Hey friends, Lauren here. I haven’t wanted to post anything, because I’ve been trying to keep this space really upbeat, but I have been feeling anything but upbeat lately. I try to avoid posting when I’m down, because I can get into this slump where all I do is rant and complain; even though getting that out makes me feel better, it isn’t very pleasant or uplifting. But I’m not going to lie… I have finally reached a point where I just want to put my fingers to the keys and let my feelings and thoughts and emotions flow through my fingers, so I can hopefully get on with getting on.
Isn’t it crazy how life can go from one crazy high to one deep low in a matter of moments?
That’s my life. I feel like I am on a rollercoaster that never stops to swap passengers; it’s just me going round and round and I wonder if anyone is coming to stop it or help me escape it.
So much changes when you become an adult and even more so when you get married and even more when you have a baby. I have always wanted to be an adult, a wife, a mom. I felt like adulthood – really middle-aged-hood – was where I belonged. And I like adulthood – paying bills, owning a home, being independent. One of the proudest moments of my life was the day I could officially pay for everything myself – when I finally got to tell my parents that I didn’t need their financial help anymore. What a rush!
So I had the adult stuff down, but being a wife was a whole different game and it was one I wasn’t so good at. Everyone tells you that marriage is hard and that is no joke. Believe them. Believe me when I tell you that marriage is one of the hardest things I have ever done – am doing. Learning to communicate and compromise has been a challenge. I like things my way and I am confident that my way is the best way, so enter my husband into this scenario and well it has been quite the humbling experience.
We still aren’t a perfect couple and we don’t have a perfect marriage, but then we bring a new person to our family. A person who can’t talk and is so completely helpless, but is the most perfect and precious thing you have ever seen. Now I’m thrown into figuring out motherhood. There are days I think I have the mom thing down and then there are days that I wonder why I thought I was mom material. My baby is the most wonderful thing in my life, but sometimes she is the very thing that brings me to tears… and that makes me feel so guilty!
Well it turns out that because I’m not a perfect adult, wife, or mom, I can’t do it by myself, so I go searching for friends; a community if you will. Now it’s no secret (to some of you anyway) that I have issues with myself and with friendships. I have a long frustrating history with relationships and I feel like it is a cycle I can’t break. My “friendships” either expire or never actually develop. It’s hard and it takes a toll on a person, especially a person that is already feeling the pressure of marriage and motherhood… and well, life.
Earlier this year I thought I had found my community. A place to belong. A place to be accepted. A place to be included. A place to be loved. But as the months go by it has been made clear that I was wrong and that adulthood is just like all the other life stages before it. And that depresses me. Turns out this community was just a popularity contest and – shocker! – I am still just one of the plain Jane kids that eats their lunch alone who so desperately wants to be apart of something, but just doesn’t cut it. Whether it’s because I’m not cool enough, pretty enough, confident enough, happy enough, outgoing enough, funny enough, etc. I’ll never know. But even with my history and knowing that friendships just aren’t in the cards for me, I haven’t given up and that makes these situations hurt so much more. Even though I’m older now and I have a life that I’m proud of, I have once again been excluded and forgotten about by people I thought I was friends with. What makes it even worse is that I opened up to them about my friendship history and my insecurity surrounding it.
Now after all of this I just feel like a pathetic loser. I just want them to keep their empty words to themselves. I want them to realize that their words – the I love yous and the I care about yous – mean nothing without actions to back them up. At this moment, I just wish I had never let myself care.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been so stressed out with my new baby, my marriage, my new home, my job, my new body, my confidence, and my self-esteem. I have spent countless hours huddled in my closet or alone in the bath crying; just trying to remember that I have worth, trying to figure out how to juggle all of my responsibilities, and trying to remind myself that I can do it. I love my little family, but boy is all of this a lot to take in. Life is hard, but I know my family is worth the struggle.
If you read all of this, thanks for being there and letting me get all of this off my chest. Sometimes you just need a safe place to go to and for me – that’s y’all (and my closet of course!).
