For the past eight and a half months I have been a stay at home mother to my first and dearest son, Noah. As the first of all of our friends to have a child we often get asked the basics like "How is life with a child?" or "What's really different?" and "Do you miss being alone?" and the answers go something like this: It is a totally unpredicitable chaotic round of absolute sheer joy so startling that you cry and lows of spit-up covered exhaustion so deep that you weep with the fatigue of a thousands hours of sleep; the difference is that YOU remember the last time you brushed your teeth and do I miss being alone? DO I MISS BEING ALONE? Holy blue FUCK yes! I wasn't alone at all, ever really for Noah's first few months. In July I joined a gym and now I leave the house two nights a week and go sweat along with a bunch of high school boys who unlike me, choose to workout at ten o'clock at night. And I am alone then. Just me. I open the sunroof and the widows and blast the music really loudly. The entire time I miss my family and my home and my husband and my Noah. I am recharged when I get home but I miss them. So, that's a tough one to answer really. Right this very minute I'd kill to be alone to not have to make dinner tonight or bathe someone else, but now that I know how wonderful things are when I do have to do all that stuff, being alone just pales in comparison.
I have wanted this stay-at-home thing since before I can remember. I have always wanted to be a mom. Now I am one and in all honesty I love every minute of it. Even the spit-up covered moments and the times when Noah poops on the floor and the times when he pees on the wall while standing and looking out the window. Each of those moments happens only once and I am grateful to my soul that I am able to be here to experience each of those events.
Lately though, my heart is here but my mind is moving a thousand miles a minute with thoughts that I need to say, need to write. I enjoy writing. It gives me an out, a place to vent, a place to grow and a place to mingle with people who won't spit-up or poop on me. But I don't know how much more I can manage. I will always write here but there are these other sites that I provide content for and sometimes the stress of it all leaves me a blubbering crazy screaming mess.
I am addicted to checking my stats. I love my stats and on days when my stats skyrocket I get a thrill that I am almost ashamed of feeling. It tells me that I matter. That someone was interested in me. Interested in what I had to say. Not just needing me to prepare a meal or drop off dry-cleaning or change a diaper. I like being recognized for my thoughts and my dare I say it, intellect. I know that my nourishment-providing breastfeeding matters more to my son in the long run than what I had to say on my own stupid blog any day but it doesn't always feel that way.
Constantly striving for ... what? I don't know,is leaving me too mentally detached from reality. I'm doing a half-assed job of writing right now and an even more half-assed job of parenting. There's just not enough TIME in the day and I don't like feeling as though I'm phoning it in.
So I don't know what I'm doing to do or how I am going to adjust my writing schedule. I sometimes think about getting a babysitter for like three hours a week. Problem is, the money I would make in those three hours wouldn't even pay for the babysitting. And I didn't sign on to be Noah's mother to pawn him off on someone else so that I could keep ASPIRING to be a freelance writer. I'm still feeling like my needs and time aren't as important because I don't contribute financially to this family. I don't know how to get past that and value myself for just being here and taking care of my family.
I know that I matter most to that little guy asleep upstairs right now and I want that. It might be years from now but I hope one day he'll tell me I mattered to him because I gave him everything I could.
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