I feel guilty even saying this... but I'm often lonely. I talk to other moms, and their faces often giveaway the surprise, or maybe it's confusion when I explain to them my loneliness and longing for human interaction, all while two of my three kids are hanging on my legs begging for their fifth cheese of the day. Some moms I talk to, they will laugh in agreeance, but often I wonder if they too have the same sadness that muffles my every move?
Damn this is coming off as some heavy stuff?
Trust me, I don't mean it to! I can not be the only one! Just last night, I read a mom had a moment of mom guilt. I sat there under my ten pounds of blanket, wondering, "What the hell is mom guilt"? In a short blurb, she had joked that it's the most beautiful day outside; sun is shining, birds are chirping, and there she is, sitting inside feeling guilty for not bringing her wound-up toddler out into the last rays of summer, all while the grass is still green and lush. I too do this often! I will argue with my children to just stay inside, or wait until Daddy gets home! An hour will pass by and all of a sudden I'll feel bad for having made that decision, and ultimately give into their needy desires. Somewhere between the second and third child, I got lazy. Was it the age that did me in, or merely the additive of one more child? I'm sure there's some scientist or doctor that can probably answer this... Anyways, its always lingering there... and I don't even know if I should call it laziness. There are days that I wake up ready to conquer all worlds: magical, imaginative, and real. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen. If I honestly think about where my shift came, I'd say I lost myself between my last move from Las Vegas to Minnesota. It wasn't necessarily the move, or the location, or even the culture shock; I'd put all my eggs in one basket and say, I lost my friends. I was a part of a mommy group of twenty other women all who had children of different ages and different child loads. Some moms had newborns, some moms were rolling three deep, and we all ranged in ages and experiences, and it was wonderful to see and be part of something. I look back at those Las Vegas days and boy did I not take advantage of that time. I'd wake up and have plans already! A group of us would walk to a park, go shopping together, or just chill at each others home. There was no judgement (or little of it) in our ability or inability to be moms.
Minnesota... Minnesota has been hard for me. There are really no mom groups. I could pull up a Meet up app in Vegas and count numerous groups to join. Here... I can't seem to find one. I find that here in Minnesota, most moms are working. There are very few moms that stay at home, and the ones that are, its just a different dynamic. Many have either grown up here and have their life-long friends or they have their group, and aren't really looking for outsiders. I think too the contrasting environments are to blame. I'm sure if I lived in the Minnesota cities, my experience would be vastly different. There's just not much to do around where I live, surrounded by farms, fields, soybeans, corn.. you get the picture. So back in Vegas, we could list different adventures for every day of the week... here... you can only go to the one small children's museum so many times.. or that one coffee shop... or that one fun park. And now don't even get me started on having to navigate this during a pandemic.... That's a whole other story that I'm not willing to live through right now.
Please don't take this as dogging on Minnesota because I'm not! I'm just struggling to find a place where I fit in. I'm sure you can replace this story with literally any state/city/town/neighborhood where you have left your tribe, and the turnout would be just as hard. I've now lived here for three years and there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. In easier words, I Just Miss My Friends.
Now Christine, why don't you just focus on your family... Why yes! That brings me back around to where I was going with this... Like I said I've been home for three years. There's only so much one mom can take! Like all moms, we pick up the same toys, the same crumbs, the same dirty socks, the same plates, the same EVERYTHING (and yes I did just yell)! I close my eyes at night knowing I'll answer the same questions as the day prior, and will ask politely (and then scream at the top of my lungs) for my children to do the same things I asked them yesterday, and will do another load of laundry in the meantime. I don't think this makes me a bad mom, just a tired one. One that lives each day like the last. I lack ADULT human interaction. I think that's truly what makes me sad. I don't mind wiping my babies butts, cooking them breakfast, lunch, and dinner, bathing them, cleaning up after them, and all in all making sure they are alive... but MAN I miss friends. I'm sure you do too. I'm sure everyone craves it...
I had a point that I was trying to reach, but maybe that's for another day. Right now, my daughter is screaming at me to help her get a hair from her underwear... Girl I know that feeling, so I better go!
I know there was no resolution to this post, and it was on the sadder end, but that's life I guess? Maybe I'll do better tomorrow or the next? I haven't quite decided how this blog will go? Will it be a daily thing, where I freely right what's happening in life or thoughts that occured... Or should I be more planned out? I guess I don't know what you like?
Until I make that decision, I hope you got insight into my current mood. I hope you have experienced this and come out the other side, or we can live through it together. Talk to you soon.
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