Do you ever feel so emotionally raw from dealing with the people in your house that you feel unable to cope with “real life?” I am so there.
I can’t watch the news. I don’t want to hear about children dying in cars, I don’t want to think about the President or what’s happening at the border. Anything that requires extra thought or emotional energy, I don’t want to know it. And if it’s too late, I want to un-know it.
The other night I was completely shredded mentally and emotionally from dealing with Maverick. He’s a difficult, smart, hilarious, handful of almost-six years. When Maverick is awake, you know it. When Maverick is upset or bored or happy, you know it. He shouts every emotion and thought from the rooftops. EVERYTHING IS LOUD. EVERYTHING IS HARD. This type of child is really, truly exhausting to parent. If you don’t have a kid like this, you might think you understand.
Nope. You don’t.
I could write pages and pages about this topic alone — raising a so-called “spirited” child — but I can’t right now because raising my spirited child is sucking the life out of me. And also, would it be fair to him for me to tell the world about our struggles? No. Not yet, not until later on, when I have gotten out of the thick of things and I can see better. Right now I don’t have perspective, I just know it’s ass-hard, and people who have never met us would unfairly assume that he’s a sociopathic brat and/or I’m a horrible mother.
Anyway, I’d had a rough day. Robbie got home and turned on a movie called “Gravity.” Have you seen it? It’s about astronauts being lost in space and I could not handle it. I want to un-know that debris can hit a space station and kill astronauts, and that a person can just bob away in space, gone forever. I’d never thought about that happening. I’d like to never think of it again, but oops, it’s too late.
I now know something I want to un-know.
Robbie said something like, “You’re so much more sensitive to stuff than you used to be,” as I sobbed because Sandra Bullock was flying through the air, grabbing at things, failing to get a hold of the space shuttle. I just knew she was a goner.
YES, I AM. I am more sensitive. I am more exhausted. I am an emotionally-raw person who shouldn’t be allowed to interact with others or have access to the internet. So many moms in this same season of life talk about how becoming a mom has made them feel lobotomized, like they can no longer carry on normal conversation or even act like a normal human being.
It’s because we’re just way more of everything. Whatever I was before has been amplified, good and bad. I’m way more of a mess, and I pour way more of myself into raising my kids to be good people than I even realized I had to begin with.
So. While I may not have the answers to anything I’ve lamented above, hear this: I’m never, ever going into outer space.
Ever.
Thank you, but no thank you.
Modern Mommy Madness 