Motherhood is Hard

Ok as you know I’m not one to really get into things on Facebook or such but I saw this article earlier and I can’t get it out of my head. I even took an earlier than usual lunch break so I could share. 

I want to give this poor Mom a hug. Granted I don’t know any more details than what’s presented in this very brief article but I can tell my story. 

Motherhood is hard. Fucking hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’m just a little over 3 months in. I’m even doing this with a husband and an amazing family with an amazing support network and it’s still hard. This girl was going at it solo. 

Those first few weeks and months for me were and are so hard. Your entire life has changed, you hurt, you’re not sleeping, you have no alone time, there is crying and bottles and laundry and it’s all just so damn much. 

Having organizations available to help are good but it’s hard to reach out and admit you need help. You’re a Mom and you’ve had 9 months to prepare and there is some unwritten expectation that you should just instinctively know what the hell you’re doing. Asking for help is hard because it feels like a failure as a woman especially when it’s so early in the journey because then you just feel like you’re going to fail as a Mom too and everything starts to spiral. 

As someone who struggles with pretty serious anxiety and baseline depression issues I knew going into labor and delivery that I was going to need help and medication onboard in order to make it through postpartum. 

In fact when I was in the hospital after giving birth I asked damn near every nurse if they followed up with my psych consult. I was insistent that I get that appointment before I went home. I was put on medication that day and I’m so grateful I did. I find even now that if I forget to take it or take it too late in the day I struggle to even get off the couch that day and that’s not an option when you have a baby. 

It seems that once Mom’s have the baby, all of the attention shifts to the baby and Mom is then an afterthought. Hormones can straight up wreck you, no joke. 

More times than I would like to admit I’ve been in this Mom’s shoes - sad, tired, need help but I had wine. 

Thank God I had people offer to help and if I needed anything to call or message them anytime. Sometimes you just need another living breathing human being to talk to and maybe even someone else to hold the baby for a few hours and not judge you if you spontaneously bust into tears because it happens. 

Like I said, organizations are great and I’m glad they offer support but Mom’s need people, friends, neighbors, hands to help hold the baby or fold laundry. 

Do you have any new Moms and Dads in your world? Reach out to them. Offer them some of your time and conversation. It can be a lifesaver trust me. 

Are you a new Mom or maybe a Mom with some experience? Do you have a circle, people you can call when you need help? 

If not, let me know. I don’t have much to offer but I’ve got a comfy couch and a lot of coffee. 

Be loved friends. We’re all in this together and we’re not going to make it to the end without looking out for each other. ❤️ 

** Edited to Add: Just to make sure everyone knows, this is not a cry for help. I am ok. I have a support system, people, docs and medication on my side. Not everyone is so lucky. Reach out. Message me directly. Do what you need to do, hell I dyed my hair pink and blue and it helped. ❤️

Front Porch Table

Front Porch Table 

This table has been with me for some time now. I remember sitting at my old apartment and sitting outside for hours and nights on end with my cigar and either wine or beer and some music. Thinking about life, wondering where mine was going and I was ever going to find someone.

“Cause I’m given a chance and a rock, see which one breaks a window, see which one keeps me up all night and into the day”

Now mind you, this table wasn’t mine at the time. It belonged to my downstairs neighbor Dan, who for some reason was nicer to me than I could have asked for my first official neighbor. I would share my extra produce with him from Spiral Path and he would help me out when I needed it. He fixed up my free work computer with a second monitor, wireless card, extra memory and even let me use his Wi-Fi for awhile. Helped offset the time his “date from Tinder” tried to burn down the apartment building but that’s a different story. 

I remember one point when David Pepka came over to hang out and we sat on the front porch and talked for a few hours. Unbeknownst to me Dave liked me but I was unaware. I just enjoyed going for walks with him and getting some exercise. He was a fun guy to hang out with but I didn’t have those kind of feelings for him. Well after sitting and chatting and me smoking a cigar which I think impressed him, he stood up and the chair was now half it’s original stature. The chairs are not the most comfortable and not built for someone with such personality but they suffice. He left soon thereafter. I was then left with an anxiety attack trying to figure out how I was going to explain to Dan what happened to his chair that he was gracious enough to let me use. 

In his typical nonchalant fashion he just packed it up in the back of his truck and went on his way. A few days later it was back on the front porch and as good as new. I kept offering to pay for it or something in exchange but he wasn’t worried about it. 

Fast forward a few months, Dan and his long time partner were able to buy a house and they moved out leaving me the table and chairs. 

And then I met this guy. A guy I had already known but at the time he was taken so he didn’t quite register to me. It was during a rough patch for me. I was broke. The weekend we met, I was supposed to be in Pittsburgh visiting some friends that we had met in Costa Rica but I couldn’t afford it. I had a crappy week between getting a root canal which ended up with a pulled tooth and then going for new glasses at an eye specialist which turned into 6 hours in the library with dilated pupils unable to see and being told my best option was surgery which I didn’t want. 

I was depressed and didn’t know what else to do so I went to the woods. Trees are usually my happy place and this time was no different. I walked around a bit out Clarks Valley and then sat down by a little pond and just poured my heart out to God. Starting with my laments of being single, why was I still single, did God forget about me? Did I want all of these things, family, husband, house, for naught? Was it just never going to happen? And then similar to the Psalms of David, it went from lament to praise. Praising God for being who he is, for making me who I am, and then praying for my future husband whomever he may be and whenever I would meet him. I left the woods that day with a renewed spirit for sure. God has a way of doing that sort of thing. Taking our crappy crappy mess and all out real ness and using it for His and our own good. 

Instead of being alone that afternoon, I went to my parents and poured my heart out to my mother. I wanted a beer but I didn’t want to drink it alone. My mother heated up some day old pizza for me and got me a beer. Not where I thought I would be at the time but it was good. 

We chatted for awhile and then I went to Sorrentos to be out of the house. I had messaged a few people to see what they were up to but I didn’t get any real responses so I figured I would take my chances. I sat at the bar, close to the taps so didn’t feel too alone and drank my beer...or rather beers. 

Then DJ walked in. He walked in and sat down beside me. I didn’t know the full details of his story at the time but I knew he had some stuff going on. Through the course of the evening we started talking a bit and I believe it all started because he was reading an email similar to “7 Steps to Jesus” or something like that. I started going off, in my typical fashion, about how that’s not how this stuff works, that’s not how any of this stuff works. God does not fit into a box. We complicate Him far too much and it’s just not that way. So now I ended up finding myself a cute guy to talk to about Jesus over beer. I knew I was in trouble. So much so that I asked a friend of mine to make sure she didn’t leave me alone with him. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself with him. If I wanted a friendship with him that wasn’t the way I wanted to start it. 

** Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about the table. It’s coming back soon, I promise. 

To back track for a minute, when I was living on my own, I always had a tendency to hope for surprises, I would hope to see a note on my car on my front door or have something special waiting for me wherever I went. It never failed. I always had that moment of expectation wherever I went that there would be a surprise. This went on like this for months, maybe even years, I don’t quite know. I would always be a bit disappointed when I wouldn’t find a surprise but it didn’t keep me from hoping the next time. That’s the crazy thing about hope. It can keep us going even when our eyes tell us different. 

When I got home that night after the beers and the Jesus talk with this cute boy, I Facebook stalked him, as everyone does nowadays. Granted I was on my parents couch as he encouraged me to do because I had far too much to drink to drive back to Harrisburg where I was living at the time. One of the first times in my adult life that I had to wake my parents up at 3 in the morning because I was too drunk to drive home. They didn’t ask too many questions and just let me crash for the night and I was incredibly thankful. 

The next morning, my Dad and I ended up sitting on the porch while we discussed his gun collection. For the life of me I cannot remember how or why this conversation started but it was one of my best times hanging out with my Dad up to that point. We talked through each of his guns, he let me hold them and see how they felt to me. There were at least two that just felt right to me. They fit in my hand and I felt confident in them. It was awesome that I was able to share that time with my Dad discussing something I know he loves. 

DJ and I started talking a bit here and there. I mostly was trying to act like I wasn’t into him, especially not in such a small town as Duncannon where everyone knows everyone’s everything! Granted I screwed that one up on the day of the Sesquicentennial but that also is another story. Our first official “date” which was a non-date was at Costco. I was hungry ie. hungover and could use some company. I wasn’t about to go to a warehouse and eat a hot dog by myself so at least now I could have some company. We ended up sitting at Costco all but to closing time and then decided to go to my front porch and talk some more. I was trying to behave myself and didn’t let him in the house and demanded that he stay on the front porch. And we were sitting at this very same table. I probably smoked a cigar then as well. We were entertained by some skunks that decided to start procreating in the side yard. It is still a running joke to this day.

Fast forward again to a week or two after Costco, he offered to bring me dinner because he knew I had a busy night and a busy week. I struggled with the answer because I knew I liked him but I didn’t want to fall for him. I always seem to do that in guy friendships. I get them messy with feelings and I was determined not to do it this time around. My sister helped convince me to let him bring me dinner so I said yes, begrudgingly. 

I got home from work on one Monday evening to find a fully set table for dinner on my front porch. There was a table cloth, bottle of wine, actual plates, multiple sides, rotisserie chicken and all the dipping sauces a girl could ask for! He was slyly sitting across the street in his Jeep so he could watch me as I pulled in and walked up to the table. I knew at this point I was in trouble. I was also pretty convinced at that point that this is the guy I would marry and it scared the crap out of me. I figured there was a reason I was always looking and hoping for something and that that hope was met in this guy that I met over beer. 

Now this table sits on the front porch of the house that we own together. 

I sit at this table in the morning and feed our daughter, Violet Mae. 

This table is where I drink my coffee, when I can and try to wrangle the dogs from attacking the innocent passers by. 

My life is a full world away from where it was when I first sat at this table. Wondering where it was all going. Wondering if I would always be alone. Wondering what plans God had for me and still wondering, to this day, what plans God has for me. 

Now I sit outside and watch the birds and the neighbors and remember where it all started. 

“Well this days been crazy but everything’s happened on schedule. From the rain and the cold and the drink that I spilled on my shirt. “Cause You knew how You’d save me before I fell dead in the garden and You knew this day long before you made me out of dirt. And You knew the plans you have for me. And You can’t plan the ends and not plan the means. And so I suppose I just need some peace just to get me to sleep.” 

So I finished writing this this morning and was feeling pretty good about myself. Violet had woken up from her nap and we came inside to get a clean diaper and possibly even some lunch. I finished changing her and picked her up and she proceeded to spit up all down my back and onto the floor. 

Motherhood daily reminds me of my need for grace. Not just because I am in need of grace  but grace for the eyes to see the bigger picture. Grace to see the good amidst the mess. To be able to see the beauty to be thankful and grateful for the spit up that was slinking down my back because it came from a healthy little girl that calls me “Mom”.... or at least she will soon someday. Right now it just sounds like “uuuhhghhhghhhhhhhooooooo” but I can hear “Mom”. ❤️