Lonely and Mothering

I struggle with friendship. I don't make friends easily and I don't do well with casual relationships. I want to share my heart. I long to be seen. I delve deep and fall hard and love passionately. I am hesitant to reach out and slow to respond. The "normal" routes for creating relationship (mom groups, women's groups at church, even our small group) just leave me feeling awkward and wanting more. I was touched by this post by Emerging Mummy: In which I write a letter to Womens' Ministry. I want for, long for, a community of women to live and love with. 


I am lonely

We married young and moved a few times and most of the close friendships I have are now long-distance. Reaching out and calling and writing are not things I do well remembering. So life-giving conversations are few and far between. I am blessed to have married a man who has become my best friend. But there is only so much baggage and conversation a good man can manage. I've learned quickly that every though and every feeling does not need to be shared. We are happier when he is not my only friend.

I did not have a good model for making friends while growing up. My family was isolated, home schooled, counter-culture and my parents were introverts. Thinking back on it: our family friends decreased as I got older. I did not see my parents pursue and seek out friendships. They invested deeply in the few close ones they had and then slowly lost them.

Jugement and self-righteousness eat away at relationships. I struggle so mightily with these standards that seem "right" to me. I judge myself the hardest. And my lack of self-worth makes me put up a wall of my own negativity which effectively blocks those trying to reach out to me in friendship. I know I have failed to respond to some because I was too concerned by how well we might "fit" as friends and didn't open my heart to them.

I want to break through this wall of depression! I want to reach out to the image of myself that is reflected in Christ. I want to be the beauty that I know those few I hold dear see me as. I want to live like a person loved well because I AM. The darkness chokes me. Stifles life and hope. I rise up; willing myself to laugh and love and reach out. Then fall as those boney fingers of self-doubt and shear breathtaking tiredness drag me down.

I am a mother. I do not want to be a lonely one. I push and push and push. Trying to be enough and love enough and hide the darkness I feel in my soul because GOD I do not want to dampen these bright spirits with my own CRAP! I ask Jesus to hold me when I remember and I crash into this amazing Man who has held me through some of my darkest times. But it's not enough. I continue to return to the pigsty of depression. I know that this is not how I want to mother. I also know that I am doing a GREAT job. I am an incredible mom.

But it is taking everything that I have. Every ounce. I don't want to crash. Don't want to fail these little souls. I love these boys with everything that I am and I adore being their mother. They bring me joy in the darkness and they are a smile in the midst of my tears even today. I want to be more than this for them. I want to live fully. Not crippled and limping.

Knowledge is not enough. I see the patterns; know the triggers, am so damn self-aware! But that does not stop the flood of tears. It does not heal my heart. I know all the problems, see all the solutions, but I am paralyzed by fear.

I am afraid to hope. Afraid to fail. Desperately longing to be seen yet terrified of being found unappealing.

How do I move forward? How do you find the strength? I think I am, only to find myself here in the same cell of myself.


There is nothing contented about the state of my heart today. I feel more trepidation then anticipation.

My only prayer is this: Jesus hold me.


How do you fight isolation and loneliness as a mother? 

Control

I'm a bit of a control freak.

Nothing has made me see this more than becoming a parent (I should have noticed after marriage but I think I was turning a very blind eye - pretty sure Dan figured it out quickly...).

Take right now; R is eating a sandwich - incorrectly - (GASP!) I am annoyed. I really shouldn't care how he eats a sandwich. But I have been influencing his sandwich eating preferences since I handing him his first PB&J. For a while he would yell when it fell apart. (Because I had spent so much time putting them back together to minimize messes) He would say "NO, NO, NO! Fall 'Part!" "Put 'gether!" Then I got annoyed at his incessant complaining about the frail state of sandwiches. He has now moved past that stage and has adopted his own preferences for eating his PB&J. Sometimes they include pulling them apart and eating all the jelly before putting it back together to eat the rest. Or just eating each slice of bread separately. The Nerve!

Some lessons I learn very slowly.

Sometimes I think it's the frustration of being raised with so few guidelines and direction (we were free range kids to the max and I have some real issues with self-discipline), which causes me to worry about how R learns. I so want him to be given the tools to succeed and to thrive. But for whatever reason; I really must learn to stop imposing every preference of mine onto his little life - we would have a lot less power struggles that way.

The responsibility of nurturing and raising children lays so heavy sometimes. I was talking to Dan about my sandwich issues and his response was "Stop ruining him!" (not helpful). But it's so easy to feel like that's all on me (on us) and despair since I am continually failing to meet my own standards (much less anyone else's). One of my biggest frustrations is my anger at my own failures continually getting in the way of parenting well.

I keep coming back to Grace

I need to parent with more Grace - both for my children and for my husband and sometimes especially for myself. And I must give up control; this tight jawed, shoulder raised, frowny-faced attitude that causes me so much frustration. Deep Breaths...

A great moment from today: Picnic with my boys

Don't Label Me

I struggle with labels.

It seems once you attach one to yourself you are suddenly defined by that label and constrained by it or feel guilty for not living up to it's standards or trapped within it's limits. I've tried on a few labels in my life. I posed as a hippy for a while in high school and a punk type kid (sans the drugs and stuff). But I never really fit inside those labels or could never fit them inside of me.

I am a bit of a free spirit I guess... though lately I haven't been allowing myself that freedom.

What makes us feel that we need to fit some sort of mold? Mold sucks, it stinks and destroys stuff. I don't desire to be anything other than myself; yet so often I find myself acting in ways that are contrary to my heart. We are social people and we desire to fit somewhere; into a tribe or group. I desire so much to fit somewhere!

And I do: I fit well in my husbands arms. I fit well in my Savior's arms. That's going to have to be enough because I haven't found many other places I fit well without feeling like I'm stuffing back parts of who I am so I don't stick out. It's like having extra limbs you hide under clothing... they'd be so useful if you weren't so ashamed of them!

Here's one label I'm struggling with: Attachment Parenting

Let's start with a definition per wikipedia:

Attachment parenting, a phrase coined by pediatrician William Sears,^[1] is a parenting philosophy based on the principles of the attachment theory in developmental psychology. According to attachment theory, the child forms a strong emotional bond with caregivers during childhood with lifelong consequences. Sensitive and emotionally available parenting helps the child to form a secure attachment style which fosters a child's socio-emotional development and well being. 

Well, I can fit into that mold by that definition. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty of how practicing AP plays out in my everyday life I start to feel guilty or not quite good enough. What's up with that?

I am not perfect and I don't always like the way I parent, but there are days when I'm surfing other AP's blogs and just start feeling guilty... There can be so much flat out rejection and judgement spewed towards anyone who doesn't parent exactly as they do. So much extreem wording and blanket statements. I don't want to don that label if it means I am going to be measured by your standards.

I am trying, with all my being, to be sensitive and emotionally (and physically) available to my children. But I don't always play by the "rules" and I'm not totally sure wether I agree with all the rules or not or if I wish I did play by them. But I don't need more guilt in my life, no mother does.

I am going to parent with Grace. And I'm going to try and start that cycle by being gracious to myself as a parent (and to be gracious to other parents). I will continue to breastfeed (them both) and co-sleep and baby-wear. I will continue to try and release my unrealistic expectations of my children. But I'm not sure about other issues... methods of discipline for one. I'm still feeling those out. Parenting is an organic activity and I'm allowed to change my mind sometimes. There will still be days that I will say (like today); "no I'm not going to read to you right now, eat a cookie instead" and that's OK.

Here's to guilt free parenting!!