Oh hey, world! Wow, it’s nice to see you. Like, REALLY nice. You look amazing – have you been working out? Did you do something with your hair? Seriously, we have so much to catch up on.
Let’s just address the elephant in the room and allow me to sincerely apologize for not calling or writing or communicating in any way for the last four years. You’ll never believe this, but I actually lost my brain. I lost it somewhere between my first third trimester and my second third trimester if you can follow that math. I’m going to put it all out there because I need to in order to heal from having children.
I am aware there are many women who don’t lose their brains when they have kids. Some feel they were born to be mothers, some launch companies while having twin infants (ahem, my sister-in-law), and others continue to regularly shower (what kind of sorcery…?).
I am not one of those women. Being a mother wasn’t innate to me, especially a stay-at-home mom, and I took myself to a numbed, paused place.
I was swallowed by motherhood. Like a whale to biblical Jonah, my Jonah swallowed me whole. And like biblical Jonah, while I didn’t perish inside and it was actually pleasant inside that blobby whale, it was also claustrophobic, suffocating, and wholly disorienting. You forget there is a world outside the whale and that you don’t have to stay there. You can leave whenever you want.
And then I had Isla. She is a redhead and that’s probably all I need to say about that. And post this photo:
Where once I had one shadow, I now have three. My children are right beside me every step and poop I take – yes I’m VERY comfortable talking about poop now, thanks for asking. And it’s never enough. All the attention, love, and special mama time, it’s never enough. Mama should always give more – or at least that’s the guilt I put on myself. I’m aware they didn’t give me that guilt, it was all me. It’s easy to think your needs don’t matter.
Even though I was surrounded by beings that need me and love me more than anyone ever has, as well as a more-than-your-average-bear helpful husband, I never felt so alone. Being a mom, in our village-less ways, can be the loneliest experience.
I found myself struggling to carry on conversations with the non-baby form of humans (I’m a great conversationalist with toddlers – hire me for your next ice-breaker toddler event!). When previously my brain was filled with fabulous discussion topics, an abundance of wit, and uniquely poignant contributions to our political landscape, now all I was capable of was sleep schedule calculations, the fascinating classifications of poop, and any question that starts with “why” – Why are you not sleeping? Why is the floor wet? Why do you need FOUR very specific spatulas? WHY did I volunteer for this??!
Everyone says to love it, savor it, and know how fleeting the absolute love of small children is, but that enlightened perspective doesn’t change the fact that these years are hard for many of us. I love my children more than I thought possible, but — a big ole BUTTT — I have struggled. And I’m here to say it’s ok to feel that way. You aren’t a bad parent if you agree with me.
This may seem horribly ungrateful that I’m complaining about being blessed with two gorgeous, healthy children, but I experienced very real, very scary, and potentially permanent mental repercussions from those four years inside my cute ass whales. More on that in this post.
I know it’s entirely my fault and all I had to do was take care of myself just a little, but I didn’t. Bygones. I martyred myself because I thought I was supposed to. I thought I had to pile more weight than I could carry until I fell down every night. I thought I was supposed to be numbed and on hold. I thought I was OK until I really wasn’t.
The most important thing is that entirely due to what I went through, I am woked, as they say. I am back, the blog is back, and my big girl goals are happening. I’ll never be who I was before my kids because I choose to be better. I’m thinking, writing, and showering again. I could launch a company.
This post is part of my healing process and rebirth. I need to shine a light on it so I can be done with it, so I can fully rejoin the world, and so maybe I can help other mothers from losing themselves to their children/guilt.
The light I’m shining is blindingly bright when you haven’t seen the world in a while. I am so grateful to be me again and to talk about something other than sleep, poop, and why. Yes, my first post in three years is mostly about sleep, poop, and why, but cut me some slack. I’m still relearning how to talk.
Things They Forgot to Mention:
Um, having kids is different than not having kids. They did mention that but not that it can be other-planet, time-warp, brain-eating-amoeba different. What they also forgot to mention is that you can leave the whale but you have to build the raft and detonate the dynamite yourself otherwise you could stay swallowed forever.