words were coming our of her mouth I knew it was true. I am mired in minutia of the present. Future kristen is going to laugh at past kristen like she always does, Hegelian twilight and all...
So I live in the present terrified of the future. Of all the mistakes, the things we did and din't do - The regrets.
However, quoting M again, Don't give your fear power. Once it has strength, it grows legs, and it is aweful hard to reel back in.
I am in the now. I think it is probably the place for all SAHM with a toddler. I think of our next meal and our next activity. The present is long. The present right now means, x hours till bedtime (seven but who's counting). The present seems like forever. E will always be a pain in my butt that doesn't listen to me.
I made this big confession today to my friend M.
"I don't like being a mom. There is so much ingratitude. I am starving for the 'good' parts of it."
"The thing is, I am pretty sure you are going to look back at these days as the best of your life, it only goes downhill from here."
Even as the words were coming our of her mouth I knew it was true. I am mired in minutia of the present. Future kristen is going to laugh at past kristen like she always does, Hegelian twilight and all...
So I live in the present terrified of the future. Of all the mistakes, the things we did and din't do - The regrets.
However, quoting M again, Don't give your fear power. Once it has strength, it grows legs, and it is aweful hard to reel back in.
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