10.20.23

I feel like a bad mother.

Im so tired and frustrated. I don’t get any help. S goes out of town and the response is always the same..

“It’s for work!” As if I’m being unreasonable in not wanting to care for three small children nonstop for days on end. Im left to do a crazy balancing act, I get overwhelmed, they do something developmentally appropriate, and I yell.

I yelled at M for dumping rocks onto the table after I JUST told her we would look at them on the table outside. I needed to make lunch and O was screaming in the bouncer to be picked up. H grabbed rocks off the table and started throwing them and I lost it. I pushed her hands away and moved her from the table.

M then goes “why are you being so mean?”

Why?! Because you don’t listen at all and do the very thing I just asked you not to. Because I am totally alone, haven’t had a break and have no backup. Everything is on me. I have to figure out how to feed all of you while the baby screams. I didn’t say all of this but got do I feel it.

Then we have S who is so blissfully unaware of how taxing all of this is. But, in perfect double standard, he will get flustered and annoyed within 30 mins of doing primary care for them.

I’m supposed to do all of this, miss out on common needs such as showering and still somehow be up for having cookouts and spending time with “friends.” I should also be enthusiastic for sex. I don’t want to do any of that because I do not feel loved. Like, at all. I feel used and misunderstood. I’m going to bed early tonight. My eyes are burning.

10.18.23

Today O turned 13 weeks old. He’ll officially be 3 months tomorrow. That is also J’s second birthday. I think I’ll have the girls do a little video and send it to L. She texted me one of the iPhone memory videos of M, when she was a toddler. She seems so big now, looking back.

I’m feeling so out of touch right now. I’m tired and frustrated from feeling like I have to do everything with such little help. It’s easy and hard all at once. In the moment, I can become so exasperated and flustered. Then later I think “wow I can’t believe you got so worked up over that!” I’m trying so hard to be a good mom and I get angry with myself for falling short. S is helpful, as far as husband’s go. But, realistically, he’ll never know how insane this whole experience has been for me.

Becoming a mother has been so intense. So much of the time I feel like I have whiplash. I’ll sit and look at my beautiful children and think “wow we actually have three kids! That happened so quick!” It doesn’t feel that long ago that we were riding our bikes up to the bar together, playing pool and getting totally drunk off of cheap pitchers of beer. Best friends in boozing. I know it probably isn’t a good thing we used to drink so much, but I can’t say I have bad memories from that time. We had so much fun together and out with friends. It feels like it was yesterday, not years ago.

But that time is also riddled with so much loss and sadness. At times, I can’t even begin to process losing my parents. I get frustrated with myself for ruminating on the same shit over and over again. When will the book feel closed? When can I move on?

I think I need to stop looking at Reddit. It would probably also help to not read about celebrities lives. How completely ridiculous. But, to my credit, I did read that we find celebrity lifestyle information so enthralling because we are a social species and, like apes, we feel drawn to knowing about others in our pack. It is imperative for survival to befriend others and to know members’ qualities and characters. We don’t actually know celebrities and never will, but because they are “everywhere” we feel drawn to knowing more.

Anyway, all this to say I’m almost done with Jessica Simpson’s memoir. Having read Pamela Anderson’s and now hers, I have to say they are both complex, empathic, and kind women. It’s awful to know they were treated so badly and thought of so negatively. I made my own shallow assumptions. At the end of the day, all people are people. No one is immune to life’s struggles and pains.