little feet, big sky

Some days are better than others.

Some days, I can’t stand to be alive. I wake up to Spice pulling my hair, or kicking my chest and I want to just smother her with a pillow. I struggle to be cheery when she’s kept me up half the night and I’m anything but. I get annoyed with her easily and in turn, she spends most of the day randomly half-crying, as if to protest my sour mood. I’m tired and frustrated and spend the evening rushing through her bath, our dinner, and then to bed, just to start the whole damn cycle over again. I fall asleep thinking I can’t bear it, I can’t do this for even another day…

Some days, I can’t believe how lucky I am to have her and especially her. I’m in awe of how sweet she is, how enduring, how brilliant, how charming. I look at her and marvel that I have this amazing gem of a daughter, surely more wonderful than any daughter has ever been before. I cuddle her and play with her and think of strange things like how I wish I could just eat her cheeks, she’s so cute. I tuck her in close to me as I nurse her to sleep, wishing for just a moment we could freeze time and keep her small and safe like this forever.

So it goes. Some days are better than others.

I’ve been reading a book called Buddhism for Mothers. It’s like a cup of tea for my soul lately and is inspiring me to write the following…

I an tired. I would normally hate to admit this, but I’m trying to be compassionate with myself. The idea is that I would never treat anyone else as badly as I treat myself.

So, I am tired. My back aches, my knees hurt and I am mentally and emotionally drained. I feel guilty admitting this, as I’m sitting next to the recovering spouse, slumped sleeping in a chair because it’s too painful for him to move to the bed two feet away and there’s still ten minutes to go until his next dose of pain meds. Guilty, because I am a guilt-monger. Guilt is the whip that drives me onwards to some imagined perfection every day.

But where was I? Oh, right, I’m tired. I’ve barely caught a few hours of sleep since Thursday, and have been juggling baby, house and sick spouse since then. Maybe tired is an understatement, but I’m running on that extra adrenaline that comes with the fear of letting just one ball drop.

Oh, that’s what I was thinking. I was sitting here by the spouse, tearing up a little, and was wondering why I wanted to cry so badly. It’s just an appendectomy, right? Kids get them all the time. It was part exhaustion, I’m sure. But mostly, it was this overwhelming frustration at having to choose between the spouse and Spice. Three hours here. Four hours there. Both need me right now and I spend time with each guilty that I’m not spending time with the other. How messed up is that.

Of course, the logical side of me says that I can’t be two places at once, so there’s no point in crying over it. And the aiming-for-compassion part of me tries to pipe up that I really am trying to do the best I can, that I’ve done so much the past few days, and I just need to get a few hours of sleep. And that’s nothing to feel guilty about.