Writing

I want so badly to write. To be a writer. Not necessarily to be published but to write. So many thoughts are swirling around in my head, scraps of paper are shoved into my desk, and I have an entire folder on my email dedicated to writing but why don't I do it? Why, because it's too heartbreaking, too open, too much for me. All that I want to write about is my life, mostly for baby G but for me too but I don't do it. Will it disappoint her, shadow what I mean to her?

I hear song lyrics like these that play over and over again in my head;

do the dirty work of battle hymns (Indigo Girls, Sugar Tongue)

the shadows lie long AND is there no master mind of modern day who can blueprint a plan to make love stay sturdy and weather proof, ushering in a new revolution (Indigo Girls, Love of Our Lives)

I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire that once burned out of control AND I'm living proof of the damage heartbreak does (Allison Krauss, Ghost in This House)

These words are utterly unbelievable. Maybe I don't write because I don't see that I can live up to words this powerful. Maybe they are only powerful for me because they have spoken to me at certain times in my life. The Allison Krauss song I first heard on my way down to pull the plug on my dad while he was in a coma. It reminded me so much of my parent's relationship and how much I have always felt I had been thrust into their lives at the most inopportune time. It spoke to me then as it speaks to me now, five years later. It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. Maybe in some ways I think writers are weak, putting it out there for all to see because it's too much to keep bottled up. Maybe they think, like I do, that they will sometimes burst if others don't hear what they've seen or done.

Maybe.

Parenting

Lately the ills of parenting have been shouted from the pages of magazines, such as Newsweek's "My Turn" and on TV...on Oprah for instance, with the authors of books such as "I'd Trade My Husband For a Housekeeper," and the star of the new show, In the Motherhood.

It's interesting to me that this is popping up as so many new (within the past 3 years) parents that I know, including myself, are miserable. Don't acquaint misery with love. We are all madly in love with our kids (I even cringe when I say my kid, my daughter, I'm her mom) but we are all 80-90% of the time miserable. Today when I told someone that I was laid off during my last week of maternity leave I realized I actually felt embarrased to admit that I had a kid. It made me feel like a fuddy duddy, like my actual hair color was white and I was constancly coloring it.

I am mourning my loss of freedom. I can't believe that we haven't been to a movie in months. I can't believe that when I'm sick or have cramps that I still have to cook, feed, and then clean up after another person when all I want to do is DIE! I feel guilty when I feed her vegetables and we are eating dinner from a brown paper bag. I put off easy chores, like going to the post office, because I dread getting her in and out of the car two, three, or four times. And the topper, I am not good with bodily fluids, I'm certain you all get what I'm saying.

I can't even lie anymore when people say how is it? Do you love it? I simply say, "No, it's actually pretty awful." Example, today baby G had her first ever eye appointment...I was dreading it but it was free as long as she was under 1...so we went. Luckily, I've been going to this same doctor for years so I know her and her office staff fairly well. They were excited to meet her and see how cute she was. She was her usual shy self, flirty but shy. Looking at you only when you aren't looking at her, etc... Until we went in for the appointment. She was fine at first, watched the toys as the doctor noted her peripheral vision and her ability to follow the light or toy as it was at that moment. But then she needed the drops, you know the ones to dilate your eyes. It was hell! I held her down for the drops, she got them and was happy for about 1.2 seconds and then, she became Beelzebub. Her head was flipping from side to side, it could have been spinning all the way around for all I could see, because there was snot smeared across my shirt, hair ripped from head, and my shirt might as well have been on the floor as she yanked it down to expose my faded black bra. Did you all catch the bit about the SNOT! There were wet streaks of tears and snot on my shoulders, on my sleeves, and apparently on my back because the doctor was nice enough to wipe it off. Again I say miserable.

I would like to reiterate here that I have never been, or don't think I will ever be so in love with anyone or anything but I think I'd like to have my hysterectomy now, thank you.