I’ll Be Home With You

I’ve just started this book called “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and I feel like it’s a metaphor for my current stage in life. The author goes through a whole set of topics that you need to address and truly think through before even touching your belongings. It’s what I would imagine a pilgrimage to self realization is supposed to be.

The last year has been a tremendous struggle for me. I’ve felt like I was just hanging on and never in any kind of control of my life. Kind of like it was happening to me and I was trying to make myself ok with it. Trying to fit myself in; adapting (at an unwilling pace) to the everyday changes. Struggling with finding myself in a new world. It’s really hard to describe, and pretty much every parent goes through it.

Friends come and go, I completely understand that. Surprisingly, I’m ok with that and have found that I’ve consciously decided not to be friends with some folks in the last two years. That’s a first, folks, I like to collect friends like a little kid collects baseball cards. However, in the last year I have found that I feel like I am going to be an adult without real friends who truly understand me. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends, but it’s hard to feel like you do or that you aren’t losing them, in those first few years. I bring it up because this is how I felt as a new mom of two, even though I was meeting new people and attempting to connect. If I did feel like that was happening, it was fleeting. It’s a hang up of mine and probably something I will always struggle with.

There were so many days I felt like I was drowning. Gil and I were on each other’s nerves half the time (or more). I would wake up and want to disappear into the ground because all I saw in front of me was tantrums, ‘I wants’, three consecutive nap times that made leaving the house impossible, and doing it all – alone.

Yet, we persevere. I just heard the term, ‘Mom Anthem’ and I think it’s the most insanely apt term I’ve run across since becoming a mom. We put on a brave face and try to mold these tiny humans to be better than we are. Giving them so much of ourselves that we almost rebel. While somewhere along the way we receive this amazing gift of being a someone’s mom, someone’s everything (even if it’s just for a short period of time). We carry that with us and we rejoice in it. I get that and it’s why I think this parenting thing is such a life changing experience. Debilitating and wonderful.

I have two of the greatest gifts I could have been given; my Little Love and Corazoncito are going to be my greatest accomplishments, I’m sure of it. Right now they take up, almost, all of my time. I have lost myself a little in the process, it’s true. However, I’m starting to get some clarity on who the new me is going to be. The point being, I feel hopeful…optimistically hopeful, and it’s taken a while to get here.

In my experience, the first year of having a baby is the hardest. The everyday, every-single-second need is hard to wrap your head around. When you do it a second time, it’s even harder. If you are anything like we were, you go into the second thinking you have it all figured out. Gil’s cousin deemed it as having a part-time job with one and a full-time job with two, which makes so much sense to me now.

So, if you are in the middle of that first year – hang tight! It really does get better. If you know someone who is in that first year – call them, or text or email…invite them out, (even if it takes 30 times before they can make it happen). Whatever you can manage because more than likely they feel alone and miss you. It’s very hard to get out of the house with a baby attached to you. Even harder when there’s a toddler, who needs almost as much from you.

Take solace in the fleeting time we get big hugs and lots of little kisses. I find that I’ve heard the adage, ‘enjoy them now, the time goes so quickly’ so often that I take it to heart. It really is the longest days, and shortest years. I’m trying my hardest to soak up every bit of it.

Thanks for listening.