Flashback Friday: I Want to Hug My Poor Self

Being as organized and Type-A as I am, you’d think that my files would be perfect and easy to access. You’d only be half right. I can get to any paper files or anything in Evernote in 30 seconds flat. My digital storage is a dumping ground of nightmarish proportions. If I think about it too long and hard I start to get the shakes. Finding anything in there requires a solid block of time, prayers in seventeen languages, and the tears of a Vestal Virgin.

On the upside, digging around this morning trying to find a short bio for a couple places that need them, I found some ancient journaling gems from before I started blogging.

And I just want to go back in time and hug my poor, parenting-young-intense-boys-not-knowing-WTF-was-going-on self and give her a glass of wine. And a back rub. And a copy of the book her future self would write, because she sure as hell would need it.

A few of the choice tidbits, with more than a little of it redacted:

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2/9/05

Andy continues to amaze me.  He is so smart.  He can spell: stop, exit, mommy, Andy, Jack, on, off, go, and who knows how many others.  He just won’t hold a marker or crayon and write out letters.  Gotta work on that.  I just spent a whole lot of time researching kindergartens.  I have no idea where he is going to go.

note: He wasn’t quite 4 here, and 11+ years later he still hates using writing implements. At this point he’d also been reading for awhile and was demanding scientifically accurate bedtime stories about the solar system.

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1/10/2005

I have ten minutes of peace left.  I live for naptime, I don’t know what I would do without it.  All I ask is for some time alone every day, so that I can recharge and not want to scream when a child asks me for the umpteenth time to do something for him.  But now Andy has come out of his room for the 4^th time, ensuring he’ll be in bed early.  More time for me, I guess.

So much for timely New Year’s goals.  I wanted to start this journal six days ago.  That’s what you get when you’re sick and have kids and are trying desperately to keep up.  I’ve decided to keep this journal for awhile, practice my writing, and eventually work my way into writing a blog.  I’m afraid that if I went straight into blogging that I wouldn’t be very good, that I wouldn’t keep it up, that I would have nothing to say.  By practicing here, for my own eyes, I can get ready for it.  And I can see how fast I can type in the limited time I have.

I just feel words screaming to get out these days.  I feel I have so much to say and I just can’t get them out fast enough.  My mind races with conversations to the world that I would love to have; I have trouble falling asleep because I can’t stop writing in my head.  I keep wondering if I should be a writer; I’m certainly not doing that great of a job as a music teacher.

Well, my peace is up; it’s 3 o’clock and Andy is up from “Andy Time”, also known as my time for me.

note: The kid STILL won’t stay in his room and leave me alone and it’s 11 years later.
note: Apparently I had PLENTY to say, because I’ve been blogging for 10 years and counting
note: I did become a writer, and I’m now kicking ass as a flute teacher.
note: Still looking for that “time for me.”

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1/14/2005

I love going out with my husband.  We don’t do it nearly often enough, but I love going out with him.  It reminds me why I love him, why I married him, why the hard times are worth it.  I just enjoy being with Tom, just being with him.  We don’t even really have to go do anything, but just the two of us, I just love being with him.  He makes me laugh, he makes me feel all warm and loved and I love him for it.  I need to remember this during the busy and difficult times, when I want to pop his eyeball out with my thumb, just to hear the squish.  Marriage is tough, they don’t tell you that at the wedding.  I saw a friend last month and she was still all starry-eyed from getting married in June.  Yeah, marriage is great, wonderful, all that…for about the first 24 months.  Then it starts to get difficult, then kids show up and it gets really tough.  But you hang in there, and there are times when you remember why you love that man so much and it’s great again.  But it’s not moonbeams and roses anymore, it’s something different, something deeper and more meaningful.  But you can’t go back to that newly married feeling, nor would you want to.  The replacement is so much better.

If you can get over the feeling about wanting to pop out the eyeball.

note: I still love that man, and twenty years of marriage has seen us weather some serious stuff.
note: I thought my writing sucked at the beginning and only improved over the last several years, but that line about the eyeball made me laugh out loud and wonder why I never used it on this blog.

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1/20/2005

I’m so tired of being stressed and feeling like I’m behind when I’m really not.  I need to be in control.  There, I said it.  I’m a control freak.  I want things to go well and get stressed out when they don’t.  That’s why I’m having such a hard time with Andy.  He wants the control also.

note: Oh, honey. Babe. Sweetie. Here, have some wine. He’s not even four yet, the age when you were quite sure you weren’t going to let him live to see age five. You’re barely at the starting gate of the flaming fustercluck the next eight years will bring. You don’t know what you don’t know and honey, I wish you could have been better prepared for the journey ahead. 

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1/29/2005

So what I’m wondering is, HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE?  I mean, last I looked, I was a high schooler with a future in front of her, the rare date, all possibilities there.  So time blinks and now I’m a wife, a mom of TWO BOYS!!!, a stay at home mom.  Hello?  What happened?  How did I go from kicking ass on the concert stage to changing innumerable diapers a day?  (Made worse by the preschooler with diarrhea today).  I’m even typing this right now with a baby squirming on my lap.  What the hell happened?  Most days I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience, though that could be the sleep deprivation catching up with me.  How did I end up being almost completely responsible for a husband, two kids, a house, and everything else in our lives?  How did that happen?  Granted, it makes sense that I do it, Tom works so much and I’m a SAHM, but huh?  What happened to ME?  What happened to MY dreams?  What WERE my dreams?  Did I ever really have any?  I know I always planned to be a stay-at-home mom, but was that my lifelong dream?  If so, why did I bother to go to college and grad school then?  I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

note: Well. Damn. Where do I start? Eleven years later I’m still a SAHM, but now topped with a delightful reluctant homeschooler sauce. I’m a teacher, a writer, a flutist, an advocate, a volunteer, and somehow manage to balance all that with CFS so sleep issues never again become issues. My dreams are well underway, made considerably easier to chase with kids old enough to not only wipe their own butts but make their own meals. Kinda. Blog post for another day. I know what I want to be when I grow up, I’m living it now. 

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2/20/2002

I can’t let myself get that overwhelmed again.  It’s one thing when it’s just yourself, or married and you both kinda go your own ways.  It’s another thing entirely when there’s kids involved.  I was so stressed that I wasn’t a good mom.  In fact, I didn’t like being a mom, and that’s just not me.  I absolutely love being a mom, it’s what I’ve always wanted and I love it.  But I got so stressed and burned out that I couldn’t enjoy it and I saw it as just one more thing I had to do.  I never want to get to that point again.  It was frightening.  It has to get better.  I’m tired of always feeling on the edge of tears, that anything could send me over the edge.  I need help with things, and I feel I can’t ask for it.

note: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha….gasp….hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Oh girl, welcome to the personal challenge of your next dozen years! You’ll eventually crash enough times that self-care and searching out assistance become a huge priority. You’ll also fall in love with Malbec, which helps but isn’t the answer. In 2015 you’ll get a chronic fatigue syndrome diagnosis and finally get serious about sleep and boundaries and saying no. But honey, you are going to suffer hard before you get there. Hang tight.

 

We went to the pumpkin patch this afternoon.  Last year Andy was too little to enjoy it; he couldn’t even sit up!  This year we chased him all over the patch.  He was more interested in stomping on the dried vines than choosing a pumpkin, though.  He is such a little boy, loves to play in the dirt.  He is so very inquisitive—what’s that, what’s it do, what’s over there?  You can just see him sucking in information like a sponge.  He’s amazing.  He’s very two, but he’s amazing.

note: Yeah, you gave up wearing shoes with laces shortly after this because of that chasing. And him sucking in information like a sponge? It will never, ever end. 

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