What no one tells you about being a mom

Warning: There is nothing fun or entertaining about this post and was written more for therapy for myself. So feel free to skip reading this one. 

I am in the midst of fighting a bit of depression. Surprisingly enough, it is in no way tied to the fact that I am basically a cow at the moment. 

No, instead the mental battle I am fighting is a result of the crippling weight on my shoulders. I just feel like everything is too much. I need an escape. Mere days separate me from the one  year anniversary of my dad’s death, so that certainly isn’t helping. 

God how I miss him. How these last few weeks have been filled with nothing but regret and shame for not making the most of his life while he was here. A guilt I know that I will never be able to lift. 

 Then there is the car seat safety event that I have been throwing myself into. I have somehow managed to find the time to organize this event while maintaining two full-time jobs, a free-lance job, this blog, and well, the whole being a mother thing. I admit I have let the housewife duties escape me. Oh well. But without knowing it, when I scheduled the car seat safety event months ago, the date was picked for me by others involved and I simply agreed. Well, it turns out that the car seat safety event is scheduled for April 5, one year after the day we laid my dad to rest. I am sure it is another one of those signs from God. Part of his plan to give me and my family something to do rather than sit around and weep about him. So there’s that. 

Then there is my uncontrollable thirst for baseball season. I know it may seem odd to say this is something causing me angst, but it is. I feel like Andrew and I live two completely different lives with the only thing we have in common being Turner. We even work for the same overall company and are still basically strangers (I am sure I am being dramatic here, but as of late and this wave of depression, this is how I feel). But baseball season will change that. That is the one thing that we undeniable can each relate to. The one thing that can bring us back together. Baseball is where we had our first date, where we have spent many dates since, and our love of the game encompasses us so much, yes our son’s name is Turner. So Opening Day cannot get here soon enough. Anything that can make Andrew feel less like a stranger to me. 

 And then there is the milestones in Turner’s life that I am unavoidably missing because I do nothing but work. All day everyday someone else keeps him. While I am lucky enough for that someone else to be my mom, it still is not me. So his steps, his words, his everything belongs to her. Not me. That is crushing. I want to live in a decade where women stayed home. That is where I belong. I would rock that decade. 

And I do nothing but work, but for what? I feel like I am always drowning in money woes. I make a considerably comfortable living. Lets be honest, writers are certainly not CEO salary positions, but because I write for two newspapers and am a full-time copywriter. I do way better than most people. Yet it never seems like enough. Part of that amounts to the $500 in college loans I pay each month and will continue to pay for the next 20 years. If that is not depressing, I do not know what is.

Nothing seems like enough. No one tells you that you are always going to feel like that. I always feel like I am coming up short. In my job(s), as a mom for Turner, as a partner for Andrew, as a family member for my mom and sisters. Nothing I do is good enough. It is never satisfactory. That is what has me down. That is what is weighing on my soul and taking over my mind, preventing me from functioning. Ugh, ready for this to be over.

Song that is getting me through it all: Dave Matthews Band ‘Mercy”

Brittney Burns, SiteDart Author