Kitchen Counter Therapy

Here I sit at my kitchen counter, THE BIG LAUNCH, my blog. Why a blog? I'm not really the type, but that's the thing. I've become the type. Motherhood has changed my life and so it has changed me. My connection to the outside world, most days, is the laptop sitting on my kitchen counter. I used to be a telecom administrator working for big companies, running large phone systems. I once had a company pay me big money to move to Phoenix, Arizona to help start a new office there. And now, 6 years later, I'm a married, Stay At Home Mom with a 2 year old daughter, and an ambiguous identity as to where I fit into the world. So here I sit, at my kitchen counter, forming my identity and stretching my virtual arm into the internet world at large. Don't get me wrong. I love being a mother, I love my daughter, and my husband. But I'm not going to dress it up in a pretty wrapper and bow. Most days are boring, busy but boring. My brain has turned to mush, my sex drive is nonexistent, I'm ready for bed by 8pm, and the last book I read was "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle. I don't enjoy getting down on the floor and playing, I don't like coloring, and I don't like galloping around the living room neighing and pretending to be a horsey, or as my 2 year old calls it, a Horhay. So this is where the judging comes in. Mothers are judged, BY EVERYONE. Society, particularly Western, and dare I say AMERICAN, loves to judge a mom. They love to tell us what we should be spending our time doing with our kids, how much time we should be spending with our kids, what we should feed them, how we should play with them, what we should read to them, whether they should watch TV, how we should discipline them, etc etc etc. EVERYONE's AN EXPERT. As far as I can tell, from speaking to generations of mothers that came before me, there has never been so much focus on how we should raise our kids as there is now. I tell ya, it's driving me nuts. And the real rub is that mothers are their own worst judges. We feel guilty over absolutely everything. We painfully research nearly every decision we make in regards to our kids and then we still feel bad that it might not have been the right one. It's crazy and it's making moms crazy. So many of us are absolutely killing ourselves to look like we are great at it, that we love it, and that it's totally fulfilling. I have spent the first 2 years of my daughters life going back and forth between hoping for the fulfillment to come, and being in the depths, absolutely convinced that it never will and this is it. I will never again know who I am, what I enjoy, feel connected to others, or find a life of my own. That everyday of the rest of my life will be a selfless pursuit in pleasing others. Now some of you may be thinking how selfish I am. Fine, judge if you wish. I can't stop you. Others may be identifying. My new pursuit is to not care so much what others think, to find confidence in myself and my mothering, and to GIVE UP THE GUILT. Our kids need love most of all and my daughter gets more of that than she knows what to do with. I am at home with her all day so she also gets her fair share of attention, whether undivided or not. She needs for nothing. But I do, and I intend to figure out what it is and go for it. It may take me ten years but here goes.....
Normally I am much more humorous, something else I seem to have lost a bit of along my journey. But it's a gloomy June day, my daughter has like the tenth cold she's had this year, and my humor decided to sleep in, while my cynicism got up at 5:30am. Catch me next time.