Pensive and brooding
It’s been a busy week. In short, one sister moved to California (which I can’t even think about without getting weepy ) and the other sister moved in with us, necessitating several days devoted to cleaning out the office/sewing room so she can have a bedroom. She’ll only be here a few months - she’s going back to school and needs a place to crash until term starts - but Amy has laid claim to the room after my sister has vacated. She is ready for her own room so it looks like the change is permanent. The computer has been relocated to the family room but my sewing machine is a nomad until we finish a room in the basement. Not sure when that will happen but I doubt it will be any time soon. I predict a drop off in my sewing projects if I have to set up on the dining room table. Either that or a lot of takeout. Let’s see, what else? A client sent five new writing projects and they all have to be done within the next few days so any internet time I’ve had has been spent doing research. And we had air conditioning installed last week so I had all that commotion for a few days. But…air conditioning! Wonderful, sweet, cool air! I have never lived in a house with a working air conditioning system and let me tell you, it’s a little bit of heaven. Now I can never go back. One other major thing (for me), Mia got glasses. She brought home a note from the school nurse a few weeks ago suggesting we get her eyes checked and I took her in to the eye doctor a few days later. Turns out her left eye is pretty bad, she could only read the very biggest letter. It’s a lazy eye, Dan has the exact same thing. So I have been feeling all kinds of Mommy guilt and angst about it. How long has it been like this? Why didn’t I realize something was wrong? Why didn’t we catch it sooner? Rationally, I know it’s not my fault. She’s never complained about her vision and the eye has never wandered or acted at all funny so there was no way to know. I’ve tried to have her eyes checked a few other times and she has never been willing to cooperate. She is the same way with the dentist so I chalked it up to stubbornness that she would outgrow and never suspected anything could be wrong. Now I feel terrible. I guess some part of me still believes that since I’m their mother I should know everything and be able to tell things about them immediately. I feel like I’ve lost a superpower I never really had. We got the glasses earlier in the week and Mia is thrilled with them. She looks very cute, but she also looks very old. Suddenly she’s not my baby anymore and I’m having a hard time adjusting to that. And as shallow as it sounds, I’m sad that her beautiful big eyes are now obscured a bit. I never expected this part of motherhood, ya know? I was all prepared for the dirty diapers, the night feedings, the colic (okay not really the colic because nothing can prepare you for that), but I thought I was pretty sure of what to expect. But I didn’t anticipate these kinds of feelings…this constant worry and guilt about something I have or haven’t done. Things I said or didn’t say. Worry over the millions of ways I can screw them up for life and not even know it. I hate the feeling of helplessness when I send them off to school and know that they are experiencing things I can’t fully share in - joys I can’t totally understand and hurts I can’t protect them from (and probably shouldn’t anyway). I never thought it could hurt so much to have your child’s feelings hurt or their ego bruised. I never thought I would worry so much about their abilities, their self-esteem, their intellect. I don’t doubt that they’re great, but I worry that they doubt they’re great, or smart, or pretty, or funny, or talented, or fabulous. I want everyone to love them as much as I do and when I realize they won’t, it makes my heart ache. How much of this can one person absorb? It’s overwhelming. *sigh* I think I need a hug.
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