not pretty

Dear Blog,

There have been a lot of changes happening lately. The normal ones, the growing up ones, the figuring out who you are ones. These are fun, exciting, but somewhat exacerbated by having a kid that is going through her own sets of changes.

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So I'm crying in the car on the way to pick up Lena, today. And I haven't done this in a long time. This used to be my favorite time and place to cry. Something about the lull between daytime work and nightime parenting, I would sit in traffic on the way to daycare and just let myself be overwhelmed by the day and the night, and I would cry--out of frustration, confusion, exhaustion, and then I would put on my mom face, dry my tears, and start it all over again.

(If anyone says that parenthood is easy they are lying or medicated. I mean, think about it. There are two people in the world that are my parents. Feel sorry for them.)

So I'm crying because all of these wonderful, exciting, terrifying things are happening, (signing a lease! going to grad school! new roommate! leaving my job!) and for the first time in a very long time I let myself think this:

This would be so much easier without a kid.

And boy, am I giving myself a hard time for this.

And that's not really fair. That's not fair to scared, worried, terrified and anxious rachael. Rachael is going through a tough enough time without making herself feel like shit about it. (And for some reason I've started referring to myself in the third person? That's how bad this has gotten!)

It turns out this is something I specialize in, making myself feel worse than I already do, and let me tell you, it is a full time job making yourself feel shitty, and between you and me, I do not need another full time job. I have one, it pays me money, and I have another one, it pays me in rewarding moments (snort!) and I don't need one that pays me in feeling shitty.

I went to therapy, once, for this. A couple of hours and a few hundred dollars later, apparently all I need to do is to validate these feelings, let myself feel them, and move on.

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You know what's also weird? It's weird because parents (or adults, as I like to think of them), no one seems to mind if they don't have hobbies. I mean, what's the last time you asked some doctor or lawyer with two kids what they do in their free time? So why do I feel the need to make myself more interesting, or to say that I write, I'm a writer. Why do I need to give myself hobbies or interests, or prove that I am creative. Isn't it enough that I'm alive?
**

I've been carrying these things with me for a while now. I saw this parable on facebook the other day, and I don't usually like/share or whatever those things (for me facebook is reserved for sharing everything that Jay Caspian Kang writes on Grantland), but the moral of the story was this: A glass of water doesn't weigh that much but if you carry it around forever it starts to get heavy. Like stress or whatever.

So here is me setting this glass of water and worry and insecurity on the table.

Here is me acknowledging this really shitty feeling. Here is me validating this really shitty feeling. Here is me letting myself feel this really shitty feeling.

And here is me walking away from this really shitty feeling.

**

I would love a break right now.
Or for spring to come.

The good news is, at least one of these things will come true.