2017 | no sucking allowed

Here's a nutshell rundown of the last five years: 

2011: Break-up, make-up, and get back together with Joe only to make-up so frequently that you become pregnant with Mo. Get engaged.
2012: Turn 25, get married, give birth to Mo, attempt to figure out how to be a mom, become increasingly depressed, buy one-way tickets and move to NYC away from everyone you know and love.
2013: Continue to be depressed, continue to figure out how to be a mom, have an emergency stomach surgery, decide that you really hate New York, go to an ungodly expensive therapist, pull yourself out of depression, eat a lot of pizza. 
2014: Have another emergency stomach surgery (on Mother's Day, no less), decide you want another baby, get pregnant with said other baby, try to hate New York less, fail miserably, face another New York winter.
2015: Give birth to Edie, eat your own placenta, congratulate your husband on earning his Master's by repetitively sending him NC house listings, welcome the year of the Threenager, convince yourself that you can actually die from exhaustion, buy a home in Charlotte off of the internet site unseen, decide that you're done having children, pack up and ship out to NC.
2016: Constantly wonder if you wasted away the three years you were lucky enough to live in New York, question every single decision you've made over the last five years, continue to fail at parenting, travel to the Bahamas, survive on as little sleep necessary to prevent full mental psychosis, apologize profusely for the color of your house to any and all guests (it's shit brown), listen to your daughter tell you how much she hates living in Charlotte and sob, watch Donald Trump get elected POTUS, decide that hell must be wearing a coat, begin feeling that all-too-familiar ache in your ovaries, kick your own ass because you know better than to definitively declare the state of one's ovaries closed for business, continue to not sleep, continue to fail at parenting, avoid your pulsing ovarian ache (and your husband' penis). 

I was going to write a list of things I'd like to accomplish in 2017. Like eat less sugar, drink more water, read two books a month, and maybe swear in front of the children a little less. But, when all is said and done, my expectations are so impossibly low that I will only dare ask of 2017 that it suck a little less than its' predecessor.

 

Now, if by chance, 2017 decides that it is feeling generous and wants to ensure that we start off on the right foot, I wouldn't be opposed to a little extra sleep and a lot less toddler attitude, ya' feel me?! 

perspective + aging

As of today, I'm four months shy of the big three-oh. When I was blissfully unaware of what adulting would look like, I used view thirty as the age when you've got it all figured out. As I inch closer and closer to this milestone, I realize that the only thing I've figured out is that I've got a little more than more than nothing figured out.

I believe that aging, in spite of all of its' shortcomings, is great. I may no longer look like a spring chicken but what I lack in tautness is made up for ten-fold with the giant dose of perspective only hindsight can afford us.  

 

As they say, whoever they are, hindsight is twenty-twenty. One thing hindsight has made painfully obvious is how unkind I've been to myself over the years. I've kicked myself when I've been down, I've beaten myself up for being human, and I've been ashamed of mistakes that did, in fact, all lead me to where I am.

 

Of course, one could argue that this lack of self-imposed grace only aided the process of becoming a better person or whateverthefuck. One could claim that it was all a part of of figuring out who I am and who I want to become and what work needs to be done in order to become her. One could (and many have) say that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger which, I guess, is true. 

 

But does the ride to our destination really need to be so painful? Especially when we're the ones not only holding the keys, but also the only person who determines where we want to go and how we want to get there?

 

The only thing I've gleaned from the realization that I have been my own biggest worst enemy is that this narrative that is utter nonsense and complete bullshit. If I need anyone to like me, shouldn't that person be... I don't know... me? I'm the one who's got to spend a lifetime being me so I might as well become a person I like and like the person I'm becoming?

Right?

Right. 

 

If you've been following along here or The C-word for longer than a hot second, you've likely noticed that I'm a vat of self-deprecation. I've always found self-deprecation funny and I appreciate when a person doesn't have their head stuck so far up their own ass that they can't call a spade a spade. I'm also a firm believer that if people know you're in on the joke, rarely will you be the butt of it. The problem is that there is a thin line between self-deprecation and radiating abhorrent insecurity and self-angst and women, as a whole, tend to straddle that line.

 

For example, how many times have you deflected someone's compliment instead of graciously saying thank you? When someone bumps into you, how often do you apologize to them for simply being where you are supposed to be? How many times have you felt embarrassed by a person acknowledging a specific feature they find particularly striking or beautiful instead of appreciating the feature they find worthy of such praise? 

 

Do you see what I mean? WHY?

 

Now, I'm not saying we should all walk around responding, "yeah, I know" to kind strangers' compliments. However, as I creep up on the age I thought I'd know all that I'd ever need to know, the one thing I know for certain is that this shit needs to stop. When are we going to stop selling the idea that humility trumps self-love? When are we going to admit that maybe, just maybe, we're not only worthy of praise but worthy of self-acceptance? 

 

I, for one, am done.

 

I'm tired of apologizing. I'm sick of the excuses I so often give for SIMPLY BEING MYSELF. I'm exhausted from prefacing every thought or conversation I express with what I think those listening need to hear in order to not think less of me for thinking it. I'm through with feeling like I shouldn't, for whatever reason, like myself. 

 

I've spent almost thirty years getting to know myself and I've discovered that she sucks on occasion. She hasn't always been a peach and she hasn't always been kind. She hasn't always made the right decisions nor cared enough to even attempt to make a good one. She's been handed challenges and been defeated. She's been handed trials and walked away a champion. She's fought really fucking hard to achieve perspective and hindsight and she deserves to own it. She's high-maintenance (high quality), she's complicated (multi-faceted), and she's a walking contradiction on days that end with a -Y (mysterious). I have spent the last almost-thirty years getting to know me and you know what? 

 

I quite like her. 

 

And, in my humble opinion, there is no better 30th birthday present than the gift of self-acceptance.

 

 

the mom I want to be

So, here's the thing....

 

I very much want to be the mom who doesn't gets frustrated when her kid seems to always be sick. I aim to be the mom who doesn't lose her patience and begins crying at three a.m. because her baby is so uncomfortable and miserable that she can't stop moving and let herself fall asleep and there is nothing she can do to help her. I ache to be the mom who handles being tired well, never leading on to anyone she comes across that she's so fucking exhausted she can't see straight. I aspire to be the mom who doesn't resent her husband when he leaves to go out of town with their other daughter to go have fun in Chapel Hill while she stays back and holds down the fort and sleeps beside what looks like The Bubonic Plague. I should be the mom who is nothing less than honored to be the ONLY person her sick kid wants to hold her in the middle of the night. I yearn to be the mom who somehow always manages to make it better, no matter the circumstances, no matter the ailments, no matter the time of day (or night). I am desperate to be the mom who isn't anxious and worried about catching what her kid has and how that would affect her upcoming (already paid for) vacation in five days. I wish I was the mom who never felt sorry for herself because she knows that her life is still pretty fucking grand.

 

I am not that mom.

 

At least, I'm not that mom today.

 

But I am the mom who never turns down a hug or opportunity for her baby to nuzzle her neck, even when she fears she could catch the Bubonic Plague by doing so. I'm the mom who, when facing that feeling of helplessness, will always be helpful by soothing her baby's soul via her belly. I'm the mom who emotionally and mentally bears the weight of her baby being sick and would do anything in her power to take away the pain. I'm the mom who lays in the grass for over an hour as she watches her miserable baby touch every single blade of grass she desires because if being outside makes her happy, goddammit, this mom will stay out here forever. I'm the mom who knows her baby so intrinsically, down to every last detail, that she knows immediately, deep down in her bones, when something is off.

 

I'm the mom who gives herself some grace, apologizes for her exhaustion-induced grumpiness when she snaps, tries her best to be her best, and loves her family with every thing she has.

 

I'm the mom who has learned over the years that, more often than not, the mom we are is the only mom we need to be. The wishings and the wantings and those feelings of not quite measuring up to the ideal we have in our head of the mom we should be don't actually matter to the people who really matter. 

 

And, some days, the simple reminder that you and your best are enough is enough to make you feel like the mom you so badly want to be.

thoughts on being a mess

You know how when a bunch of little nothings all amount to what feels like big fucking somethings and the weight of all those nothings-turned-into-somethings finally breaks any ability you typically have to maintain any semblance of perspective?

 

Because that's me right now, shoulders actively bowing down under the weight of life occasionally being a real son of a bitch. 

 

While the finer details of all those said nothings aren't even worth their weight to get into here, they are still enough of something to mentally and emotionally wear on me because I'm human. When they're then compounded by Edie coming down with a case of hand, foot, and mouth disease, I am not only human but I become a human bound to lose her shit.

 

And I did.

 

As I sat at my desk on the phone with one of my best friends this morning, the levy broke and I unloaded, tears streaming down my face for no reason and for every reason. I typically pride myself on being able to keep life in perspective during the days that require more effort than others, always making a point to remind myself that it could be worse and, for many people, it is. Sometimes, though, a girl just needs a good ugly cry in her best friend's empathetic ear in order to pull herself together.

 

But, for fuck's sake, Life. Give a girl (and her littlest girl) a break, will you? 

 

I live under the assumption that things going wrong is simply par for the course of life. I also know that I can't always fix whatever is going wrong and that's okay with me. Usually, anyway. 

Motherhood is the one area of my life where not being able to fix whatever is wrong isn't and never will be an easy pill to swallow. Feeling helpless as a mother feels cruel, like pouring salt in an already open and incredibly vulnerable wound. Lately with Edie, it's only felt as if I've been sitting outside of that realm of control and, admittedly, I'm struggling with that. Not because I'm a control freak but, rather, because I can't find anything to grasp onto for balance when shit is hitting the proverbial fan. It's making me dizzy. And tired. Very, very tired.

 

All of this is, I guess, just to say that I'm human and sometimes need to talk about it. And that life is hard. It's even harder when your kid is sick (again) and people are assholes. 

 

Here's to trekking through the trenches of motherhood, the dear and empathetic ears willing to listen, and bless all of the wine consumed in the process...