I realized a few days ago that I hadn't had the chance to update you guys on my Me Before Mommy Journey!

I would like to say that it is going....okay.  Remember my to-do list?  Well, I refer to it a lot, but I have been a little sloppy with the execution.

For about a week there, L and I went outside a lot and it was great!  However, the weather turned super hot, I got sick, and L's allergies are acting up, so we have been indoors a lot.  Yuck. I was so much more positive when we would go to the park in the afternoons.  I did notice that.  I have been watching the weather and this heat is supposed to break soon so, hopefully, more outdoor time to come.

I have been doing good with drinking my tea.  My sleeping schedule stinks.  My diet is getting better (I have lost about three pounds), but no yoga or meditation yet.  Bummer.

I did start reading a book of poetry by Robert Frost, but it has been hit and miss.  I have a couple of other books that I have my sights set on, so I am picking those up this weekend to get started on.

I have been listening to more music.  I discovered that L enjoys the heck out of my Pandora stations, so we rock out to those frequently.  *ahem* Specifically, "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.  Mommy belts it out and L jumps up and down, claps, and squeals.  I enjoy it because soon she will realize Mommy can't sing very well anymore! HA!

I haven't written anything else in my journal, but I am working on my quiet reflection moments.  I am also still trying to get my office figured out and I would love to set up a little nook for me to just sit and reflect in.  A nice comfy chair, a good pillow, a warm blanket....Mmmm.....Still working on it...

So, all in all, it is going okay.  I have lots of room for improvement and I just keep trying.  I have noticed here lately that I am very snippy because I haven't been able to take time for myself to do the things that are important to me.  That's my cue.  Time to get back on track!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Today is Monday and, whenever I need to start something new, I do it on a Monday.  Why?  Because it is the beginning of the week and what better time to begin something than at the beginning of the week?

If you read my last post, then you know that I am ready to become more than what I have allowed myself these past several months.  So, when brainstorming about how I wanted to go about this, I made a list.

(I love lists.  Seriously.  I even get excited to make a grocery list.  We all have our quirks....)

So, this list.  This list is fabulous.  It is my spiritual  list.  My individuality list.  My ME before MOMMY list.  This is the list that I will look to every week  to ensure that I am being the best ME I can be so I can be the best MOMMY I can be.

There is but one rule:

I have to do at least half of the list every week.

When I wrote this list, I not only thought about all the things I used to do before L, but I thought about the things I missed doing the most.  Some of these are common, other's aren't,  but they are important to me as an individual.

Are you ready to see my list?

Okay.

This has been a hard week for me.

Over the past couple of weeks I could feel myself slipping into a familiar crevice.  I seem to go through phases where I cram so much of myself down to make room for everyone and everything else.  The pattern is always the same: night wakings, anxiety, snippy, tears, and withdrawing.  I then feel the familiar stab of being wedged too tightly into the crevice and I snap.

I snapped this week.

I am so tired of so many things within myself.  My inner monologue stinks.  I let people win who don't need to win.  I allow myself to be pushed aside and forgotten about.  I melt into my corner of the couch and stare aimlessly at the television, thanking the damn thing for allowing me to forget about everything else.  I feel useless, unimportant,  and unnoticed.  I allowed it all to happen this way.  I stopped paying attention and just let go.  Letting go is good sometimes, but not in this case.

This is not a happy season for me right now.

I always said I would be honest with you and I meant it.  I mean it now.

I cracked open Tuesday.  Then a little more on Wednesday.

And now, in the very early hours of Thursday morning, I am trying to figure out where to go from here.

I've cracked open and now I can heal.

Good, I say.

I don't mind being broken.

We all are and that's what being human is all about.

The healing though, the healing, that's how you become.

I suppose it is time for me to become more.



I started by writing here.

Words have never failed me, judged me, ridiculed me, or betrayed me.

Most days, in the season of cracking open and becoming more, they are all that work for me.

I have been in my head a lot lately.  The new house and the toddler are keeping me rather busy, but it's the thoughts in my own head that are forming a mental block.  I haven't been able to form the thoughts into words just yet.  I have been trying, but it is so hard sometimes when you are down deep into yourself.

I'm deep.  I'm sitting on my knees in some corner of my soul, sifting through things.  I'm piecing things together; I'm trying to make them make sense.  I have certain things stacked to my right-those are the things that I need to talk about-I just can't find the words.  So, those things, they will sit.  They will sit until the words come.  So, for now, I busy myself with the other small things.  Small thoughts.  Small words.  Small parts of myself.

I hope, soon, I can get up off of my knees and come back to the surface.

It is so hard to breathe in this state of being.

All I want to do is take a huge, deep, refreshing breath and come back to the surface.  I can't do that just yet.  I have to let these thoughts run their course.  I have to mull them over and over and over again before they will finally cease.  I have to give in so I can process these thoughts and figure out how to deal with them all.

If I don't, I sink further.  I have never forgotten what the edge feels like.  I remember the light-headed, teetering feeling.  I remember the moments before the fall.  I remember the falling and then the nothing.  The nothing that felt like it lasted for decades.  The slow, quiet crawl of yourself, the agonizing and bleak existence of the shell that walks around in your life.  A being that waits with bated breath for an outcome they are not sure of.

I am trained now.  I know how to keep myself back from the edge.  It took years of hard work and patience and communicating internally with myself to know just what to do.  And what not to do.

It's exhausting, this holding myself back from the edge.  It is almost over though.  These words you are reading are proof of that.  I am coming back, slowly.

This is about yesterday.

There is moral to this story at the end.

Yesterday, a friend stopped by to visit and she gave me 45 minutes of her time to let me vent.  Then, she told me I was her hero.

It was nice to be able to sit down and talk with another mother and have them "get you".  As in, you two have been through the same types of things with your children, you feel the same way about yourselves as a mother, and you share the same feelings about your personal selves.

I've just been having a hard time lately.  I have felt defeated most days at the end of the day and it is hard to lay there and not cry yourself to sleep.  There are only a handful of people I can actually talk to about motherhood and I have felt rather isolated lately.  It was nice to hear that I was, in fact, "normal" and that all of these feelings I am having are valid and very real.

Then, she said something that made me cry.  She told me that because I am able to stay at home with my daughter and not go absolutely insane, that I am her hero.  She said she couldn't fathom what it must take to do that after doing so much in my life before L.

I did have a very long stretch of life that was solely me.  I came and went as I pleased, I had college, I had jobs, I had E.  My life was very busy.  It isn't so much right now and that major life change was hard.  It is still hard.  I manage the best way I know how.

My friend took me by surprise.  I surely don't feel like a hero, let alone to another mother.  I was flattered.  Then, when I get that way, I usually cry.  I felt better after our conversation and the rest of the day was a snap.

Moral of the story:  Take time to listen to others.  It isn't hard to see someone in distress if you just look very carefully and open yourself up.  You never know what you could be doing for the person sitting across from you.