Desperation Confession

I've become that mother - the mother I never wanted to be. I am sitting here, shamelessly eating a ridiculous amount of potato salad, listening to my daughter scream from her crib, and blogging instead of studying for my exam, working, cleaning the bathroom, and doing the dishes.

I have hit that point where I say, "That's it! I don't care anymore! Go ride your bicycle off the roof if you want to, go eat a whole box of twinkies, and throw a ball in the house, but just give me ten minutes of peace."

To me, having an hour to sit in the mall and people-watch sounds like a party. I am tired of being alone in the house all day, I am tired of calling everyone I have known since the fourth grade only to hear they can't talk, and I am tired of binging on fattening carbs to try and mask my emotional pain.

Today, I am just plain tired of being a mom trapped in this small apartment. Gone are the days of flirting with so-and-so while we crammed for a final, gone are the days of only binging for social purposes, gone are the days of romantic late night walks, sleeping in until ten, and being surrounded by friends 24/7.

When I had Jo I promised myself I would never have a day where I wanted to throw down the laundry basket, dig out a pair of high heels, and run until I found my freedom again. But, like most, this promise has been broken.

I feel like the walls of my life have been imperceptibly shrinking in closer and closer until now I am trapped in a suffocating closet of chores, dinner, diapers, and penny-pinching. I can feel the cheerios creeping up higher and higher, trying to suffocate me.

I am desperate to scream "Let me out!" But afraid of screaming too loudly or the perfectionist who lives next door might judge me as an unfit mother. Instead, what comes out is a meager "I'm just tired" when Jordan asks me what is wrong.

But I can't take it anymore! If I sit here in silence, stuffing myself with potato salad and Oreos for one more day, I'm going to end up as one of those women Mormons talk about all hush-hush. "She just went crazy one day and left. Leaving her poor husband and five angelic boys without a note - No, she says she won't come back." Then they act all surprised! As if they can't believe she didn't love getting up at six every morning, continually folding laundry, and only getting a seven minute shower before someone screamed about soccer practice.

So I am going to say it - Loud and clear - BEING A MOM IS REALLY HARD!!! Spending day after day at home with a teething baby is emotionally, physically, and mentally draining. Everyone who works acts like you have all this time to paint your nails, soak in the tub, and do yoga in your living room. They don't realize that sometimes you can't even think straight there is so much to do.

They don't realize that some days I desperately wish I worked outside of the home; so when my husband pulls in at night I am not tempted to grab the car keys and book it to the Canadian border.

Sometimes I wish I could just dissolve into nothingness and not be ridden with guilt about the dirty floor, the dirty clothes, or the dirty diaper. To *poof* disappear and have no one know.

And the really sad part is, I don't even have anyone to tell this to! I call my husband, he is busy with a client, I call my mom, she is busy packing, I call my friend, she has to put her kid down for a nap, I call my sister, she is at gymnastics practice. So in a desperate attempt for communication I sit down and write a blog post about it! I sit down, and silently tell my keyboard - an inanimate object - that today was really bad. And that all I want is one good reason to put on makeup.

I feel isolated, exhausted, and ridiculously pathetic. I'm losing my sanity, and have eaten so much potato salad I feel sick.

There you have it. Call me a bad mom if you like, say I am a failure, fervently remind me of all the reasons I am so lucky, and reassure me that I am wasting time moping and missing out on these "precious moments that pass so quickly". Judge me all you want - you have my permission.

But, would you mind stopping by to do it? I could use the company.

He Calls Us By Name - Not Number

Being normal is not one of my strengths. The first sixteen years of my life I tried desperately to look like everyone else, to talk like everyone else, to dress like everyone else, and to act like everyone else. Then I attended Perpich Center for the Arts Education - a breeding ground for weirdos. And I finally realized that I could be as odd as I pleased without forgoing any chance at success. Now I try to be exactly who I want to be every day. But that doesn't mean I always want to be the same person.

I think one of my favorite hobbies is trying to continually reinvent myself. In high school I was the obsessive artist. Constantly working on my creations, going a week without showering, glorying in blistered feet, wearing the oddest arrangement of second-hand clothing I could find, eating no meat, and fighting the evils of global warming.

Today I am very different. I rarely find time to create anything other than a spotless bathroom, I still don't like showering, but I do it regularly out of common courtesy for my fellow men, I am terrified of blisters, I opt for the very plain t-shirt and jeans, I love hamburger, and think the warmer it gets the better!

I do not blame this strange phenomenon on identity confusion or personality crisis. Instead, I have realized that none of these things make me ME. No matter what I choose to eat or wear, I can never remove God's permanent stamp that labels me "worthwhile." Worthwhile enough that the God of heaven and earth would descend below all things for my sake.

I think my greatest struggle is believing what I just said. (Yes - I am a raging hypocrite.) Jordan sometimes comes home to find me crying over my uselessness. I often refer to myself as "a worthless lump that will never accomplish anything." I say there is no point to my existence, I shouldn't have been born, or I wish I could disappear and stop failing everyone. Jordan, of coarse, responds in the most Christlike manner and reminds me of God's opinion of me, and my irreversible eternal nature. 99.9% of the good things you read on this blog are things Jordan has taught me. And 100% of the bad stuff is from me.

No one is useless. I used to think that was another way of saying everyone is useless. If all of us were special, then none of us could be special. But this is so wrong and twisted. Every single one of us is a son or daughter of God. The children of a loving Heavenly Father with infinite love for us individually.

Would I ever love Josephine less because I might have another baby? Does any mother say "Oh that one isn't important, I've got seven more." No. Every woman knows she would instantly give her life for each and every one of her children. Whether they were the first, third, or seventeenth.

God is the exact same way. Except that he is way cooler. So he would just as readily give his life for the first, one-thousandth, or ninety-seven-billionth child of his creation. He actually already did that.


We are not human number 7685 to him. God calls us by name. Whether it be Kayleen, Julie, Benjamin, or Smerdyakov. And he has blessed all of us with the most sacred name he could give us - "my child."

I am sure I will have more days when I am overwhelmed with feelings of uselessness and I refer to myself as "the lump." But I know that God loves me, and I know that Christ died for me, ans that "uselessness" is a lie Satan has created to tear me away from love.

He calls us by name - not by number.

LIFE!

I never write anymore. I never seem to have the time. I have four chapters of Physical Science homework to work on right now, I have plenty of work to do for the baby shower I am hosting this weekend, I have a test on Friday, and Jo is eating a Christmas bow. I wish life would just give me a second to sit down, relax, and feel like I have finished my long list of tasks.

Life will never do that though, instead, it will only give me more and more balls to juggle as time goes on. I am somewhat devastated by this truth. I love to write, I love to dance, I love to see plays and I love to read. None of these things have been happening lately though. I am drowning in a mess of unimportant chores that MUST be done, and assignments that make me despise General Education credits.

I believe that in a way, everyone is an author. The most important book you will ever write is the one in which you live. The current chapter of my incredible novel is entitled, "Drowning Mother Enjoys the Swim." I am trying so hard to be Mother-of-the-Millenium, but it is not going well. My daughter gets a bath about once a week, if we are lucky, it looks like an atomic Cheerio bomb landed in my living room, and I am wondering if I should check myself into the mental hospital. Jordan comes home to domestic mayhem after twelve hours of work every day and smiles - don't ask me why.

When I imagined myself in this stage of life I imagined everything perfect. I thought that I would be perfect, I thought my child would be perfect, I thought dinner would always be a masterpiece, and no speck of dust would be found anywhere. I also imagined my husband as perfect, but he pretty much is, so that worked out well.

I am beginning to realize that no chapter of my live novel will ever contain perfection. And this is starting to scare me a bit. There will always be crumbs on the couch, and someone will be screaming, and I will never master the art of grilled cheese. My cupcakes will always look like frosting throw-up, and the bags under my eyes are permanent.

With this realization comes a need for game-plan reconstruction. I spend so much time trying to reach the unattainable I don't enjoy the real-life that surrounds me. Yes, Jo's face has booger crusties on it, but she also has a stunning smile on. Dinner may look like camel excrement, but at least I get to share it with my wonderful family. My hair is an eternal disaster of frizz, but I love the way it feels when Jordan runs his fingers through it.

Things don't have to be perfect in order for them to be right. What makes something perfect is not the quality it posesses, but the quality you assign to it. What I choose to see is what will be there before me. Now all I have to do is get my eyesight fixed. Something easier said than done.

I am predicting that this will be a life-long struggle for me. There is too much of my grandma running through my veins for me to be comfortable with the less than ideal. When we clean her house she says, "Now, does it look like we could have the Queen of England over?" Well, in her case it does, she routinely washes her cupboards. But in my case, the Queen of England hasn't returned any of my calls, so maybe I should stop prepping for that.

Life is a mess, and it will always be a mess. If it wasn't that way, then it wouldn't be life. I am off to go revel in my unswept floor, get a four out of five on my Physical Science quiz, and hold my crying baby.

CHEERS!!!