Taking things personally

The nerve of simply existing and having a tiny human need and love you more than anything on a daily basis.

I am having a hard time not taking things personally these days.

The way my 20 month old tells me ‘no’ to pretty much everything, the 3 snooze rounds it takes me to get out of bed, the way it’s been bitterly cold in Jersey for 94 straight months. The nerve of these happening and horrowings, all purposely grinding down on my soul, effecting my mood and zest for simply existing.

I’m starting to think that the older I get, the more I’m allowed to have my feelings hurt or admit to the fact that when my birthday is forgotten, I want to at least be acknowledged without celebrated, that when the wheel on the shopping cart I picked won’t move smoothly through the aisles, it is directly happening to me, deliberately and intentionally.

As I unwrap the cellophane casing everything around me goes silent. No other cars in the parking lot, no other humans returning their carts to the station. Tax season hasn’t begun, my child is not yelling “GUGOT” at me from the backseat, my dog is aging backwards; there is only a mound of fake, doughy chocolate with an even more chemically created cream filling down the middle that I am anxiously working towards eating.

At the first bite a wave of relief washes over my brain and I feel myself subconsciously sink back into my seat, deeper into the feeling of accomplishing something to bring me back to myself. Maybe it’s an addiction or maybe it’s just an overstimulated mom eating a cupcake in her front seat at 10:03am on a random Thursday morning.

Hoop earrings. Strange, questionable movies. A good graphic tee. This Hostess cupcake. These are a few of the things that bring me back to myself when I am in a sea of cracker crumbs and diaper changes, music classes and toddler tantrums.

I saw an Instagram post that said “Being a mother isn’t hard” and like any human who knows the hook is a key to a good story, I immediately got pissed off and decided this person was a cyborgian idiot and scrolled right past it.

No, being a mother isn’t hard. Being a human that once was not a mother, is the difficult part.

Saying goodbye to that past self, that past life, those past experiences is the part that feels sticky. Shutting the door to that part of life and moving forward, though for the best, though for happiness, is hard. Having a tiny human love you more than anything else is the whole entire tiny universe of theirs, is hard. Having to love yourself during the moments when you feel like you’re not doing good enough but maybe you’re actually just doing your best, is hard.

It is not the child that’s hard — it’s you.

Ask any mother and I bet they’ll tell you they’ve judged themselves harder than anyone else has. We live in a time when everything that surrounds us, all the availability that we are able to get our hands onto makes it easy to second guess if we are or aren’t doing enough. It is both a blessing and a curse to have the world at our fingertips, to have the ability to have it all.

I’ve always had a hard time remembering that the present time will not last forever, that it will shift with the details and directions that it specifically holds. My mornings with her won’t be forever. My fake second breakfast of nu nus served on top of a Bluey themed plate will not always come hot and fresh. It won’t always be “Mommy’s churn” when it’s time for me to take the helm on coloring. I mourn the loss of these silly, simple mornings already, although I am still presently living in them.

Our silly mornings will turn into school routines and silent treatments. They will go from the playroom to the playground. They will evolve from cozy and ours to coordinating drop offs and drivers licenses. They will grow old as we do too.

I often wonder what her first memory will be. Will it be one of our many joyous, silly, loving times together, or an instant my patience wears thin? Will it be when I am holding her close, explaining to her how much I love her beyond a measure, or when I am sighing with defeat, gutted from exhaustion and emotional upheaval.

I hope either way, she feels in her heart it is all stemmed from unequivocal and infinite love.

“Why do we label, everything?” I asked out loud as my husband and I sat on the couch, tuned into one of the many advertisements for some type of medication that is a cure all for some type of disease that circles the orbit of our human existence.

My husband goes through the chain of command that unequivocally ends up in capitalism and my brain wonders to the blanket terms I hear thrown around so often in the parent world, I wonder what the validity of each them holds. If my parenting does not fall under a blanket term, am I considered a bad mom? If my parenting is not written about in books and mom blogs and educational essays, will my child feel unloved? These are the questions that run through my brain a 2am on a random Wednesday morning.

No, I don’t remember a time in my life without her, but I do remember a me. I remember a human who savored her solo time, who would wander through the city on a random afternoon just because, who worked 40+ hour weeks because she was determined and wanted to build something and quite honestly, didn’t know what else to do.

I remember a me and my partner, my now husband, my baby daddy, who did date nights with our friends at our favorite, busy restaurants and wing nights on Tuesdays. Who would throw the dogs in the car for a long weekend away or a random drive just to get out of the apartment, to get out of the city. Who moved across the country without friends or family, without any strings attached.

I remember not knowing if I would ever be a mother, for the reasons of never seeing myself as one and because I didn’t now if my body was equipped for it, if after chemo and radiation almost 25 years ago would have ravaged my womb and made it incompatible to bringing a life into this world.

I remember and at times, I ache for those lifetimes. I long for the non-productive, get into the car, and go where you just want to go journeys, for the simplicity of not having to overthink and second guess every single situation I partake in.

But how lonely I was, without knowing that it was loneliness that made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

The cupcake is gone within .5 seconds and Pink Pony Club has hit its 3rd rotation through the speakers. I am brought out of my reverie by a loud whine, the reminder that I need to put the car in drive or else a tantrum will erupt quicker than the cupcake disappeared.

A force she is, my daughter of mine. A force that reminds me of complex, yet simply times. A force that reminds me of how much I’ve grown over the past almost 2 years now, how much life has changed since Halloween 2022 and that tiny plus sign came into our lives. A force that I do not know how to describe the type of love and longing I feel for. A force that will continue to change me, to rock my world, and to teach me lessons beyond comprehension.