Greetings from down here in the dumps

My first Mother's Day was one of those memorable, idyllic days that you picture prior to becoming a mother but rarely actually get. Paul made me breakfast in bed, gave me a lovely gift and wrote me a touching card about what a wonderful mother I was and how amazed he was by the patient, knowledgeable way I cared for our beautiful daughter. I tied the balloon he bought me to Julia's foot and watched her giggle as she laid on her back and kicked it around over her head for the better part of an hour. I felt warm and loved and capable in my role as patient, loving Mama.

I haven't felt any of those things much lately -- not particularly warm in this never-ending winter, not particularly loved (though I think it's self-love I'm missing more than anything here) and not particularly capable as I struggle to handle things I know came easier just a few months ago. My patience lasts about as long as a balloon tied to her foot would entertain Julia now and I fear that the snippy words that horrify me even as I hear them coming out of my mouth leave my children and husband feeling that I'm anything other than loving these days.

There have been moments of joy, certainly -- minutes, even hours when I've felt like I had it all together, and those have been primarily what I've chosen to write about lately. I'm not sure why -- maybe I've been hoping that writing about the good stuff will edge out the bad, maybe I've been reluctant to whine and complain and maybe I just haven't known how to tackle the topic of my discontent. Because in truth, I don't know quite what's got me in such a slump. And I'm equally unsure how to fix it. I'm trying certainly -- I've just hired a teenage sitter 2 afternoons a week so that I can take a little time to work out, I'm planning a girls' getaway weekend for May with my friends and I'm doing my best to focus on the high points of my days rather than getting bogged down by the low points. But it's slow going and I suspect I have a ways to go before I shake the unhappy, on-my-last-nerve feelings that have dominated the last few weeks.

Writing about things generally helps me to process them and that hasn't been the case this time -- I feel as icky and just not myself now as I did when I sat down to write this entry. But I'm glad to have it here anyway. It felt a little disingenuous to keep writing only about happy little moments in my life -- to keep being so "up" in my blog when I'm so "down" in real life right now. The whole point of this blog is to chronicle these years so that I will be able to look back and remember some day, and that can't happen if I paint only half a picture of what things are really like. So here it is -- today, right now, I'm not so happy. I'm just not quite sure what I'm doing here or what the point is and I don't know why I feel that way or how to fix it. I can only hope that years from now as I re-read this entry, the Mother's Day memory I wrote about above will still be fresh in my mind but the memories of this unhappy period will long since have faded away.