The Willie Letdown

It's after 1 a.m. and I'm lying in bed completely awake. I have no good reason for not wanting to close the computer and get some sleep. All of my friends packed it in hours ago, as we're all getting old and gray and have trouble staying up past 11 p.m. 

But here I sit anyway. I'm not motivated to read a book or get up and get things done. My eyes and head feel completely wiped out, but my body is buzzing. I just keep listening to the wind and the rain outside.

It's Mother's Day. And I'm not quite sure what that means yet, even though this is technically my third one since X-man was born in early 2006. 

The first Mother's Day was hard. I found a lump in my breast. My 2-month-old son refused to breastfeed due to several muscular genetic conditions, and I was feeling like a huge failure. I had started physical therapy with him. Something we'd do every week together with a PT and every day at home until he was 12 months old. Everything was spinning out of control, and I had big hopes for my first special day. I hoped that something would happen that would tell me that the last two months of fear and failure and freakishly strange coincidences would somehow brighten the very dark tunnel of postpartum depression that was descending. 

Instead, I got a book written by Willie Nelson. MacTroll swears it was worth reading and a very appropriate Mother's Day gift. But I didn't think a book written by Willie Nelson said, "Thanks for going through 24 hours of labor with our son who weighed over 10 lbs, giving up your body for it, putting in the late nights and the hours at the breast pump, holding our son still on a table as he screams bloody murder to get scans done of his head to make sure his sutures weren't prematurely closing, doing daily PT exercises and we love you and will hold your hand no matter what the ultrasound of your breast says."

I don't think I ever got over the disappointment of Willie Nelson. And so I fastforward to last year's mother's day. Of which, I believe, although for some reason the memory is foggy, that there were several gifts purchased off of an Amazon.com wish list in order to be safe from the same crying wreck of a mother I was from the year before. 

And now we have the third Mother's Day. Where MacTroll diligently started asking me what I wanted to do five days prior. (That's a big step for him. I was thinking he wouldn't even remember given all the travel that's been happening. But apparently he roamed NYC in the rain the day before coming home on Friday to look for a suitable gift, now that the ugly secret is out that I'm not a fan of cut flowers.) 

The only answers I could think of were sleep, time to get stuff done, a family walk and breakfast. I know, he asked and I came up with lame, lame, lame.

I have a friend who tells me that fantasy is always better than the reality. I had a therapist who told me that my expectations of myself as a mother were way too high. I have a spouse, who is kind and smart and funny, who also feels like I keep raising a bar that is too high when it comes to our marriage. I have another friend who is constantly wondering why she ever bothered to get married, and another one who thinks his life would be perfect if could find a good woman. 

I'd really like it if for a short time, I could just stop thinking about the things I don't have and just appreciate the abundance I do have. And although the postpartum depression is gone (there's no more crazy lady in my head telling me the world would be better off if I slunk into isolation), I still think I could do a better job. I still want better for my family and for myself. But what happens when what Looseyfur needs/wants doesn't benefit the family? 

What happens when it's in direct opposition to what the family needs? Because up until recently it's felt like there's been no outlet for Looseyfur, the woman, to exist. It goes kid, MacTroll's job, house stuff, marriage, friends, etc. I'm not even in the top 5. 

And maybe that's okay, because if you were to ask me what I want and where I see myself in the next five years, for the first time ever -- in grown life -- I'd have no answer. 

There's this quote I identify with right now from "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin (Yes, I'm pre-reading book club books for CARE). 

"She slept but a few hours. They were troubled and feverish hours, disturbed with dreams that were intangible, that eluded her, leaving only an impression upon her half-awakened senses of something unattainable. She was up and dressed in the cool of the early morning. The air was invigorating and steadied somewhat her faculties. However, she was not seeking refreshment or help from any source, either external or from within. She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility."