05/30/2017
For the last few months I have gone through what probably was depression. I've been through these moods before but I became more aware of it this time around and I wanted to search for the reason and also find the solution. I would say that I was more aware of it this time around because of Mary Kay. I know that sounds weird but I was forced to really evaluate what I wanted and why I wasn't getting it. It helped me put me under the microscope.
Throughout my life I have done several different things and would be "happy" for awhile but I would always get bored with it or it stopped making me happy and I would stop doing it and move on to something else.
Through these few months I have been forced to self reflect and why I do what I do. Many things I have done to fill a hole. A hole left by what I would describe as my biggest failure, which is, not being able to have kids. Now, I understand it isn't a "failure", the logical side of my brain knows it isn't but the emotional side feels this way. Infertility is a heartache and an emotion that you can't understand unless you're living it or lived it. There is a feeling that you are broken and/or forgotten. It is especially apparent to someone like me who, for the whole of her life, knew her purpose was to be a mother. My self worth and my purpose were wrapped into this. It was my reason for being, so for many years, I would wait. "I'll do this or this until my real reason for being is fulfilled".
This is the hardest for me to let go of.
So for the last month I have been concentrating on 3 things, my mental, physical and spiritual health. It is a work in progress but I know I need to stop waiting cause that's just another term for wasting time.
---I want to add that this is NOT a woe is me post or the reason why I was depressed. My depression was a natural end to a pattern that I wittingly or unwittingly set for myself through out my life which is why I would go through bouts of depression and I was awakened to the necessity that I needed to change and those 3 things are my way of doing so---
07/26/2017
I may not be a mother in the physically giving birth way but I have helped raise 4 kids these last 9 years and have, in my mind, a pretty good grasp of what kind of mother I will be. A perfectly imperfect one. I was thinking of all the judgments spoken or unspoken toward parents today. It honestly is appalling that people call CPS for a child playing alone outside in their own yard to whenever something bad happens jump on the crucify the parents bandwagon without first knowing all the facts. I wouldn't consider myself a helicopter or lawnmower person. I simply use common sense. I once took all 4 kids to the zoo and we stopped and ate lunch. The youngest was still in a stroller but able to walk but I kept her in the stroller for the most part. After the kids finished I instructed them to go ahead and throw away their trash while I tended to the youngest. They did so and then stood by the fence where the play ground area was which was right behind us. They stood that way staring longingly until I was finished. There was a lady with a newborn behind me at another table with her back to the playground so she didn't see where the other 3 had gone. I stood up, cleaned up the left over trash and of course clean the youngest and I hear "where are your other kids?" I simply say "behind you" and she responds "Oh, I didn't see them" and added "I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing or something". I wasn't sure how to respond so I just said "thank you, I understand and we should all look out for each other, right" she replies "well, I don't know about that". Really? So why the h e double hockey sticks did you open your mouth to begin with lady? Another time I took them to a restaurant, my first ever doing so by myself. It was alright once we got settled but there was a couple behind us with only one child. When they saw me with them they said "wow, you're so brave with 4 we can barely handle the one" and proceeded to help me unasked with everything. Yes, it was very nice and I did appreciate it but it wasn't needed. I don't believe they were judging necessarily but I did think to myself, "do they think I am incapable" and "do I look as though I'm struggling". What is it about having more than 1 that cause people to think that someone isn't capable of handling it or shouldn't have more than 1 or 2? If you can't handle more than your 1 or 2, it doesn't mean everyone should be relegated to the same number of kids. Anyone with more than 1 or 2 kids out there think they are judged for the number of kids they have?
