Until now, I always got by on my own
Being a mom is interesting. Aside from the poop and boogers and vomit and strange objects scattered throughout my house the mere act of being takes a good amount of adjustment. For me in particular I am a loner. I like being alone. I like being with my thoughts. I am a classic textbook boring introvert. I'm not shy, I'm not timid, I just like being alone because being alone is comforting and relaxing and recharging and I don't have to worry about being judged for saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong thing, or being "too much" of whatever is not desirable to others.
But when you're a mother you are never alone. I have kids hanging off me from the moment I wake up until the moment I can finally allow my head to hit my pillow. When my children are at my parents house I worry about them being fed garbage for 3 hours and then having to talk them down from their sugar induced insanity. When I am at work I worry about if my husband remembered to pack our son's library book in his bag so he can take a new one out with the rest of his class. I never get the chance to truly be alone with myself and my thoughts and selfishly recharge because they are always with me.
I know, it sounds like a 'woe is me' jag, but it's not. I went in mentally prepared but it was still hard and I don't think there's any shame in admitting it. I like being alone and cooking alone or cleaning alone or shopping alone or peeing alone because it's kind of zen to just do a task quietly and reflectively. I don't often get any of those moments to myself anymore. My two year old literally asks to sit down on my lap when I'm in the bathroom. It's strange to have pretty much every last bit of my privacy taken away as though I am a prisoner in my own life. To complain about it or just point it out means I'm acknowledging it and acknowledging it means I don't cast it away in a corner as a shameful thing. I often wish I was an extrovert thinking parenting may be a lot easier. If you feel energized by people then tiny energizer bunny children running underfoot is probably a great time, right?
I take my online privacy very seriously because I have no real life privacy and I haven't been posting because sometimes the things I'm thinking end up sounding very preachy or personal and you don't own me and I don't owe you anything of myself. I voluntarily share because I think it's part of the human condition. I think it's important to express our shared humanity rather than sharing trash about celebrities or bashing one another anonymously on forums or voyeuristically looking at pictures of a friend of a friend on facebook and feeling as though you have any right to know anything about them. You don't. You don't have a right to judge your cousin's husband's old college roommate because you don't really know them or their backstory. It's all fake anyway. All the smiley pictures and happy posts accumulate into a story that isn't entirely real. Sure parts of it are but there are huge parts deleted out WaterGate style.
Did you read/watch "Gone Girl"? I read it and was really intrigued by the "he said/she said" dynamic that the story had. Because each person's story was self-serving and thus, in the end you had to readjust your perception of what the truth was because obviously they both lied. I don't know how successfully that played out movie-wise but in the book Nick literally drops a bombshell and then asks the reader if we hate him for keeping it a secret for so long. And that's how I feel about social media. What is left unsaid is the truth and what is said can very well be a lie because the person is so afraid of being judged as a bad person. I feel manipulated by it and thus disgusted. I'll never really "know" what's going on in my friends lives if I depend on just what they post because it's nothing. It's the fluffy good nice things that ever get posted. Not that I need to roll around in people's misfortunes but life is more than smiling happy photoshopped thigh gaps and meaningless memes that get reposted over and over again. I am too lazy to add filters or photoshop out zits so you'll be happy to know it's all naturale. That cellulite? It's mine. I earned it.
On a total side note I devoured "Gone Girl" in a few days so I had to go back to a few excerpts to really absorb them. Sometimes when I do something too quickly I miss the nuances so by the second run through I caught a lot more of the scattered "clues" to what was real versus fake. I'm not really much of a mystery/thriller reader but I think the husband wife dynamic kept me interested because obviously I'm in a romantic pairing and the things that are closest to us tend to keep us more invested. Amy Dunne's "Cool Girl" diatribe in particular is amazing. Sure she's no role model but I think everyone can take something away from that little gem of dating and relationship knowledge because it's pretty spot on. She's a smart powerful female character so I think she really wins it for me because I somehow manage to both despise her and admire her perseverance. Maybe that's just me? I like someone who "owns" her crazy. Read the book, it's weird but a page turner.
My husband was not satisfied by the story, but the male character gets put through the ringer and there seemingly is nothing resolved except that we can imagine him being put through it again and again in different ways. Again, the things closest to us tend to dictate how we feel about the story so that lack of resolution really made him uncomfortable. I found that since it was a character driven story anyway that the ending was not the point but the tango between personalities that was the true star of the story. In reality the struggle between two strong personalities never really has an ending, right? It's just an ongoing thing. Anyway, I probably should just join a book club if I'm going to be ranting but the thought of forcing my way through a horrible book because 10 other women like it makes me kind of annoyed. I guess living in an on-demand generation I prefer to just do the things I want and fast forward through the muck.
But when you're a mother you are never alone. I have kids hanging off me from the moment I wake up until the moment I can finally allow my head to hit my pillow. When my children are at my parents house I worry about them being fed garbage for 3 hours and then having to talk them down from their sugar induced insanity. When I am at work I worry about if my husband remembered to pack our son's library book in his bag so he can take a new one out with the rest of his class. I never get the chance to truly be alone with myself and my thoughts and selfishly recharge because they are always with me.
I know, it sounds like a 'woe is me' jag, but it's not. I went in mentally prepared but it was still hard and I don't think there's any shame in admitting it. I like being alone and cooking alone or cleaning alone or shopping alone or peeing alone because it's kind of zen to just do a task quietly and reflectively. I don't often get any of those moments to myself anymore. My two year old literally asks to sit down on my lap when I'm in the bathroom. It's strange to have pretty much every last bit of my privacy taken away as though I am a prisoner in my own life. To complain about it or just point it out means I'm acknowledging it and acknowledging it means I don't cast it away in a corner as a shameful thing. I often wish I was an extrovert thinking parenting may be a lot easier. If you feel energized by people then tiny energizer bunny children running underfoot is probably a great time, right?
I take my online privacy very seriously because I have no real life privacy and I haven't been posting because sometimes the things I'm thinking end up sounding very preachy or personal and you don't own me and I don't owe you anything of myself. I voluntarily share because I think it's part of the human condition. I think it's important to express our shared humanity rather than sharing trash about celebrities or bashing one another anonymously on forums or voyeuristically looking at pictures of a friend of a friend on facebook and feeling as though you have any right to know anything about them. You don't. You don't have a right to judge your cousin's husband's old college roommate because you don't really know them or their backstory. It's all fake anyway. All the smiley pictures and happy posts accumulate into a story that isn't entirely real. Sure parts of it are but there are huge parts deleted out WaterGate style.
Did you read/watch "Gone Girl"? I read it and was really intrigued by the "he said/she said" dynamic that the story had. Because each person's story was self-serving and thus, in the end you had to readjust your perception of what the truth was because obviously they both lied. I don't know how successfully that played out movie-wise but in the book Nick literally drops a bombshell and then asks the reader if we hate him for keeping it a secret for so long. And that's how I feel about social media. What is left unsaid is the truth and what is said can very well be a lie because the person is so afraid of being judged as a bad person. I feel manipulated by it and thus disgusted. I'll never really "know" what's going on in my friends lives if I depend on just what they post because it's nothing. It's the fluffy good nice things that ever get posted. Not that I need to roll around in people's misfortunes but life is more than smiling happy photoshopped thigh gaps and meaningless memes that get reposted over and over again. I am too lazy to add filters or photoshop out zits so you'll be happy to know it's all naturale. That cellulite? It's mine. I earned it.
On a total side note I devoured "Gone Girl" in a few days so I had to go back to a few excerpts to really absorb them. Sometimes when I do something too quickly I miss the nuances so by the second run through I caught a lot more of the scattered "clues" to what was real versus fake. I'm not really much of a mystery/thriller reader but I think the husband wife dynamic kept me interested because obviously I'm in a romantic pairing and the things that are closest to us tend to keep us more invested. Amy Dunne's "Cool Girl" diatribe in particular is amazing. Sure she's no role model but I think everyone can take something away from that little gem of dating and relationship knowledge because it's pretty spot on. She's a smart powerful female character so I think she really wins it for me because I somehow manage to both despise her and admire her perseverance. Maybe that's just me? I like someone who "owns" her crazy. Read the book, it's weird but a page turner.
My husband was not satisfied by the story, but the male character gets put through the ringer and there seemingly is nothing resolved except that we can imagine him being put through it again and again in different ways. Again, the things closest to us tend to dictate how we feel about the story so that lack of resolution really made him uncomfortable. I found that since it was a character driven story anyway that the ending was not the point but the tango between personalities that was the true star of the story. In reality the struggle between two strong personalities never really has an ending, right? It's just an ongoing thing. Anyway, I probably should just join a book club if I'm going to be ranting but the thought of forcing my way through a horrible book because 10 other women like it makes me kind of annoyed. I guess living in an on-demand generation I prefer to just do the things I want and fast forward through the muck.