It's almost 2 a.m. and all I can do is sit on the computer listening to sad sappy songs (Chris Daughty always seems to work for me)....maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's that I'm overtired, or maybe it's that I miss my son and can't wait for him to come home tomorrow....either way, I don't like it. The only fortunate glimmer of hope I have, is the fact that I'm probably not the only mother doing this right now. I often wonder when it is that you decide that how you feel is no longer just a slump...and it becomes an actual problem. People blame the weather, or the holidays, or their time of the month, or anything that will make them feel somewhat sane and like they're not losing it. I think that as mothers, a lot of factors add up to make us sometimes feel the way that we do.
I got pregnant when I was 17, and gave birth to my amazing baby boy the year that i was supposed to graduate high school. I didn't plan on having a baby young...I planned on graduating school, going onto college, getting a good job, a house, a husband, and then babies...but life works in mysterious ways, and things seldom work out the way we plan when we're little girls writing down our destinies in our diaries. So needless to say, I lost a lot of friends when I had a baby. Everyone graduated school and went on with their lives, college, parties, boyfriends, clubs...all things that normal 18 year old girls should be doing. All i had was my son, and his father. We packed up our bags and moved out to another state, where i knew nobody. I worked two jobs, and took care of my son. Me and his father couldn't get along for the life of us. Everyday there was something new to argue about, it never got better. One day my whole world came to a halt, I found out that he had been cheating on me with one of our good friends...for 6 months. That day, my whole life, my fairytale that I had written in my diary as a child...shattered. Needless to say, I wasn't going to stay in something that wasn't real, so i packed his stuff for him, and he left.
So now I was still stuck living in this state that he had me move to, working all the time, and taking care of my son. It lasted for a little while, and then my breakdown began. I had no friends, my family never came out to see me (it was to far and i had burned a lot of bridges when i had moved in and had a baby with him in the first place), and raising a newborn on your own isn't easy. It took a few months, but eventually i came to the realization that I needed to go back home, I needed the support and love of my family. After I got back home and got settled in, I called my doctor and explained to her how I had been feeling lately. In complete hysterics, I told her that i didn't want my son anymore, and I couldn't do it. I told her i wanted to bring him back, and that he was to good of a baby to be stuck with a mother like me. Her response? "You're a young mom, this happens a lot. It will get better." After that, I went online to try to figure out what was wrong with me..what did i find? "Postpartum."
So now that I knew this was normal, and that I wasn't the only one, I set out to fix myself. I bought endless books about why I felt this way, and how i could make it better and be the mom that my son deserved to have. I realized that I didn't need to be with someone to be happy. I realized that the decisions that my sons father had made, was because of the person that HE was..not who I was. I realized that what happened, the fights, the lies, the cheating, and everything else, wasn't my fault. The only thing that I was at fault for...was staying as long as I did. So I got a new job full time, enrolled my son in daycare, and started my life over. I dedicated my life to giving my son any and everything that he needed. I worked all the overtime hours i could get. I missed his first word, the first time he crawled...his first steps. Some stranger that i paid to watch my son while I worked all the time, got to see all of the amazing milestones that all mothers anticipate. Still, I kept working and providing for my son the way a mother should.
After his father had left, he wanted nothing to do with myself or my son. A year went by before he saw him. I told him that if he wanted to be there, he had to help, he couldn't be a dad just when it was convenient for him. He agreed to take my son every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night, that way he still had his weekends to party and live it up. This lasted for about a year and a half, and then my son started school. When he started school, his father went back to not wanting to take him anymore. His mother finally convinced him that he should see his son at least on weekends because if i ever got up the courage to take him to court, he'd lose. He agreed. So as of today, as it stands, my son goes to his father's Friday afternoon, until Sunday afternoon. I hate sending him. I hate sharing him.
After all of this, there is one thing that i have learned...being in a bad relationship, and having a child to "fix" it, will never work. The only person that you end up hurting...is your child. An angry, hostile environment is no place to raise a baby. It effects how they act, how they feel, and who they become. It ruined who I was. For the longest time, I was bitter. I swore that it would never be anyone but me and my son for the rest of my life. I swore that I would never give anyone the chance to hurt me like he had. I spent 6 years avoiding relationships, and purposely destroying anything that had the potential to be good, just so I didn't risk being hurt. I had no trust in anyone...at all. I assumed that everyone would eventually hurt me, and i refused to put myself, or my son, through that again. So i worked. And my son went to school. And it was just me and him...and then someone came along that changed everything that I had ever felt, thought, or believed. He made me realize that everything i had thought all along, was wrong. I'll have to save him for the next blog though...he's to amazing to be able to sum up shortly...so for now, I'll say goodnight, and finish my story tomorrow. Goodnight
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