moosh in indy.

I’m not proud to admit that I’m a jealous person.

I’m jealous of just about everyone in my life in one way or another. Even the people I don’t get along with all that much, because they are usually the ones who are pregnant, rich or have the abs of Hilary Swank.

In fact I’m jealous than no one else seems jealous of anyone else.

When I actually have the opportunity to sit down and read through blogs I usually come away feeling all down on myself because so and so can sing, so and so has an amazing house, so and so just got a new car, so and so is pregnant, so and so just met Steve Carell at a party, so and so is an amazing photographer, so and so is an amazing writer, so and so has the fashion sense of Jackie O., so and so lives in New York, so and so is married to a man that leaves her love notes and cleans the house, so and so looks like a million bucks straight out of bed.

*sigh*

Does this happen to anyone else?

I know we all don’t share everything in our little corner of the internet. I don’t because frankly it’s none of your business and also because I’ve found that by only keeping a memory of the good, the memories of the bad are able to fade a lot faster.

I’ve kept a journal since I was 12. Until I ended up in the psych ward three years ago I wrote about everything in it. Good and bad. Which meant when I went back to read over my past the hurt came bubbling to the surface like a noxious gas. While writing at the time was theraputic, it was poisonous to my future self.

I now keep what I call a “bitch journal”. There are no dates, no proper punctuation, no breaks between entries. I keep it tucked away, deep and hidden and pull it out when the therapeutic need to write hits me. I never read what I wrote. I never will. No one ever will. It will be burned when it is full. But it allows me a release that is sweeter than any chemical or edible substance.

But this brings me back to the seething jealously I have for everyone else’s lives. I know you have problems, a whole mess of them that I wouldn’t really want even if it did come with that fabulous thing you wrote about last week. If any of you want to be me when you grow up, just know it comes with a matching set of baggage that you’ll be left to carry around by yourself.

A lot.

Jealousy and my own (very numerous) insecurities are something I really need to get a grip on before the moosh gets any wiser. They are not traits I want to be passing on.

When the moosh came out I didn’t instantly fall in love with her.

I thought it was cool she came out with all her parts in the right place in seemingly right proportion.

But I was not in love.

I wasn’t in love with her when I brought her home.

I wasn’t in love with her three months after  I brought her home.

I felt a sense of obligation to her. But I didn’t feel love.

She was pretty, yes. She had a darling smile, yes. I even liked her sometimes. But I felt like I was going through the motions of making sure she was fed, clothed and clean.

She felt like a job. An exhausting job that payed crap. A job that I was supposed to love.

I feel like I faked it well. But I was tormented. Everyone else was so in love with my baby, I was not. I put up a good front though.

However there were nights I put her in the crib a little too hard. There were nights I left her wailing in the the other room while I shoved my head under a pillow and screamed if only to drown out her crying. She was never in danger, she was always taken care of.

She just wasn’t loved by her mother.

I felt broken, yet obligated.

Try telling anyone in this world you don’t love your baby and you’ll hear “Oh yes you do, you’re just tired and overwhelmed.”

“Excuse me, no I don’t.” is what I wanted to say back, but never did. I just forced a smile and said “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Then at seven months it happened.

I fell in love.

I had been reading Harry Potter to her before I put her to bed. I turned her around to burp her one last time. She snuggled into me and fell asleep. Her chubby little hand over my heart.

Just like that I fell in love with her, and I never looked back.

Those were a long seven months.

Have you ever had the driving into oncoming traffic thought pass through your head?

What stopped you?

Someone who I’ve never met divulged that this thought crosses her mind more than it should. She’s in a difficult situation, her baby is at that age where the FUN! and the NEWNESS! has worn off and she’s left feeling exhausted and cut off from the outside world. (Which is really how you should feel from the beginning but somehow that FUN! and NEWNESS! creeps in there and fogs new mommy minds.)

I remember nights pacing the hall with this new baby of mine. The one I worked so hard to get, the one I almost died for.

I really didn’t like her. She came into my life and really threw off my groove.

I distinctly remember standing in front of an enormous wood burning stove one night, seriously contemplating throwing her in it. No one would ever know, no evidence. It was perfect. I could sleep for eight straight hours.

HAH! How’s that for the new mom crazies?

Pretty good right?

Truth is I can look back on all the dark periods of my life and remember in painful detail the hurt, hopelessness and sorrow that accompanied it. It can drag me down faster than rabid cheetah.

But in the throes of darkness I, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, cannot remember what happiness feels like. I know I’ve felt it, I know it’s possible, I can even see pictures of myself happy. But it has yet to overtake the sadness.

Depression is a tricky thing, and almost anyone who’s been through it will tell you a similar story.

There’s no “snapping out of it”.

It’s consuming.

And it’s real.

So for those of you who have the oncoming traffic thought, or the baby in the fire thought, sorry. I’ve been there, a lot of us have been there. And it blows. And it may not be over for you anytime soon.

But God said “It came to pass…” not “It came to stay…”.

Promise.