Category Archives: Motherhood

Motherhood

Mourning the empty spaces…

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No one told me there would be so much to miss as I grew older, had children, moved on with life’s natural stages. Granted, as someone with a disability that came later in life I have some additional things I miss that others may not but I expect to miss those.

Like I expect to miss my Dad, or friends who’ve died.

I did not expect to be sitting next to my fully grown 18 year old son during lunch and find myself missing the young, snuggly, child who wanted to spend time with me every single minute of every day.

I did not expect to see my 24 year old daughter get into a serious relationship and feel a pang because I know I am going to miss having coffee with her every morning and telling her orange cat to shut up every night when she moves out.

I didn’t expect to feel loss for the changes that life is supposed to bring, but I do.

There used to be this thing he did when he was younger. Whenever we went out to eat he would eat off my plate (it got to the point we would just order together) and so he would come in to the table and smile this completely secure, trusting, satisfied smile, climb into the booth, and slide right next to me. That smile said he knew he was precisely where he was supposed to be and was happy to be there.

It felt good to see him so secure. I felt good providing that security. There was a sense of security in it for me too.

I miss it. I enjoy learning the person he is now, having more complicated conversations with him, seeing him grow and change and become an adult, I just also miss him as a child.

And I feel weird when I do! He’s right frickin’ here! He lives half a block away and I see him all the time.

I guess this is empty nest stuff? This is what everyone means?

#adultingsucks, family, Motherhood

Grinched…

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I’m not exactly vowing to get vengeance against everyone celebrating their happy holiday butts off but despite the myriad of shiny lights I’ve put up and the carefully thought out gifts I’ve purchased I kind of just want to crawl into bed and stay there until New Year’s.

Some of that is because it’s cold and wintery and my body gets extra hurty when it’s cold and wintery.

Some of that is because my kids are with their dad this year until tomorrow so it won’t feel like a holiday until they get here. However some of it might be the fact that they are older.

No one is excitedly looking for me to put dinosaurs in strange situations throughout the holiday month. No one needed me to take them holiday shopping. There were no long days driving around for the perfect gift, sipping Starbucks and discussing what their Dad would like or what to get their friends.

There are no footy-jammied legs getting too excited and needing to be hauled upstairs for a nap or snuck a stocking stuffer in advance. No gingerbread houses, no Christmas cookies.

There’s only me, putting up the lights, picking out the gifts, wrapping the boxes, sticking them under the tree.

So I feel a little like the Grinch this year. It all seems a bit lackluster.

Blog, fibromyalgia, Frivolity, Healing, home, Hope, Just me, Love, Migraine, Motherhood, Observations, Poetry, random, Self over analysis, Spoonie, writing

My squirrelly niche…

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A long time ago I started this blog with the vague idea that I would become a titan of the blogosphere, writing about being a mom and a lawyer, writing about saving the environment for my children, writing about making my own baby food while crossposting articles from my side gig writing for Attachment Parenting International.

During this time of grandiosity I studied the art of blogging as only a woman who just sat for the Bar Exam after three and a half years of intensive study and then became a stay at home mother in rural New Jersey can, obsessively. I learned you are supposed to choose your niche and write about it passionately, truthfully, and with a raw openness that lets complete strangers into your bleeding inner core in a way you don’t even let your friends in.

That my dears is the way to internet stardom.

Well I don’t have a problem with writing passionately, or really with bleeding my feelings all over the internet. Y’all are really pretty decent and besides, it’s not like I’m going to run into to you at the next cocktail party and have that embarrassing moment when you recognize me. No, my problem was always the niche.

See I, my dear friends, am an interest whore.

I am interested in ALL THE THINGS. I want to read about the things and learn to do the things and write about the things. I want to blog about being a mom and a spoonie and an artist who paints and also makes stuff in 3D and also draws and also makes cards but is also a poet but also writes serious stuff but writes about being sick but can cook and wants to share recipes and loves to take pictures and did you know I make jewelry and am a silversmith and am looking at wood working and oooooh let me share my photography with you and here’s the song I started writing to go with the Kalimba I started playing to help with pain management and do you Yoga and have you tried kayaking and did you know the neuroscience behind exercise and fibromyalgia and the venom in tarantulas in Peru and I have some really good ways my husband and I deal with being chronically ill and I can share those with you and I can talk about parenting teens and….

Yeah. What I am passionate about and interested in is the same thing a fleet of hyperactive squirrels on too much caffeine are interested in and passionate about. Everything.

So after years of trying to write about what fits in the narrowly defined idea of a blog about something other people might like to read I have just given up officially and am just going to put it all out here.

I’m writing down poems and sharing the art. I’m going to talk about the pain and the things that help, the kids and the world and the interesting things I find. I’m going to share and overshare and I am going to enjoy it. Because I finally did find my niche.

It’s me. I’m my niche.