I just won the gold in Feeling Sorry For Myself
Things are kind of difficult these days. Cormac was up five times last night — 10, 11, 1, 4, 5. Screaming his adorably irritating fool head off for no discernible reason. Then my day starts and it’s pretty much child-wrangling for nine hours, at which point I change clothes and go to work in a night office (very unlike the night kitchen, understand). Then I come home and read for an hour and go to bed, praying to get a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep before waking up and doing it again tomorrow.
I can barely keep up with the laundry or the dishes. My children are woefully under-entertained. I cant’ really write about my feelings here or anything more than superficial “I went to the dentist” crap because I would like at some point to secure a new job, if we ever move to Pennsylvania, and I know I’m quite Googlable and, despite being and excellent worker and knowledgable in my field, nobody wants to hire (or insure, healthwise) a visual journalist who writes about her chronic bowel disorder or introversion or how she hates snobby rich women at J.Crew standing around blocking the aisles as she tries to maneuver her chain-store suburbo-stroller (GOD how rude). Blogging used to be a great outlet for me, but these days the drowning economy has me terrified to write anything controversial or revealing or less-than-self-complementary for fear of never getting hired again. Are all the blogging mothers out there full-time SAHM-ers? Or otherwise disconnected from the corporate world? How can this be? Perhaps I just need a college-ruled notebook and a mechanical pencil instead of the internet.
I think most (all? a lot?) of it is A.) taking care of two kids under three is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I have taught high school, and B.) ongoing, maddening sleep-deprivation. I feel trapped at home with the children and unable to pee in private, much less spend time working on hobbies or yoga, and — well, I’m feeling rather sorry for myself. I know that there are things I should be doing to foster my support network, but instead I have let friendships lapse or wilt because I can’t bring myself to try to have a phone conversation with two monkeys screaming in my ear. I can barely get the house tidy enough to invite our friends over. Thinking of hiring a baby-sitter makes me practically narcoleptic. There’s a church right up the street that is probably crawling with youngish moms, but then I’d have to overcome my blazing atheism and pretend to believe in the Good Book.
And to top it off, I feel like a failure at failing because my own mother did this stay-at-home mom thing six times over. Six kids. I only have two and I want to put my head in a blender.
I love the little buggers, obviously. I hear they are quite cute and entertaining from an outsider’s perspective. But nine hours a day (only nine! some moms do much more) with just a high-pitched screeching for company has me in tears every night at 2 a.m. for that last head-patting trip to the kids’ room.
I have so many things I want to do. I know I could make some really great sewn objects if I only had a half-a-tick to myself.
And this doesn’t even address the larger and more pervasive late-quarterlife crisis, in which I ponder the uselessness of humanity’s short time on earth (i.e, “What’s It All About”) and my own particular brand of uselessness in particular. It’s coming to terms with the fact that I am never going to write a book, because somebody else has already written a book. What’s the point. I do not have the Type A personality needed to translate blogging into a lucrative career. In fact, I might as well be Type Z, and that doesn’t translate into much of anything except feeling exquisitely put-upon and wishing to retire, hermetlike, with a cup of coffee and a Do Not Disturb sign on my sewing-room door.
I think that’s my curse in life. To be able to see greatness from a distance (other people’s greatness, I mean) and appreciate it and all the hard work it entails and enjoy its fruits but with the full, depressing knowledge that I could never duplicate it, either through inertia or because a certain somebody needs to have his bottom wiped AGAIN, wtf.
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23 Responses to “I just won the gold in Feeling Sorry For Myself”
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you are right. what is the point? luckily i am way to superficial when it comes to contemplating life to get worked up about such things. that is until i read your blog. thanks a lot, supa. ok. now i am going to go crawl under a rock and cry for a little while.
Oh, honey. You’re struggling with some of the most essential things young mothers go through everyday! Trust me when I say that NONE of us have it together. Everything you’re feeling is so genuine and true. Thanks for saying it by the way.
And, please don’t let your fears of not being hired hinder your writing. WE mothers need people like you putting it out there. Believe it or not, you’re doing something rather valuable. Most people would kill for that.
Okay, now that I’ve complimented the shit out of you…wanna come over for a margarita and a cigarette?
I know what you mean. I know what you mean. The job market for writers/journalists/etc. is so tight that it’s ridiculous. My senior editor works 9 hours here, then goes home and works more. It’s killing his marriage. HWSRN does the same thing. I refuse to do it, because I am the primary Beavis wrangler. I’m sure it will get me fired at some point, but that’s my line in the sand…having a home life.
That being said, my house is not all that clean and I am more often than not tired and cranky. And afraid to blog about it because of the job thing. And the ex thing. It sucks. As does the chronic sleep deprivations. I am right there with you.
Oh, how I hear you on this. But, as Christina says, you are doing something really valuable through your writing. I’m so sad and anti social and worn out that the bulk of my social interaction is through Facebook and I don’t even really understand the point of Facebook.
You are so amazing it hurts. I wish I could tell you not to worry, and to just keep on trucking. I wish I could fund your retirement to your sewing room. I wish I lived nearer, because I am up at all hours, too. Silas has become a squirmy-wormer with sharp nails he won’t let me cut. Each night is like a knife fight for me.
Oh MB,
I totally feel your pain. I had so many years of feeling that way. I never found the answer, except that it will pass. Eventually.
In the interim try to drink lots of water, eat well and take vitamins. Sounds lame. But, it helps.
Also, fresh flowers in the house.
xx
not that i am a mother, but i babysit for many. all mothers feel this way! they are always appologizing for the “mess” and talking in a half-out-of-breath-slash-can’t-handle-life way and are always thanking me to the max that i am there to help. don’t worry about it! it sounds like you need some time to yourself. smoke a cig, smoke some weed, do something BAD!!! it’ll make you feel great. and like i always say, if you ever need a babysitter talk to heather and i promise she will tell you the true life story of me and i can help you out!!! even if its just an hour for you to sleep. guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurl, but don’t stop writing. and don’t hold back. cause i can’t deal with a censored supa!
hold in there
I want to say just what Jess said, and also that you have to get a sitter and sleep once in a while. It’s just totally impossible to function at any sort of acceptable level when you’re as behind on sleep as you are. You are no robot, my dear.
Christina is cheap, and awesome. As you can see by the comment she’s left before I could get over here to leave one. She’s on top of things…
Big love to you, man.
Hang in there a couple more months, and then Iain will be done with school for the summer, and you’ll be able to tag-team them!
Just try to remember that they won’t always need you to wipe them, and will someday allow you to sleep more than a couple hours at a time.
And that, honey, is when you can write that book. And sew to your heart’s content.
Also, when you’re woken up at 2 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep, you can always call me and I will happily bore you into a coma.
Oh, Supa. This time is the hardest part, really. Soon the monkeys will be school-aged and out of diapers and sleeping better.
Your house was great! You should see the squalor we live in. And, you know, something’s got to give. No one expects perfection of you. Kid-wrangling is HARD.
And comparing us to previous generations of moms - weren’t you the one who said those babies spent a lot more time in playpens than our kiddos?
I hope these feelings pass soon.
There’s a book by Judith Viorst about her son Alexander and his wife and three kids living with them for three months (he’s Alexander of the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day). I just finished it, and it’s a skinny little book that will make you feel better.
She writes about how much harder parenting seems to be now compared to when she raised three boys, in part because we don’t use playpens or have adults-only time and have to be constantly buckling kids into carseats and strollers that her generation didn’t have to figure out. It really made me feel better about my whiny, oh-my-gosh-i-can’t-handle-this days.
I know this doesn’t help much, but it will pass, really. But while it’s going on, babysitters are not a luxury. They’re sanity.
I have been there. I am still there. I have no wisdom on the big life issues. No wisdom here.
All I will say is it gets easier soon. You are living through the absolute hardest part. A year ago I was on the floor crying in desperation. Now, today, my kids play with each other. They don’t need so much, so desperately, so constantly. Most of the time, I sleep at night and pee in peace. I have time for friends again. Really, it gets easier soon.
i wish i could come over and watch the boys for a couple of hours.
i feel the same way. appreciating greatness from afar, and no time to get anything done the way i want to.
You guys help me so much. It’s gotten a lot better since monday. Amazing what a little perspective will do (and trying to shed the tunnel vision, that helps too).
amy, i have to check out that judith viorst book. i’ve had the same thought — this has GOT to be harder, with all the rules and laws and buckles and lead paint and BPA in the bottles and whatever the hell. Pressure. Oy.
I’m so sadly late to this, but want to echo what others have said — things are tough right now, but they will get easier. Leo isn’t all that much older than Mac, but I can already see the tiniest of lights at the end of ye olde tunnel. Sometimes Brian and I will be talking or putzing around, or whatever, and realize that the boys have been down in Henry’s room for the past 20 minutes. Playing. With each other! 20 MINUTES! The other day we found them both inside the toybox, living it up. Giggling.
In summary: You rule and I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Everything you’re feeling is so normal and understandable. And… you’re just insanely talented and awesome. Really. Not blowing smoke.
I’ll slap a big, hairy AMEN SISTER on that one.
MB…
It’s hard when the kids are so dependent upon you. I was in your same spot a few years back. And yes, it does get easier once the kids learn to wipe their own arses…really!
I remember hanging on while others around me achieved great things…knowing I was so capable “if I wanted to”…but in the midst of rearing young children, it knocks the wind out of you. Just know it is all temporary.
I just got back from a trip to Los Angeles (for fabric sourcing for my new clothing line)…I haven’t taken a trip alone in the last TEN YEARS!!! Ten friggin years!!! If you would have told me I’d be where I am today while I was busy filling the constant needs of my kids back then, I would have rolled my eyes.
Hang in there, my friend. And get a damn babysitter already…heck, pay her extra so she doesn’t gossip about your housekeeping…LOL
With friendship,
Lisa
hee.
I am going out and getting myself a playpen. Want me to pick one up for you too? xoxoxo
I just want to say that I have been a long-time reader/lurker of your stuff… I think I found you on the internet when searching for sewing blogs, then I found you on Flickr, then I found you on Twitter (which is new and kinda cool to me still - thanks to Verizon and their unlimited texting plan!). You’ve apparently been blogging about as long as I have… I started about 2002 on LiveJournal, though.
I just want to say that I have admired you from afar for a long time. You are amazingly well-written and my own writer/English-major self was drawn to you immediately. I instantly clicked with your brutal honesty and sharp wit. I have enjoyed looking at the photos of you and your family. My husband has sat here and listened to me read out loud random snippets of your blogs… parts that were so perfectly put that I couldn’t help but admire you and make him listen to it, too.
To be honest, I haven’t read all of your stuff for years and years or anything like that… it has been perhaps six months or so… so I certainly don’t know all of your life or what you have been through. In fact, I don’t even read your stuff every week. But I can say that this blog post just made me want to come out of the invisible internet silence and say this.
I am older than you… my oldest is just now 20 years old (someone please kill me!), my youngest is 13. Just as all of your friends above have said: this, too, shall pass. My husband and I have a saying to help us deal with stress: “This is just a blip on the radar”. Meaning, in the giant, whole-picture of life this is a tiny part of it. Although it is difficult, your strength and steadfastness through it is what’s important. YOU are providing your children with something that many women cannot. In retrospect, you will be amazingly proud of what you have accomplished and I am sure that you will not lose yourself to all of this. At least from what I have seen… I sincerely doubt that you will end up a “nothing”. Far from it, most likely.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not some religious freak either… when asked, I like to say that I am an agnostic. Keeps them guessing.
I’m just another woman who has lived and learned that life ends up just fine when we make and stick to the choices that we know are right.
Chin up. The rest of us are pulling with you.
What was it with this past week? I’ve had nearly the exact same feelings (how’s that for a sentence?) about almost everything this week. Just absolute insecurity about everything, not to mention exhaustion.
I’m tellin’ you, two kids is much harder than one. Two kids with a job? Fuggetaboutit. I know I’m late to the part on this one, but remember something here: you this shit is hard. It’s sometimes impossibly hard. Forget about keeping the house immaculate, kiss your children, snog your husband, and ignore the clutter. Have a beer or two—you deserve it.
give it time. I feel bad for my children, because when I look back on my daughters first 2 years (she is my second child) it is with a dark cloud hanging over every memory. It was SO hard to have another child only 2.75 years older than her that also wanted my attention and I never had a minute to myself. I PROMISE it gets easier. She is three now and I feel that the sun has begun to shine again.
I think we’re going to have to share that gold medal…You want weekends and Tuesdays?