Friday, February 11, 2011

Hard knock life

Eh, that's a wee bit dramatic.  It is not a hard knock life, this life I've got.  But for all the "how do you do it with twins?" questions I get, I have to admit, having twins is not the hard part of being a mom.  Or a stay at home mom, anyway.  The hard part is the lack of socialization with other adults.  I moved from Memphis, TN to little tiny Cascilla, MS because I had this desire to strip myself away from over socialization (that and the desire to be close to Joe as soon as humanly possible).  I was one of those people who checked their phones for text messages non-stop.  To the point that everyone pointed it out all the time.  I felt nervous when I was alone.  I was always out, doing something, no matter how tired I was or how early I needed to get up the next morning.  It got to the point where I was late all the time and I was becoming this social monster that couldn't live without "something" to do.  I made myself busier than I ever needed to be and completely surrendered my sanity.  So it's weird now that I'm on the opposite end of that pendulum.

I don't want my old life back.  Let me just make that clear.  I love where I live, I love my husband and my kids, I still see friends from time to time.  Life as it is, is good.  But life can be good and hard at the same time, ya know?  It's hard to be inside my head all day.  I spend the entire day with two (beautiful) little people who can't talk.  And even if they could, they'd hardly be the people I vented my frustrations to.  Or talked to about stuff...adults talk about, seeing as how they are not adults and won't be for awhile.  It's easy to let demons in my head because it's hard to keep my head busy.  As a creative person, I can create all kinds of stuff in my mind and send myself into an absolute frenzy. It's not good.  And I feel like I'm losing control of it sometimes.  In all the time I spent preparing myself for sleepless nights and dirty diapers and even the things I didn't prepare for, like Charlie's surgeries, I never even thought about how absolutely lonely being a stay at home mom can be.  You're so busy the whole day.  You never really stop moving and doing.  Still, it is completely lonesome.  I find it makes me more paranoid and emotional.  I'm not a fan of that.

That is, in part, why I wanted to start this blog.  As a means of having someone to talk to.  Some days it's hard to find the time to even write, but it's nice to have that place to channel things. 

I was watching one of my new favorite shows, Raising Hope, the other night and in the episode, Jimmy, a single dad and the main character, is talking about how hard it is to be social when you've got a kid.  You pretty much have to socialize with other parents because they're the only ones that truly understand what this life is like and the only ones who actually do want to talk about babies non-stop (I find friends who don't have kids can only be good sports about hearing about your kid teething for so long).

Here's the episode if you've got free time and you life to laugh.

I'm just glad I'm not the only one.

2 comments:

  1. Agree!!! I'm by no means alone, but if it weren't for Facebook and blog comment checks throughout the day I'd sure feel that way. I hope I don't forget HOW to interact with adults!! Kinda like how I hope I don't forget how to drive.

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  2. There seems to be a lot of this going around these days. I read a lot of parents suddenly realizing (or at least affirming) their social lives have changed dramatically since they had a child.

    I honestly don't need to socialize often (ever ... okay, that's a lie) but I know it's going to get hard for Carey. I keep telling myself that 'family' is all one really needs as they get older but deep down, I know it's just not true.

    Carey just had the realization last night that we are soon to be (mostly) alone here in Chicago. Again, slightly over-dramatic but our good friend Nick is moving, Carey's best friend AJ is headed back to California and that leaves only two or three people, not to mention the fact that we're about to have a child.

    I can't yet imagine the impact of such things but I know we will feel them.

    I'd think that, at first, when ones kids are young, it's hard to find time to spend with non-parent friends but as your child grows, I'm telling myself it'll get easier to mix the parents with the non-parents at things like cookouts or 'game nights.'

    ...
    So when do we come over?

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