It’s a Damn Good Thing I Didn’t Know What I Didn’t Know

Contrary to popular belief, I did not go into motherhood blindly.

 

I’d had some experience with child-rearing.  I’d done way more than my fair share of looking after my younger siblings as a kid.  I’d watched friends of mine raise their own babies.  I knew I’d be tired.  (I had no way of knowing about the post-traumatic stress disorder-ish state that extreme lack of sleep can put you into, but I knew I’d be tired.)  I knew there’d be frustration.  I even knew there’d be sacrifice.

 

But what I really, really couldn’t imagine, the thing that would cause absolute horror to creep into my heart?

 

When I get sick, no one cares.

 

I am not stating it in a martyrish way.  I can’t fault anyone for it.  I’ve come to accept it as fact.

 

But when I get sick, I’m on my own.

 

No relatives to swoop in and take my kids away.  A self-employed husband, and if he’s not working, I’m not eating (Although as I sit here trying not to vomit into a wastebasket, I really don’t give a flying fence post whether I ever eat again.  But I have to believe that will change, soon).  Volunteer commitments that don’t run if I don’t show up.  And children who need me.

 

Man, do they need me.

 

They’re not inhuman little monsters, or anything.  They’re not completely without compassion.  But when I try to explain that Mommy is sick, they get an expression on their face, as if I’ve just told them that the GDP of Uruguay last year was $32 billion.

 

They’ve heard what I’ve said.  They’re not disputing that what I’ve told them is a fact.  They just don’t see how it’s germaine to their little lives, or how it accounts for the fact that the peanut butter sandwich they requested 2 WHOLE MINUTES AGO has not materialized.

 

So while I’m busy shifting paradigms to get me through this (I can leave the house a mess, I can screen my calls, and I can eat nothing but carbs because they’re the only thing that doesn’t make me want to hurl, because god dammit I am sick), maybe you should read someone else’s blog.

 

Because in the last little while, some people I know have written some stuff that will knock your mother lovin’ socks off (provided you’re in a part of the world experiencing sock-necessitating weather).

 

Kitty at The Show Must Go On wrote Patience SVP.

 

Mongoliangirl at The Cusp wrote The Seventeen Acres:  “Yes, but not forever.”

 

Rassles at Sometimes I Make Lists wrote Self-Diagnosis is Never a Good Idea.

 

Sulya at i am the octopus wrote this and this and this and this.  (She’s been dizzyingly proficient, lately.)

 

And Blues at Blues of a Waxwing rendered me speechless with The souls of everyday objects.

 

So while I’m having my pity party over here, go.  Go read and enjoy and comment.  I’ll be fine. 

 

Don’t worry about me. 

 

Really.