these thoughts are running through my head and i know i won't be able to sleep until i get them out. i'm just going to ramble and hopefully it will all come together at the end.
i grew up without a dad. he and my mom divorced, i don't really even know how old i was, 3 or 4, maybe 5. all i remember is sitting on the stairs with my brother and my aunt, watching him walk out the door. later my mom told me i asked if he would still take me out for icees.
growing up i loved my dolls. i treated them like real kids. i bought them birthday and christmas presents. i cried when my brother and cousin through them up against the ceiling, worried they were hurt. a cashier at harmon's once told my mom that she must make motherhood look fun if i was carrying my dolls around like a mother would do. all i wanted growing up, was to be a mom. i was so relieved the day i got my patriarchal blessing and it told me i would be a mother. i had ideas on how i was going to mother my kids, taking some bits about my mom that i liked, some from my step-mom, my aunts, my grandmas, and wonderful examples of women in my ward. my whole life i prepared to become a mother. i took every class i could in high school that would help me as a wife and mother. mrs. moyle, the home ec teacher, even came to our reception.
up until my early teens i was a perfectionist. i created a daily schedule, down to the minute, each and every day. i had what i called an "art center" that i loved to organize. it held all my art and craft kits, each one had a special place it went. i dreaded my mom's visiting teachers coming over each month, one of them had a kid who would tear it apart. i fell to pieces each time and then set to organizing again. everything on my dresser had it's own special place, my barbie jewelry staircase, my porcelain dolls my grandma sent me, my earring rack. if something was askew, i quickly fixed it. then, there was my daybed. it was the bed of my dreams, white iron frame, and pink, ruffly bedding. oh how i loved it! each morning i got out of bed and carefully set to work making it. but, i was a perfectionist and if it wasn't just right, if the seam of the comforter didn't exactly line up with the edge of the mattress, i completely broke down and got so mad, hating it even. i was a straight A student. anything less i just couldn't handle. i took the teacher's extra/scratch paper pile home with me, completing the extra worksheets for "fun." i asked my mom to assign me reports on subjects i was interested in. i wanted to read every book in the library, just like matilda. i often had 7 or 8 books going at the same time.
then came junior high, puberty, and a rush of emotions. i remember lying awake at night crying myself to sleep because of starving kids in third world countries. looking back i think it was me i was sad for, growing up without a dad and missing out on stuff i saw friends and other families doing. displacing the sadness was my way of coping with it. in eighth grade i got really, really depressed and a friend told a school counselor. my mom quickly got me in to a doctor, i was put on anti-depressants, and started meeting with a counselor on a weekly basis. at this time i also contracted mono, for the first time. i stayed home from school for 3 months, living at my dad's house because i was constantly at war with my mom. later she told me she was glad i could come unglued at her, it showed her that i knew she loved me no matter what.
my dad's house was great. i stayed up late watching movies like carrie on tv with sarah jane, my step-mom and she made us chocolate-banana milkshakes every night. dinner was whatever was in the freezer, waffles, chicken nuggets, marie calendar pot pies. they were awesome to let me live there and go through what i needed to emotionally. i had a nightmare there one time and woke my dad up by screaming in my sleep. he was into dream interpretation at the time. i had dreamed i was being pulled in half by zombie type creatures. he helped me discover that i felt torn between him and my mom. shortly after i moved back in with her. i think the 250 dollar shopping spree at nordy's had something to do with it. jk, she was just trying to cheer me up. anyway, during this time i let my grades slip. i got my first C, in spanish. but i learned that it was okay, that my parents still loved me and the world wasn't going to fall apart if i wasn't perfect. i seriously think this saved me from becoming way OCD because, as you can see, i walked a fine line in my early years. i gave up caring so much about everything.
this was good and bad. in high school and even to some extent in college, i did the bare minimum to get by. i still had good grades. there was only one other time that i got below a B-. it hardly counts, considering it was right after i had marshall and i blame it entirely on mommy brain. it was in intermediate accounting at westminster. i got a D and was put on academic probation. i quickly decided if i was going to be a mom, but my mommy brain couldn't do math postpartum while my brain cells were being expressed out my breast milk, then i needed to switch majors to something NOT accounting. in high school i walked on the edge. i think i graduated 8 classes short of not graduating, meaning 8 more sluffs and i would not have made it. forget seminary, that was go home and take a nap time for me. kinda embarrassing years later when we ended up in the same ward as my teacher though.
also, i've rarely ever completed anything i set out to do. the quilt i made for a young women's project, my mom sewed the last 10 inches or so from where i turned it inside-out. the fabric-covered styrofoam pumpkins i crafted in junior high just got stems a couple years ago when my mom took marshall on a walk to collect branches for them. i leave projects half done, there's a whole rubbermaid container in my bedroom full of half finished stuff. the one thing i have done is complete my college degree. that was by far the most difficult thing i have ever done, having to balance a newborn/toddler, and family life in general. but i did it. it is mine to claim and i claim it proudly. i do credit john and my mom, for without them watching marshall, and john helping more around the house, i never could have done it. but the academic part, that was all me. and even my degree, human development and family studies, was to help me become the mom i wanted to be. so i could do it right, with all the right tools.
but, here's where my story starts to come together. because i know all that i know, from my classes and reading, it kills me to know that i'm not doing everything i can. there is so much that i wanted for my kids growing up, and still today, that i can't give them. i can't give them a house with room to run around and play and be kids with space to call their own. i can't give them a yard to explore and run and play and jump and get their energy out. i can't give them sports and music lessons to help make them well rounded people. i can't provide vacations and learning experiences that come with them. marshall started tumbling again a couple weeks ago. watching him compared to the other kids was hard. you can tell that he lacks in physical development because he doesn't have the space a kid needs to move and be active.
it's killing me inside that i can't be the type of mother and give my kids the types of experiences that i always wanted to. as illustrated in the above stories, i fell apart when i realized i couldn't be perfect. and i'm struggling every day to cope with the fact that i can't have it be perfect for my kids right now. maybe it's that marshall is turning 5 in a few weeks. in school i learned that birth-five are the most critical, important years in a child's life and looking back i have so many regrets, things i wish i could change about his first five years. maybe it's re-living this time last year, after i had coen. at the time i was so grateful that modern medicine could see when he was in distress and they could "save" him via c-section. but now, a year later, i'm left wondering what i could have done differently to avoid that so i wouldn't have had to go through all the emotional pain and physical discomfort of having my incision infected for so long. maybe it's that the weather is changing, it's so cold, and dark this time of year and i'm definitely a spring/summer girl. maybe this last year, all the trials and hardships, have finally caught up to me. i'm tired of trying to hold it all together and put on a happy face. i wish i could curl up in bed and hibernate all winter, until the sun comes out again and warms everything up. i wish i could push a pause button on life to make it wait while i accumulate the means to make my childrens' lives what i have always wanted them to be and while i figure out how to make sense of all that this last year has brought. these days i spend a lot of time struggling to get out of bed, get off the couch, and just make it through the day. i dread leaving the house. i'm having severe social anxiety. even going to the grocery store or dropping marshall of at preschool takes a huge one-sided conversation in my head, telling myself it must be done, i have to do it, i can do it, i have to do it. really, if it weren't for the kids, i don't think i would get out of bed all day. that's just where i'm at right now.
i think the swine flu was a blessing. i did nothing for a couple days and life got to slow down a bit for me. during the worst of it i remember thinking, huh, i guess i don't really want to stay in bed, this sucks! and it gave me hope that when i was over it i could bounce back and be okay. today we attended john's grandma's funeral. it was so inspirational to hear her children talk about her life as a mother. she raised 14 wonderful, successful kids. she never complained, she just did what she had to do. they told about how there was always clean laundry, warm meals were served on time, she was in bed at 9:00 every night, and up, dressed, and in the process of making a homemade breakfast when the kids woke up, always serving others, always there when the kids got home from school, listened when her kids needed to talk. she was truly a remarkable woman and i am so blessed to be a part of her legacy, 86 grandchildren, and 144 great-grandchildren. family alone filled the entire chapel today. i wish, hope, i can become more like her.
every day is a struggle, but i just have to keep telling myself and praying that some day it will be better. i have to hold on to "some day" because without "some day" i don't have anything.
Here's a list of what I bought:
