I had a horrible week last week.
Mike got really sick, so we sent Kyle to stay with his grandparents for two days to keep the germs far away from his adorable immune system. He loves his grandparents, and he was fine, didn't bat an eye, but when I called to check in his second night away, I couldn't stop crying. I'm his mother! I'm supposed to be able to protect him from everything! I should be stronger than a virus! And I missed him, too!
I drove over to their house to spend just 15 minutes with him last Wednesday night before he collapsed in the crib he has over there. My in-laws live about an hour and a half from where I work. I still had to go home after that and tend to my husband and make dinner and clean and then spend two hours on the computer working on Style Lush stuff.
I left feeling raw, tired, stretched thin, empty. I don't like leaving my son places, and no matter how right it is, that lonely walk to the car punches me in the gut every single time. It's why I hate doing the day care drop-off. Because of that five-second walk to the car.
This was all before I got an e-mail from a woman I loosely work with that basically said, "I don't think you can handle being a working mother. You should re-think things. For everyone's sake."
I broke down in a way I haven't since Kyle was first born when I threw a water bottle so hard across the house, the lid flew off. I was angry this woman would even imply what she was implying -- that I'm incapable of handling the responsibilities that are very much mine, but I was angrier still that my fears -- that I'm failing across the board -- were articulated and realized by someone other than the voice inside my head.
It's not that I don't get intense joy out of the things I do in my life -- I love my day job, I love my family, I love my side projects, I love making Kyle's bottle every morning at 6:30 a.m. and watching him FREAK THE HELL OUT because breakfast! breakfast! OMG! I'm so excited! Gimme! Gimme! I love life! Still, It's very easy to lose my footing every now and then, and it's also very easy to be caught off guard and hurt when some woman who has never actually met me in the flesh flippantly decides I suck at it all.
More than all that, why did I -- for a brief, insecure instant -- believe her?
I continually wonder when I'm going to feel like I have this whole adult thing down. When does life feel like a routine and not a crazed acid trip? How does one become more grounded and confident as more and more people judge and question? It's tough, yo. No way around that.
As a mother you're built up, torn down, exhausted, vulnerable, exposed and the dishes still need to be done every single night. No one sends you flowers for just getting your shit done even though it feels like a damn feat every time you do. I made it another day and everything got finished, cleaned, figured out and everyone got fed. WHERE IS MY PARADE?
We're all doing it, so that would be a lot of fucking parades, but I still feel like I've earned one. With fireworks, even.
I commute. I think I've mentioned that a time or 2 million. When I pull into our beautiful, peaceful drive, Mike flings the door open, either holding Kyle or with Kyle on his shoulders, and they both break into a grin. Kyle starts kicking his legs and then there's Molly, zipping around my legs, knocking my purse off my shoulder. I kiss them all, each one, and Mike hands me our grinning boy, and he starts to tell me about his day, by saying, "da da da baaaaah da."
"I missed you, buddy. Are you ready for dinner?"
I don't sit down for another hour or so because the night routine is mine, I won't give that up for anything in the world. I feed him, bathe him, change him, read to him, love on him and then put him to bed. This time of day -- the witching hour -- when so many moms feel rightfully frayed after an insane day of demands is my favorite time of day. I won't let Mike do it, as selfish as that sounds. It's mine. All mine.
It's not a parade, but it's better. It's not a pat on the back, but it's perspective.
The rest of life can still blow, and my skin is so damn thin, I sometimes think it's translucent. This welcome-home time doesn't make the rest of it easy, it just makes the rest of it irrelevant for at least an hour every night. I don't know if I'll ever figure out how to feel confident and good at all the things I do, love, work at. At my core, I have some deep-rooted insecurity issues that are both unfortunate and normal. I don't know if I'll ever stop needing to write posts like this to talk myself off the metaphorical ledge.
I do know that no matter how hard things were last week, this week was better, and that's just how it goes. Up, down, back, forth, grimy view, silver lining, bitchy stranger, beautiful son, so on and so on.
Seems like as good a time as any to get away for the weekend. Mike and I are heading to Vegas, to try and win big, so we can move our little family to St. John and be done with the rest of it all. Or, you know, win a little, so we can enjoy the fancy kind of vodka when life gets as life sometimes gets.