
This grin

Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning
It’s 9pm and my daily to do list still has five things left on it…
Oh shit, the baby is waking up. Better make a bottle of formula since I suck and forgot to pump
It’s takes so long to sit down and put him to the breast
I wanted my breastfeeding journey to be much longer but I’m afraid it’s dwindling down
I’m trying my best but I’m in my head
I still have to do my college homework
What am I doing?
I take on all of these things and I have no one to take the kids to when I need some time away
I’m stuck here
In this world of everlasting responsibility
And there’s no clocking out
I’m tired. So so tired
But I’ll continue to rise
There is no handbook on how to deal with heartache
There is no medicine to cure the pain
How can the one you love most use words that pierce your heart like a knife to bare skin?
It’s not the first time
And won’t be the last –
Your words have such impact on someone who reads into every clue from your brow
I study you
My absolute favorite person
The one I know most about
The one I revolve my life around
Why do I feel I’m more in love with you than I feel like you’re in love with me?
You hide your true emotion behind words that sting like a hornet
Its harsh pain will eventually dissipate
But you’ll remember how badly it hurt in that moment for years to come
Tired moms everywhere are sighing
I have heavy feelings tonight.
Ones I’ve had for awhile. They’ve been festering inside me. They aren’t that disruptive.
Except for when I sit alone with myself, only my thoughts to entertain me.
They have been tugging at me, these feelings.
But it’s easier to let you hide in your guilt than it is to initiate confrontation.
I think it’s taking so long because you know that the guilt belongs to you.
There is more than one instance of this in my life right now.
I don’t have the energy to plead what I’m owed.
I’m usually more stubborn about things like this.
But this time, I’m just tired and I have no fight left in me.
It is what it is.
I’ll carry these heavy feelings and hope that they resolve sooner rather than later.
I want to feel angry.
I want to.
But I don’t have the time,
I don’t have the mental capacity,
I don’t have the sanity,
I don’t have the self-control to
bring myself back in
once I start down that path.
It’s not something I can prioritize
anymore.
It no longer consumes me.
I push it to the back burner
because I have to.
I know I could feel better
if I let those emotions come
over me,
if I’d just let them go.
But I’ve got people
depending on me now,
that I didn’t have before.
Because my daughter is
watching me with a careful eye
and I don’t want the only
vision of a strong woman she sees
to be the one she sees on a screen.
Before, I could let
the emotions consume me.
I could fall apart and
nobody would know.
Before, I could hold the anger
until I was ready to release it.
I could reel myself in.
I could take my time sorting out
my feelings and
making sense of emotions.
But now?
It’s all different now.
I don’t have the time.
Hours become minutes when bored
Mondays are like wet socks
It’s so weird to think
that just a few months ago
this beautiful plant
was just a tiny seed.
It was hiding dormant
in a shell,
but then it emerged
and now it lives.
Growing, reaching
for the sun.
Reacting to stress and
its environment,
breathing
surviving
thriving.
What was once a seedling,
is now just trying to live.
I relate to the cycle.
Life is flourishing
all around us.
The summer crept in fiercely