sight isn’t always necessary

While I was paying very close attention in class one day, a burst of writing energy struck me but I couldn’t take the time out to satisfy that need. I wrote down a few notes instead, and though I should be studying for my test tomorrow, I’m going to finally get out these little thoughts so that they don’t eventually die.

First – Connor and I watch Olivia all of the time (funny little kids cartoon), and Olivia stops frequently to address the camera with her numbered “Rules of Life”. Connor is still pretty little, and some of these things are over his head. He apparently had misheard what Olivia was saying, too, because he thought she was saying “You look like” instead of “Rule of Life”. So, he comes up with his own little rules all the time – it’s really stinkin’ cute. I was changing Elly’s diaper today, and she was about to grab it and I yelped a little, and Connor said, “You look like number 42: When your mom is changing your sister’s diaper and your sister almost grabs her poop, watch out because it’s scary when your mom yelps.” First off, the little rule is silly and really funny that he’s coming up with his own rules. Second, it’s funny to hear him say “you look like” instead of what it should be, and I want to correct him on it, but at the same time I’m just proud of him for being creative like that so I try to keep my mouth shut. One day I did tell him that Olivia is saying “Rule of Life” instead of what he’s saying, and he just looked so bummed out that he got it wrong. Now I tell him to say it however he wants to, because it’s his rules. Anyway.

Ok, here’s the list of things in my notebook that I jotted down to write about. They’re dumb, but the little “writing” notes on the page I’m studying are so much more interesting than the chemistry notes I should be looking at. First, there was a girl in the class that day that was wearing a mid-length jacket with a very strange pleat thing in the back. I’ve seen a lot of coats with a pleat in the middle of the back that opens up to the bottom of the coat, presumably to allow the coat more movement around the legs since the coat is longer. I’ve seen maternity coats with pleats in the front of the coat to give the woman more belly room to grow. This coat had a pleat in the back, starting probably at the shoulder blades, that opened up and then met again right above her butt. The way she was sitting made the jacket open up quite a bit in this pleat, so it looked like she had a big vagina on her back. I don’t know anyone’s names in my class, but I now secretly refer to this woman as “vagina jacket girl”.

Sitting next to vagina jacket girl was a dude that usually is fairly well dressed. On this particular day, however, the weather apparently got the best of him. I think that when he woke up in the morning and looked out his window, the warm sunshine was so inviting that he decided to wear his summer clothes outside. He likely showered, thus feeling even warmer because of the hot water, and then donned his summer jean shorts and a white tank top. Then… he stepped outside. It was only about 50 degrees that day, which is still jacket weather. Realizing he was going to be late for class, he quickly grabbed a coat and was off to school. So, Mr. Well-Dressed was wearing leather sandals with no socks, jean shorts, a white tank top, spiky ‘do, and a long leather trenchcoat. He looked like a freaky flasher motorcycle creep. I now secretly refer to him as “The Flasher”. He sits next to a male Nurse Jabba (yes, the Hut) in class.

I went for a run today! I feel much better. Well, much worse at the current moment, for I just finished the run, but during the run I felt great. I was bopping along, thinking I was doing really well for not having run in a *long* time, and it was truly a thing I can do for myself, which is all I have going for me personally right now.

Anyway, now I have to go read Connor some stories. Maybe I’ll continue this trend, and things will start to appear better, even if nothing actually is. It all about perception, right?

The past week has been hard.  One would think that with three gorgeous days in a row, my spirits would be lifted and I’d feel good about life.  I, however, was only mildly pleased with life due to the weather; why should the weather change my attitude about everything, especially when it’s probably going to change and shit on me in a day or so anyway?  I knew it would turn on me, and it did.  It did.  Today, the weather shat directly on my head.

So I’m feeling very alone.  I don’t have anyone to talk to, and I find myself in my closet sometimes, especially when it’s late and the closed door can block out any hint of light, talking to myself.  Talking to the darkness, wishing it would take me somewhere else.  I’m crying just writing this.  And I don’t know what to do about this feeling I have, but I do know that in the past, writing about it has helped.  The problem lately has been that every single ounce of my energy has been consumed by the people in my life, and when I finally get a chance to do something for myself, I end up sitting on the couch and zoning out to television because it’s easier to do than facing my problems.  Facing myself.

I’ve worked nonstop since I was 18 years old.  Before then, I worked nonstop at getting the best grades possible in high school, all while doing a zillion extra-curricular activities in the hopes of proving something to someone.  I can’t figure out what that did for me still, but someday maybe I’ll know.  Since I was 18 though, and I joined the Air Force, I’ve been a career woman.  Work has defined me, and my success at work is what made me feel like a productive and useful person.  When Connor was born, I felt like I had participated in a miracle, but I had to go back to work immediately and again, my job defined my life, and my family was the extra padding around me to make me safe.  When someone asked me what I do, I wouldn’t say “I’m a mother” or “I’m a wife” first.  I’d say I was a computer programmer, and honestly, if I didn’t get the feeling that the person cared about kids or family, and the moment didn’t come to mention my child or husband, I probably wouldn’t.  Maybe I’m a horrible mother and wife for that, but if I were a man, nobody would expect me to talk about my family all the time.  Anyway, I’m rambling.

Now that I’m home, I feel completely useless and ugly and outside of society.  I don’t want people to know that I stay at home with my kids, because I feel less than because of it.  I’m just putting this out there, and if you’re offended by what I’m saying, stop reading my blog.  I never thought that I was above the housewives in the world; I never really compared my life to their lives any more than jealousy because they could be with their children more than I could.  Having never been in their shoes, I couldn’t understand the loneliness and despair that they could be going through while they care for their families each day.  I only knew that they were getting more baby kisses and sunshine than I was, and that had to be better than sitting in front of a computer all day.

I was wrong.  This is hard.  This is really hard.  And I feel so damn lonely.  I was on Facebook a second ago, and I noticed that Craig has something like 210 friends, and I’m still not even at 100.  The vast majority of those are just people that maybe knew my name once.  Even in the virtual world, I’m a lonely loser.

It’s not that when I was working I had more friends, but I was working and a mother, so having friends was a luxury I could live without, because I had no time for anything anyway.  Now I’m a student mother, and I have no time for anything, but I would love to spend some time with someone who had no time for anything too, so at least my 4 year old child wouldn’t have to watch his mother be sad all the time.

The definition of resent from the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary is “to feel or express annoyance or ill-will at”.  I resent my life.  I resent my 5-month old daughter for needing me constantly for her basic sustenance, consuming all of my time so that I can’t spend even 10 quality minutes alone with my 4-year old son in these long days we are together.  I resent my son for so willingly going to his room to play sometimes, which makes me feel guilty for being a bad mother and not playing enough, and I resent him for for whining and complaining about it other times, making it hard for me to do whatever it is I needed to do with Elly at the time that I asked him to go play alone.  I resent my husband for acting so tired when he’s only had 4 hours of sleep and I desperately need someone to help me for a minute because I have to take a shit and Elly is screaming bloody murder when I put her down for a second.  I resent him for yawning when he’s playing with Connor.  I resent him for wanting to do family things on his days off, instead of taking the children away and letting me have a few moments alone.  I resent the dog for bringing his bone over to me a thousand times a day, begging and pleading with me with his sad, droopy eyes to just toss it a few times, just show him a little bit of love.

I feel so used up, and so useless at the same time.

Today we went to the grocery store to sell raffle tickets for Connor’s preschool.  Connor had a blast; there was another little boy there named Elliot who happened to be just as bright as Connor, and almost exactly the same age.  They played like crazy, giggling and yelling at customers to buy tickets, pretending that huge chickens were going to come out of the conveyor belt, and just being silly.  Elliot’s mom was pretty cool too.  In the brief conversations I had with her, I found out a few really key things about her and her life that made me instantly like her.  For one, she has kids about the same age as mine – though her youngest is about a year old.  Still, he’s babyish enough for me to consider her life is about as hectic as mine.  She’s also at home with her kids; she was a school teacher in Iowa, but due to timing and silly rules about staying accredited, she’s lost her license to teach and she’d have to go to school for another year just to get a good job in Michigan, if there were any.  She’s at home with two kids, living in a new house in a newish neighborhood like mine with very few trees.

Most importantly, she’s pretty negative.  She complained about the kids in her neighborhood being bullies and treating her cute little boy badly.  She mentioned her husband’s job in Iowa, and said something about it “sucking” and that’s why they moved back.  Her hair wasn’t really done and the humidity had made it frizzy, and she complained about how it of course would be a crappy day on the day we all had to be outside all morning.  So those may be reasons why most of you “normal” people would be like “Eeeeewww… I’m not really fond of this person.”  But I’m not like most of you, so there.

She reminded me of me.  She seemed like the kind of person that I could be around and not feel like I had to act any differently than the way I wanted to act, and that’s the most refreshing thing I’ve experienced in a while.  I feel like I have to act happy and friendly to Craig even, and I’ve been married to him for almost 10 years, so it’s really not a common thing for me to feel truly comfortable in my own thoughts or actions.  You know why I act happy all of the time?  Because I recently had a baby, so if I were to mention to someone that I was feeling shitty, they would automatically assume that it’s postpartum depression and I need to go to a doctor to be put on some shitty drug that fucks with my brain.  No one would bother asking if I were feeling shitty before the delivery when I was pregnant, or long before that.  Don’t you dare come after me with these suggestions after reading this post, because I’m really not interested in suggestions for how to fix my life with drugs.  Being numb to my life isn’t going to change what it is, is it?  No thank you.

Anyway, I asked her for her phone number and insisted a few times that we should hang out, have a play date or something, and she seemed cool with it.  Maybe it’s just my perception of things though, but she did kinda leave in a huff.  So now I’m worried, like a guy who just went out with a girl and is afraid to call her for a second date, that she really didn’t like me and she won’t pick up the phone when I call.  She didn’t ask for my phone number, after all, so she probably gave me a fake number anyway.

Now I’ve rambled for an hour, and I feel better.  I’m going to go shower.

When I was pregnant with Elly, with every day that my belly grew bigger, so did my guilt for being a bad mommy to Connor.  I felt like I was screwing him over by taking some of my attention away from him.  I contantly reminded myself that him having a sister was going to be good for him, and she would be a best friend to him for life – which is definitely one of the advantages of having a sibling.  Since she’s been around, it’s been a blessing and a curse.  I love her more than anything, and she’s a beautiful addition to our family.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But I’ve seen some changes in my little boy, and though they’re a normal natural part of growing up, I’d have to say that his independence has blossomed much faster than I was prepared for since she arrived.  He had a slight hiccup in his sleeping habits right after we brought her home, and after we got around that it’s been like he’s a new boy.  He reads his own books at night and won’t let me read to him (I have to beg him to let me read a few lines).  He doesn’t cling to me when I go to school, and in fact it’s sometimes difficult to get him to give me a hug and kiss when I go out the door because he’s so busy doing other things.  He plays in his room for as long as I need him to (within reason) and is generally happy to do so.  He told me the other day that I could go for a jog whenever I want to because he doesn’t mind when I leave anymore, then  he declared, “I’m growned up, Mom.”  These aren’t bad things – they’re good.  But it feels like they happened too fast.  I’m grateful, though I fear that some shit is going to definitely hit the fan soon, but I’m grateful for having the summer with these two beautiful children of mine.  I’m glad I have a little more time to play with my “little boy” before he goes off and becomes a big boy in school.

I’d post more, but I should just get off this thing and save my brain space.  It’s been a difficult day.