Dear parent/carer,
Screw the formalities! I'm going to jump straight in... When they're ill... ergh!
Everything: daily tasks; self care (using the loo!) ; healthy eating attempts, just get sucked out of the window or flushed down the drain (when someone else gets the pleasure of a minutes sit down). Why is it so, bloody hard? I've mum friends who look like they are coping just fine. Admittedly, some go quiet for a while: stay off social media (ironically my predictive text keeps jumping to suicidal media before I have to correct it- who knew predictive text could be so wise?) But I can count on one, lone, finger, just a single person who shares her unabridged mum-life with me. I'm not talking a little, comedic, struggle-for-instagram-post. I'm talking, the big, hard, sickening questions, that can gloomily illuminate their prescence from time to time. 'Have we got post-natal depression?' type shit.
Call me mad but I like to attempt to see the positive in a given situation and like to generally assume that 'people is people,' as my old, Spanish, housemates used to harp on about, back in the teen uni days. Basically, there's some good in everyone and mostly no one can be arsed to get out there to specifically mess up someone else's day, or life. I also think that we make our own lives how we want them. Give or take some bollocks: health shit and family deaths etc but in many respects I think we get what we give and no one gets a free ride in life. So why is it so hard, when I believe all that, to know what the hell it is I should be feeling or doing right now? Should is probably a good starting point. I've a constant need to feel like I'm doing the "right," thing. This is true of: how I choose to parent; how I choose to be in a relationship; how I choose to run my own business. Also: how I choose the diet I eat or the education I study or the books I read. An example: it's my understanding that Emily Bronte is a great writer, with a long list of fans and literary back catalogue. As a literature student I should like her, right? Fuck no! Why? I should like what I like based on my own opinions and feelings and thoughts towards a subject, surely?
So how should I be as mum? I should be coping, smiling, loving it! All of the time. Right?
I just stared at my baby, sleeping, and 100% believed he'd be happier and better off without me. Of course I then burst into tears in the middle of the street and hated myself for even thinking this and even contemplating giving up. Naturally, giving up is not an option as my love for my son is a humungous, blobby mess of warm and fuzzy "feels" (God I hate that word but it fits).
But surely it's okay to feel this way? And 100% okay to express it in writing, in case anyone else could benefit from knowing that someone else feels how they do? The things that I write may not save the planet or put food on the table but my main hope for this blog's existence is that other parenting-wayfairers find some solace in its honesty. And due to that honesty shared, halve the problem and ease the pressure a bit. How's about we're all a bit more honest with one another and share in the hard times together?
They say it's important to keep on talking so let's keep the conversation flowing and keep each other afloat. Love Freyja x
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