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journaling

Daily Babbles: 9/20

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Thoughts that floated through my brain today:

  • I no longer habitually put people on a pedestal; but sometimes I’ll get butterflies in my stomach before I meet with someone, or read and re-read an email I’m about to send to someone, and I realize it’s happening without me even realizing it.
  • There is so much I learned in high school or college classes that I don’t know anymore and that’s so sad.
  • I look at the old newborn diaper I keep as a reminder and can’t even believe that at the scary beginning of Maggie’s life, it was too big on her.
  • One of my secret dreams that I don’t think I’ll ever do but dream of doing, is publishing a memoir or anthology of little posts or essays.
  • I miss moments of newborn snuggles but I don’t miss the fact that newborn snuggles were in lieu of showering, eating, exercising, changing clothes, brushing teeth, sleeping.
  • I have a (short) post in the works about the mental load that mothers carry.
  • I have visual-spatial synesthesia which has always been part of me but also I think is why I am so sensitive to the passing of time, growing up, aging, seasons changing, etc., because rather than solely experiencing it, I can SEE it.

Daily babbles: 9/18

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Sometimes I think if I don’t write I’m going to explode. Or implode.

I’ve felt like that for a while.

I don’t have time to write anything, let alone profoundly string together carefully-edited words with the intention of reaching and moving many people.

So I haven’t written.

But I just….times are hard. Everything is hard. And when I write I feel the black tar crap stuck inside of me shaking loose and I can breathe a bit easier.

I need to breathe.

So I thought maybe I’d just write a few thoughts. Nothing big, nothing profound. Just a few daily thoughts in my babbling way, and see where it takes me.

Read it, or don’t. It doesn’t matter.

Today:

  • I stepped outside at 6:16pm because I hadn’t had a single second to myself where I could just breathe and not be thinking working helping mothering cleaning. I could’ve stayed outside forever.
  • The thought of the cold weather coming makes me want to cry. This fall brings up so many traumatic memories of being sick and Maggie’s birth. Not to mention the lack of light and I hate hate hate being cold because it reminds me of years when I was always cold and couldn’t warm up. And don’t get me started on the darkness.
  • I’m so sick of people using gratitude to dismiss others’ feelings. People can be exhausted at work or with parenting and still love work or parenting. That’s so dumb to say otherwise.
  • I never really thought that gender roles were so ingrained in people but they actually are.
  • The only way I could be exercising is to sacrifice sleep which I’m already depleted of. I need more time.

What are some of the thoughts/experiences from your day?

Stream of consciousness

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No edits, no beautifully-crafted blog post, just honest snippets of thoughts as they are:

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I am having a hard time. Everyone’s having a hard time. I am not unique and yet I am. Everyone’s circumstances are different and yet everyone’s circumstances are the same.

—

I go through periods of positivity and gratitude and periods of deep despair and anxiety. Sometimes within a day or even an hour. I try so hard to be upbeat and positive for the girls, but sometimes it’s all too much and I can’t. And then I kind of hate myself for it.

—

I never went back to work after maternity leave, because school closed. Instead, I transitioned from maternity leave to Working Full Time while Parenting Full Time. This is an impossible situation, and I am well-aware I’m not the only one in it. I miss my students, my coworkers, my work routine, my normalcy.

—

I feel horrible at my job when I can’t answer emails or get things done because I’m with my kids. I feel horrible as a mother when I can’t give my kids my undivided attention because I have to get work done. I feel horrible as a wife when I have no energy left at the end of the day or when I take out my frustrations on my husband.

—

This is not a pity party.

—

My friend and I talk about this so much: you need to find a balance between acknowledging your feelings about the situation, along with focusing on your privilege, but without letting knowledge of your privilege incite self-judgment for having a hard time.

It’s a fucking battle every second of every day.

This is all so hard.

And.

I am so lucky and privileged.

Feel your feelings with awareness but without judgment.

—

But the judgment comes because who am I to be frustrated that there are so many dishes and so much laundry and so much stress and so many temper tantrums and diapers and so much work to do when there are people with actual problems I am so privileged I am such a brat stop whining stop complaining I’m a horrible human.

—

My biggest fears as a child were that something could happen that could cause the world to end or loved ones to die. Everyone told me those were just unfounded fears.

They’re no longer irrational fears.

—

Getting outside helps. I don’t even need warm spring days (though that would be heavenly), but I need sun. I need to get Maya outside and I need to be outside.

I feel the best when we are outside and I see the trees, hear the birds, dig in the dirt, and see that nature is continuing on, see that there’s a world out there.

The days that I wake up to gray and rain my heart sinks and I can’t breathe again.

—

I am having an increase in food and body thoughts.

—

It feels like all I do is pick up toys, wash dishes, cook, and clean. Nurse, play, parent, work. Lather, rinse, repeat.

—

It has been really nice reconnecting with old friends.

—

I feel so worried for people’s mental health after this trauma. Because this IS a trauma, for so many.

—

My heart breaks for Maya on a daily basis. She is old enough to understand something is wrong and different but not old enough to understand why. She is more than fine, she is so privileged and lucky and FINE. And yet. She is sad and confused and her life has been completely shaken up and I hate that. She asks for her friends and school and to please go somewhere, Mama, and when will everywhere stop being closed? I don’t want this to be her life but I know she’s fine but I also don’t like it.

Again. Who am I to complain.

—

I’m tired. Every minute of every day. Maybe it would help if Maggie would sleep well at night. Maybe it wouldn’t matter.

—

I think the only way anyone can survive this is for us to all share our thoughts and feelings. It has been so nice having multiple people reach out and share what’s going on for them. I think it’s making people more emotionally-aware and looking to connect on a emotional level where maybe they hadn’t in the past.

—

Often times in my life I’ve felt alone in my anxieties and worries and obsessive thinking and despair at things. I no longer feel alone because everyone else is feeling it, too. Which makes me sad, and also grateful.

—

I am profoundly grateful for social media as a means for connecting with people during this.

—

Will I ever feel safe in the world again, even when we are able to go back to a quasi “normal”? Will the anxiety I have around getting sick, that I had before this even started, ever go away? Will my children live the lives I am hoping for them? Will we all be okay?

—

Now. Right now. One moment. One breath. Try. Try. Try.