Washed it all away
I have spent the last few days doing my best to wipe the memory of a week without electricity from my brain. I know that I said that I would tell the whole story, but on this end of the ordeal, it doesn’t seem important. The details seem stupid and wholly small in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, we had no power. My daughter, niece, and nephew all had a cold complete with runny noses, fevers and diarrhea for the first few days. My thirty-first birthday fell on Sunday, so we didn’t do much celebrating. It was raining, in fact, and we couldn’t even go outside. At some point during the week I got an abscessed tooth. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except my dentist and the drug store were also affected by the storm and had no power so I had to make due with Advil and prayer. I looked like a chipmunk. No, I didn’t take any pictures. (Duh.) Toward the end of the week there was no food, no ice, no water and we were feeling rather overwhelmed and powerless. Adam was even going to send me and Mazzy to Indiana to visit family until the power came back on. There were stories about rapes, murder, theft, etc. on the news and my husband became nervous that we would end up in all of that mess.
Now it just feels…..fuzzy. I can remember the things I learned, such as my niece and nephew can not survive without television. My sister-in-law can’t deal without a way to keep them entertained for a few minutes. Heat makes me edgy. Mazzy is a lovely, smart baby and I was probably less of a mother to her than I needed to be during all of that.
I don’t know if I could ever do something like that again. It was more stress than I was anticipating and I cried more than I should have. The thought of separating my husband and my daughter kept me up at night. They are so close that I don’t even want to separate them for a day, let alone a week. They are bonded in a way that I don’t think I can articulate. Maybe it is just normal Daddy-Daughter bonding, but it feels like magic to me. Sometimes it can feel like something that I am invading. Like I am not a part of that.
It must be residual from my fears from before I gave birth. My insane mind won’t shake the idea that Mazzy only came in to my body to be born in this family because she wanted to be reared and cared for by Adam. Because he is that good. And I am just not.
It is a theme of crazy that I am revisiting as the days get closer to me going back to work. I start on Wednesday. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I am going to be working a few hours at night and I will still be caring for Mazzy during the day, but I feel like I am being phased out. Adam will be putting her to bed and feeding her at night. Giving her a bath without me to put her in her pjs and it hurts. Like I am going to have to see what they would be like without me. Like I don’t belong here.
Maybe this something to do with how often my sister-in-law and I talk about her life and her choices and how she doesn’t feel like she is living the life she was supposed to live. I understand that. I feel that, too, but I am (usually) able to squash that down because I choose this life. I choose to be with Adam and Mazzy and whatever I am not doing should just disappear. It is part of the reason why I write these things.
Right now it feels like the hurricane opened more than the sky. I feel like my mind split open and I have to repair myself. All of my old hurts and fears and triggers and dangers are out and exposed, revealed for the first time in a long time. And I don’t like it.
Yes, we had no power. My daughter, niece, and nephew all had a cold complete with runny noses, fevers and diarrhea for the first few days. My thirty-first birthday fell on Sunday, so we didn’t do much celebrating. It was raining, in fact, and we couldn’t even go outside. At some point during the week I got an abscessed tooth. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except my dentist and the drug store were also affected by the storm and had no power so I had to make due with Advil and prayer. I looked like a chipmunk. No, I didn’t take any pictures. (Duh.) Toward the end of the week there was no food, no ice, no water and we were feeling rather overwhelmed and powerless. Adam was even going to send me and Mazzy to Indiana to visit family until the power came back on. There were stories about rapes, murder, theft, etc. on the news and my husband became nervous that we would end up in all of that mess.
Now it just feels…..fuzzy. I can remember the things I learned, such as my niece and nephew can not survive without television. My sister-in-law can’t deal without a way to keep them entertained for a few minutes. Heat makes me edgy. Mazzy is a lovely, smart baby and I was probably less of a mother to her than I needed to be during all of that.
I don’t know if I could ever do something like that again. It was more stress than I was anticipating and I cried more than I should have. The thought of separating my husband and my daughter kept me up at night. They are so close that I don’t even want to separate them for a day, let alone a week. They are bonded in a way that I don’t think I can articulate. Maybe it is just normal Daddy-Daughter bonding, but it feels like magic to me. Sometimes it can feel like something that I am invading. Like I am not a part of that.
It must be residual from my fears from before I gave birth. My insane mind won’t shake the idea that Mazzy only came in to my body to be born in this family because she wanted to be reared and cared for by Adam. Because he is that good. And I am just not.
It is a theme of crazy that I am revisiting as the days get closer to me going back to work. I start on Wednesday. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I am going to be working a few hours at night and I will still be caring for Mazzy during the day, but I feel like I am being phased out. Adam will be putting her to bed and feeding her at night. Giving her a bath without me to put her in her pjs and it hurts. Like I am going to have to see what they would be like without me. Like I don’t belong here.
Maybe this something to do with how often my sister-in-law and I talk about her life and her choices and how she doesn’t feel like she is living the life she was supposed to live. I understand that. I feel that, too, but I am (usually) able to squash that down because I choose this life. I choose to be with Adam and Mazzy and whatever I am not doing should just disappear. It is part of the reason why I write these things.
Right now it feels like the hurricane opened more than the sky. I feel like my mind split open and I have to repair myself. All of my old hurts and fears and triggers and dangers are out and exposed, revealed for the first time in a long time. And I don’t like it.
Comments