Friday, February 16, 2007

where did i go?

When I was pregnant with my first child I remember thinking that now was the time for the happily ever after to start. I would have the baby and life would cruise happily along and everything after that point was just the fun details of life. I don't know why I thought that exactly but that was my mind set. My mom stayed home with my sister and I and was a great stay at home mom. I was looking forward to doing all the same things and being the perfect mom. The first hint that things weren't going perfectly was the six weeks of colic we went through with her. Eventually that cleared up and things went fairly smoothly until we tried to get pregnant with a sibling for her. It took two years, some mild fertility medicine and one miscarriage before we finally became pregnant with her. She was an easy baby and things were going well. I was from a family with two children, both girls so I felt like I had everything under control. I knew what to expect, I was comfortable with this. Then we were surprised with our little boy, a surprise pregnancy. I love him dearly but my life has not been the same since the day I found out I was pregnant with him.

Everything has become more complicated. More busy. More crazy. More noisy. All of those details that I thought would work themselves out after we were in happily ever after mode have arrived. And they aren't working themselves out. Things aren't falling into place. There is a ton of work to do. No matter what I'm working on I feel like I'm neglecting someone or something because they aren't getting the attention they need while I'm doing this.

I'm frustrated and angry. I feel like I'm being swallowed up by life. I feel like a complete failure. I feel guilty. I feel like running away, not from my family but from all of the demands. No matter how hard I work the amount of work never seems to lighten or be finished. Not only that but I feel like I'm starting to become a little invisible. I'm disappearing but I don't know that anyone will notice until a bill isn't paid or everything else has ground to a halt. I'm living a life I never would have predicted. I feel lost without a map to navigate what to do or how to do it. I don't know what to do to be seen again. Maybe I do know but I'm too afraid to try it. It's always failed before, why would it work now? Do I have a choice? Are all of us broken somewhere and have a crutch that we lean on? If I give up that crutch will I just find a new one to replace it? Can I have a good crutch instead of a bad one?

I think I need to do some work. I need to learn to stand up with out the crutch. I need to do some rehab work on myself and learn to live without it. I'm scared of not having it, I'm scared of failing again. The failure seems inevitable. I'm not a fatalist except when it comes to this. I think it's something I'm going to battle every day for the rest of my life and that overwhelms me. I feel like not bothering with it since I'm doomed to fight it forever. But then I look at my life and where I'm at. I need to do this. Not for anyone else but for me. And maybe that's the first time I've finally reached that conclusion. Maybe that's what it will take.

I have a feeling this is going to be a year of change for me. And I don't know if I should feel scared, happy or even more overwhelmed than before because right now that's how I feel.

I have to make myself re-appear because I deserve better.