I was feeling a bit blue for the past few days for no reason.
And no, it had nothing to do with my blue feathers in my hair – har de har har.
I just felt kind of blegh as I trudged through life, which isn’t too typical of me. Usually I can let the bad roll off and go back to my happy self pretty quickly. It may have been a moody thing or perhaps the 10 different tiny things currently weighing on my mind merged together to overwhelm me.
Either way, I was feeling down with life when the perfect phrase came to mind. I loved it so much that I scribbled it down on a piece of paper in my car:
Struggling Against the Confines of Motherhood
Don’t get me wrong. I love Jack with a fierce mama bear kind of love that just keeps growing every day. We totally planned for him and are absolutely freaking thrilled that he’s here with us in our lives. He’s a pretty easy baby (most of the time) who we bring with us everywhere – restaurants, shopping, wine festivals…you name it. He’s even sleeping through the night most nights (he still likes to test me every couple weeks by waking up at 3am a few nights in a row), so I’m back on a normal person sleeping schedule.
With all that said, he’s still our responsibility 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And sometimes, it feels a little bit overwhelming.
Now, before you respond with “Now Joules, you knew that kids were hard work before you had one,” let me respond with: I KNOW! And I knew what I was getting myself into. And I LOVE my baby.
But sometimes it would be nice to have just a teeny little bit of time to myself.
Now I do go to work four days each week, where someone else is taking care of Jack. I fully understand that stay-at-home-mom’s don’t have that luxury to get out of the house. However, when I’m at work I’m pretty much working hard and not off on my own getting a pedicure or something. Since Jack came home from the hospital, I have literally had one day on my own to do what I wanted all by myself. And in truth, it wasn’t even a whole day – I went to a movie (The Hunger Games) and Homegoods with a friend and then returned home.
So, when I say struggling against the confines of motherhood – I mean that sometimes I do feel like I’ve suddenly been bound into a life of being “Mom” all the time. And a little piece of me wants to run. Just run off on my own for a little bit.
Anyways, I shook my blueness and I’m back to normal now. But I do realize that sometimes I really do need to give myself a break. I’m going to a conference all by myself for a couple days at the beginning of August, and I plan to fully revel in that empty hotel room. Of course, I’ll probably be calling my husband and baby every two hours, because the whole other side is greener thing.
Of course, it still wouldn’t hurt to line up a babysitter so that my husband and I could have a day to ourselves…