Lately I’ve been appreciating how much things can be both awesome and rather sucky at the same time.
And importantly, how much my happiness is measured by my focus on the “good” side, if you will.
For instance, feeding tube life for baby A? Life giving measure, without question. Pain in the ass and depressing as hell? Yep.
SAHM status? Epic, unbelievable gift. The insanity, loss of self and endless emotional and mental turmoil that comes with it? For the birds.
Marriage? I mean, where do I even start?! The awesome for sure is there, but the suck is also plentiful.
Especially right now.
The past few months that have included insane stress, strain, trauma and crazy (my own) have definitely heightened some suckage.
What's more, my husband and I are in such different places right now, all while living in exactly the same place. 24/7.
No, I'm serious. 24-fucking-7.
The sometimes suck? Besides our blissful and brutal togetherness? Our newly defined responsibilities ever since becoming parents all over again.
I guess I've come to realize that the roles we’ve each taken on to fuel this family ultimately has often extinguished our flame.
True story, my partner works extraordinarily hard. To essentially provide for everything we need.
So much so that, at times, I feel like he is never able to provide what I also feel like I really need. Which is his time. His availability to come to the endless doctor visits. His willingness to climb in various fix-it rabbit holes with me. His ability to listen to me ask the same questions over and over again. His desire to bang his head on the wall in frustration alongside me.
And maybe his ability to just sit, connect, understand and join me in my grind.
My grind of course looks nothing like his.
My life is filled with basically a series of the same routines, the same actions over and over until like, the end of time.
The everyday, repetitive behaviors and activities that make for a full, albeit, feel-like-you-accomplished-nothing type of day.
Something like….
Beep, beep, beeepppp. Feeding pump alarm goes off. Remove her feeding tube, replace feeding bag, clean the tube, clean the site, cream the site, change her, dress her, play with her, pump milk, clean the pump parts, make bottle, offer bottle, place feeding tube back in, feed through tube, entertain her so she doesn’t rip it out, remove the tube, clean the tube, clean the site, change her, play with her, read to her, rock her, nap her… repeat. And repeat. And repeat again.
Of course you throw in all the things that go into taking care of big kids and house and husband and life… and oh, a bunny that shits everywhere, and your day ends up being really full of...
a lot of shit.
Err... rather a lot of nothing. Well, at least what feels like a lot of nothing
Which I know, I know… all of this is hardly nothing.
In reality, it's everything.
Being this baby's mama, being on this difficult road with her, simply getting the chance for a baby do-over, sharing a life with a new partner, helping to raise children that are not my own... all of it.
Far from nothing, it's more than a lot.
Most days lately I’ve felt so drained, so dry… as though my proverbial cup is utterly and completely empty.
But then I remember that perspective shift or rather, I’m reminded of that perspective shift, and I force myself to acknowledge the suck while embracing the awesome.
A dear friend relayed to me recently that while I feel like I’m searching to fill my cup, my cup is actually pretty damn full. It’s very full of Pen.
Well shit, indeed it is.
So does having a full cup of baby juice mean it has actually sucked the nectar (or the life) out of my marriage?
Maybe.
There's the suck.
However, we’re both here, grinding alongside one another, with very different roles in the pursuit of something shared. A family. A unit. A partnership in raising mini humans. Together.
We’re chasing awesome. Together.
So while I groan about how much our relationship has changed since our monkey entered our circus, I also actually appreciate how much our relationship has evolved. In, yes, both good and bad ways.
Where I focus, what I give attention to, and what I both choose to embrace and choose to let go will ultimately determine our happiness.
And importantly, it also will determine my own.
-B xo
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