The head of our bed faces East so when I opened my eyes this morning I could just make out the sun coming up through the trees. I change my baby girl's soggy night time diaper and snuggle down close beside her again and offer her the breast, the left one this time if memory serves from her last feeding sometime around three, and as she settles in for a feed I close my eyes and doze.
My husband slides out of bed on the other side of our bed, waaaay on the other side of the king sized bed we bought just before our daughter was born in March, good thing too since our four year old son ends up between us sometime during the night. I hear the coffee machine being filled and prepared and my sleepy eyes open in time to see my husband grab the big yellow bath towel from the hook just inside our bedroom door before he enters his morning shower.
The clock says we're still in the hour of seven, early seven, but I know that as soon as seven hits the clock for any type of 'me' time has begun its tick. My husband is ready to go mere minutes after he exits his shower, a knack that most men possess I suppose, and I am wide awake now as he comes to my side of the bed to kiss me, his daughter and his son, good-bye for the day.
I feel his hand on my head and hear his voice break the morning silence. "Don't worry.....today will be a good day." I nod and give him a smile to save him from worry and he is gone, his truck started, his Sirius radio blasting full from his ride home the night before, and the sound of the engine slowly fades as he winds his way down our long driveway to his work, to adult conversation and important decision making, to a world that will keep him away from mine for at least twelve hours.
The sun is at the tip of the trees now and shines brightly into the window of our room, despite the shadow of the rhododendron trying to squash its rays, and my voice joins the silence of the morning, speaking to no one as my children sleep beside me.
" A good day.......yeah...that would be nice."
Yesterday sucked. There's really no other way to put it. But then so many of my days have sucked since the birth of my beautiful daughter and to see those two thoughts in a sentence makes me feel shame and sadness. She is gorgeous and healthy just like her four year old brother who snuggles beside her and all I can think about is how much I dread their eyes opening and my day truly beginning.
My sadness is palpable....real....and roosting in the corners of every room in my house. I can taste my loneliness, I have made friends with the isolation that is my motherhood and I cannot even fathom how I thought I could pull this off. My oldest son is sixteen years old and I was on my own with him for eight years, struggling to make ends meet, to stretch out a dollar and a loaf of bread, waiting tables to clothe him and make sure he played soccer and went to theatre camp. I was sure I knew what tough times were going it alone with him. Twelve years after giving birth to him I had my second son with my husband of three years and then three years later we welcomed our daughter. On paper, and in conversation with others, it is all so perfect and I should feel blessed. And I am.....there are so many moments when I am. But then there is the reality of motherhood in my fourth decade when the mommy friends I made with my first son are all busy with their own lives now that their children are no longer breastfeeding, toddling and tantruming (is that even a word??). There is the loneliness I feel every day tearing at my chest, reminding me the price paid for being estranged from my family, no aunties or uncles to take my four year old for the weekend to give me time to rest with a newborn, no grandparents to come by and rock a baby so I can shower, no close friends who have the time to stop by and clean my bathroom or empty my dishwasher or just....listen to my words, my heart, and what is brewing up scarily inside of myself.
There are pamphlets in the package the health unit hands out to every new mother in this community. 'Postpartum Depression Support....Because life with a new baby is not always what you expect." the purple letters spell out underneath a picture of a mother and her newborn baby.
No....this isn't what I expected. To feel so alone....so scared...so out of control....so beside myself with ignorance as to what to do when my four year old flails himself on the kitchen floor because he wants to eat the leftover waffle he sees in the garbage can. I didn't expect to need help with all of this. My husband's parents are both gone...long before their grandchildren were born. My brothers live far away, one up north and one way down south, and my sister resides only twenty minutes away, her phone number permanently blocked from my line, a police file bulging with complaints down at the RCMP detachments, a drawer filled with recordings of the cruel and foul words she has left on our answering machine these past three years a reminder of how her hatred and bitterness towards my failure to fail at life. It has taken me years to say it, until now to write it.....my sister hates that I raised my first son on my own, that he has turned out to be a good kid, a nice boy, a good student. I was supposed to fail, to fuck up, to hit rock bottom and never meet a nice guy and settle down which is what eventually happened. I guess I wasn't supposed to be happy which I guess makes her life more bearable. Too bad....having a sister would have been helpful these past few months when it comes raising my babies....not her mind you...but a nice, loving and caring sister. The kind of sister I hear about at playdates and baby groups. My husband tries his best, does all he can. He works so hard for this family and for that I am grateful but his long hours, especially in the summer when he is the busiest, take their toll on me. Some night it is eight o'clock before we see him come through the door. He is torn in two himself about this because he knows I need him but he is the boss, he is in charge, and this is their busiest time, and there is little he can do but listen to me and hold me and tell me that today will be a better day and to hang on until January where he will have a month off and we will all go on a holiday together like we deserve. So I hang on and I lie and smile to my friends when they call and ask how things are going and I laugh and joke and gush in my e-mails to colleagues and new moms I have met and some of my happiness is true and heartfelt. But there is a darkness that is hidden and the three paged Postpartum Depression Support pamphlet screams at me and so many times I try to make a call but I can't for fear of sounding unfit and unable to cope, of having a stranger at the end of the line make the call that I should be medicated and checking in with a mental health professional on a regular basis. That I am a bad mother.....after all these years of mothering.....I suck at this. I love my husband and l love my kids more than life itself....but some days, some moments, it doesn't feel like enough. My house needs a good scrubbing...both the structure I live in and the cobwebs that are clogging my head. I started a blog to keep myself writing....I am a writer after all....and I am thankful there is only one follower....me. But I need to get this down like the letter therapists suggest you write but never mail. It needs to come out of me I suppose and I need......to have a good day. Wish me luck........
