A Lesson Learned

I wrote a blog a little over a month ago that was not shared with anyone. It was meant to inspire me to be better at being me outside of the mommy life. Unfortunately the inspiration lasted only a few days and I was back to where I was preblog.
Many/most of you reading today's blog may not know that I have struggled with severe depression over the last couple months. This has very little to do with the fact that I am pregnant and most to do with the feeling of insignificance and not recognizing the person who stares back at me in the mirror. Mothers who stay at home with their children may understand what I mean when I say I have poured all of my love and affection out on my child and husband and left none for myself. As I explained in my previous blog, iv'e been trying to pour from an empty cup. My poor husband can only do so much to make me happy and some days I'm just not coming out of that black hole I've dug myself, no matter how strong his efforts are. This is my fault. I allowed myself to crawl into the pit of despair and not crawl out of it. I can't say that I myself understand why I didn't climb out of the whole, until this morning when I awoke to an epiphany, an answered prayer, and one person weighing heavy on my heart.
This morning started early. At four-thirty a.m. I woke with horrendous heartburn and the urge to pee that can only be understood by a mother of a child who refuses to move away from her bladder. Last night I had laid down in bed and prayed. Now as a christian I pray often. I pray with my son at night and then when I lay down in bed I pray for my family and for the Lord to guide me to be the person He desires me to be. I rarely pray for myself. I have prayed a few times before about the depression and what I could do to fix it, but last night I laid down and asked God to fix it for me and to give me the answer that I've needed for the past few months.
You see, me asking for someone else to help me is something I don't do with ease. I actually am very, very reluctant to ask for help from anyone. Laying down last night asking the Lord to take my problems was a huge step for me. I think that my prayers were answered because I had finally, truly handed over the weight of my problem to Him. So when I laid back down in bed for the fifth time last night I noticed for the first time in months that the weight was gone. I felt joyful at four-thirty in the morning, not dreading the coming day!
Immediately my mind was filled with a memory of someone very dear to my heart. The smile of my Great Grandmother filled my mind.
Before I go on I must explain the relationship I had with this spectacular woman.
Hazel Hildebrandt was my Great Grandmother. There are many things I learned from Grandma Hazel in my youth and there isn't a day that goes by that I wouldn't give anything to see her and spend another day with her. She was, in my eyes, most spectacular. She was a stubborn woman, which may have rubbed off on me at some point. She baked and cooked from scratch and the food was some of the most delicious I have ever tasted, specifically I remember her homemade chicken/turkey noodle soup that was poured over mashed potatoes, and significantly I have been craving this dish for months. She taught me to cook when I was with her. She taught me how to be be creative and crafty and she taught me my love for board games with family. I have many fond memories of my grandmother, like the time she taught me how to clog in her kitchen. Our long walks that consisted of fun banter and Werthers hard candies and even the Bugels coned shaped chips she always had in the pantry that my brothers and I would stick on our fingers. There are so many memories I could not share them all if I tried and I am sure that there are many people in my family who are surprised by how much I remember of her because of her passing at my young age. Nevertheless, Hazel instilled in me her great love and joy and in the past months, maybe even longer, the joy had escaped me.
So when I woke this morning and Lord gave me the memories of her I knew what he was telling me.

I am not the girl that I used to see in the mirror. I have stronger values, a vast understanding of the unfair circumstances of life and fewer friendships. I am stronger, independent and steadfast. I am no longer the girl I have been trying to find in that mirror. I am a woman. A woman who was taught to be joyful. To love with all of my heart. AND to be joyful in the life I was given and see myself for the woman that I am. If I cannot be joyful simply for being the woman I see then I need to be Joyful for being the woman God has made me to be and I need to remember that my grandmother would never have wanted me to feel the way I have. She probably would have given me a hard pat on the back and made me something to eat, even if I wasn't hungry, and would have encouraged me to enjoy this life and to remember to love myself.
Maybe this post makes little sense to anyone else, but to me it's everything.
You see part of my struggle has been that I have very few friends. I have very few people to talk to and very few who truly care. I felt that this depreciated from the value of who I was. If others don't want to be around me then there really must be something wrong with me. The thing is, this morning I realized that I am who I am. I am someone who has been created by God for a purpose and who was taught the joy of life by those around me. I can be sad about not having a bunch of friends and not getting out and thinking when I look in the mirror that I must be the result of everyone's rejection, but that couldn't be further from the truth. And when I look at myself I want to be an example of the woman I admired as a child, and I want to be all of the things that I saw in her.
Today I woke up and appreciated the woman I am. I am happy to be a mother, a wife and all of the other titles that come as a package with those. I am blessed to have this life God has given me. I am grateful for the few relationships I do have and for those who care and understand me. From now on I want to wake up and be thankful for all of the many blessings, and I want to be like the woman whom I admire. I want my husband to know that I love him and our children and I want him to know that I also love myself and I see in myself what he see's. I may not have many friends and I may be a mother but those things make me who I am, yet they are not all that I am. I am a person with many depths and those who understand those depths and see those depths are the ones whom I hold dear. Today I am making a promise to always appreciate who I am as a person and to never doubt my own importance. I will always have a bad day every now and then but it won't because I don't love myself. My reflection is only as beautiful as I allow myself to believe it is. From now on the person I am will shine through and my fears of others judgement and rejections will not be a factor in how I perceive myself and how I love myself.

Being Mom

For the past four weeks or so I have been overwhelmed with the dread of what comes with a new day. I know just how the day is going to go by the sound that flows through the house and into my sons baby monitor. Some may think it strange that I have a baby monitor hooked up even though my son is two, and you could be right, but I like to cover my bases when I have a husband who sleeps like the dead and I myslef can enter into a pretty deep sleep sometimes. Anyway, I know that if I wake up to jabbering and talking via the baby monitor that the day is going to be okay, my son may have a few bad moments but overall he's going to have a good day. These mornings I know that it won't be such a bad day and I get out of bed fairly happy and go and say good morning to my handsome son who is no doubt patiently waiting to be extracted from the crib.
It's the days that I wake up to the whining, screaming and otherwise horrible attitude that I know the rest of the day is going to follow suit.
Today was one of the bad days and I was unsuspecting...
Lane had a good, long nights rest and woke in a fairly cheerful mood. He woke very early so I gave him his sippy and he relaxed in his bed for a time. When it was time for Lane to get out of bed we went with our normal routine of getting dressed and clamoring downstairs for breakfast.
From the moment breakfast ended until the moment lunch ended our home was full over tantrums, fits, and horrible ugly behavior on both mom and sons' part.
Lane has entered the "terrible two's" with a full fledged vengeance. My once happy and easily satisfied son, now throws tantrums and fits at the first sign of miscommunication or inability to do as he pleases. I expected the "terrible two's", he's two, his personality is unleashing and he is growing and learning more each day, what I didn't expect was to hate MYSELF every moment of it.
As Mothers our job is difficult, this is common knowledge, and as moms we accept it because if it's difficult it means that we are doing our job right. What no one tells us is how much we will struggle to love ourselves, take care of ourselves, and understand that what we are doing as mothers; while incredibly challenging, is of utmost importance.
So here is some honesty...
Being mom is challenging.
Not because I have to do laundry, the dishes, clean up toys constantly, sweep and mop floors multiple times in a day. It's not because I have to clean up Vomit, poop, boogers or any other kind of bodily excrement. And it isn't because I  spend the whole day with tiny people who can hardly construct full sentences... It's challenging because it's constant.
There is no down time. There is no talking to your co-worker about how horrible this situation just was. There are no 15 minute breaks every four hours. There are no lunch breaks. There's no casual banter that consist of more than the words, truck, "sirsty" or no. There is little rationality in the whole of each day.
Being mom...
I don't want the wrong message to come across here, I love being a mother. I love my son more than anything, but I have forgotten myself in the process.
Being mom...
I have forgotten what it is like to look in the mirror and actually see myself. I have forgotten what it means to have passion. I have often forgotten what it means to have joy and happiness. I have forgotten what it means to see each day for its new splendor.
Being mom I have forgotten to love myself and I have almost forgotten how to love myself.
I focused everything of my time and energy and effort and passion and love into being everything I can be for this little human that I have forgotten to refill myself.
I think my son knows this. I think he knows mommy is empty. I feel as if I have very little left to give and that is why some mornings and entire days go along as though they're a nightmare that may never end. In order to give I have to restore and refill myself. How can I give, how can I be mommy when I have nothing left of myself?
So this last month has been a valuable lesson. Continual prayers, constant reflection and desire to find the answer to my current situation lead me to today. I was on facebook when I saw a photo and in that moment, I knew...
Being mom is not just about my children...
Being mom is about being Me as an individual as well. I have to give myself time to be the woman I am when I am not mom. I have to break the constant by allowing myself to be a woman and be more than what I am as mother to my child. I have to make time for me and stop sacrificing every bit of what I am as a human to being a mommy.
I don't mean I should stop being a devote mother. I mean in order to be a better mother I need to be a better me and to be a better me I have to give myself time. You can't pour from an empty cup...