I am really struggling today. This week. Have been for a little while. It's partly the sleep deprivation thing. But I don't think it's just that. It's so many things. It's partly the lack of freedom thing, I think. The lack of anything even close to the ability to be able to just say "I'm driving to the beach" or "I'm going to the pool" or "I'm gonna lie in bed and read all day". What I am feeling is so multilayered I don't even know where to start, really. So it's partly lack of freedom. It's also partly not being able to bloody drive anywhere greater than 10 minutes away, coz Indi has a hatred of being strapped into anything for longer than that, be it car seat, highchair, or pram. It's also Indi needing to feed to sleep unless she is in the Ergo. So either I am lying in bed with her, or she is feeding on the breastfeeding cushion on my lap while I'm at the computer, or I'm walking around with her. I have enjoyed each of these sleep-related experiences with her, to varying degrees (in increasing order) but I think I am just tired of it all! She naps three times a day, and I think I'm just dessicated by the monoculture of options I have available to me. I'm sick sick sick of lying in bed waiting, hoping she will fall into a deep enough sleep for me to pull away and leave. It usually takes so long! And then she only sleeps in bed without me for about 20 minutes at most. I am sick sick sick of being on the net for hours a
day while she sleeps on me, not being able to go get a drink or go to the toilet, or let my cat in, or anything. I am sick to bloody death of walking around the streets around my house, I think I could name each and every plant my neighbours have in their yards by now. Plus I'm just so tired, and my knees and hips are so sore. These things, which gave me such pleasure a while ago, now have lost their ability to sustain my spirit, and instead have been draining me, depleting me. I am getting frustrated with all of it. Maybe if we could just have a day at the beach every now and then I'd cope better. I used to visit the ocean as a wonderful way to connect to my spiritual world and work through my issues, a way to let the wind sweep away all my stress and scrub me clean. But I can't do it. We can't drive to the beach, and a train ride to the nearest ocean beach and back is too long to be done in a day, and we just can't afford to go away for the weekend. If I was rich 
I'd hop on a plane (I reckon Indi would fly better than she travels in the car) and fly to tasmania or something. I don't need warm, I need ocean. Not calm pretty bay beaches, I need rollicking crashing wave action. Hence the pictures in this post. They are a pathetic attempt to connect to the energy I need and miss so much, my ocean friend.Sorry for the rant. But I don't want this blog to be a filtered pretty happy shiny unrealistic slice of my life. I want it to be real, and I want to be honest.
6 comments:
I know what you mean, and my daughter is only 3 months old. I am still at the stage where I somewhat enjoy all of that, but I can imagine that after a while you will get more fed up with it.
But there are good weeks and not so good weeks, and you'll find some more energy at some point, I am sure. Before you know it you'll be looking back at these days with longing. Or so they say...
Thanks Ditte. You're right, in a way, in that as the time rolls by the more the tiredness sets in and the novelty wears off just a little. But having said that I was really struggling at three months, and it was after that that I really found my groove, and I've been loving it ever since really. I've just had a couple of bad weeks. You are totally right in that there are good weeks and bad weeks, it does go in cycles, as with everything.
Funnily enough I feel a little better already! I had a cranial osteo appointment today, which really set me right again. Also, my sister has offered to try to arrange for us to go away for the weekend, with Indi and I catching the train half way and her driving us the rest of the way, and sharing costs! So hopefully in a fortnight I'll be sitting by my beloved ocean again.
Just wanted to send some sympathy your way. I remember those days and feeling just how you describe only too well... it was so difficult and felt like the light at the end of the intensive-needs stage tunnel was miles and ages away. It DOES get better, honestly, just as I was told when I was feeling seperated from my version of your ocean... but that doesn't make it any less frusterating at the time. Would you believe at one the baby who was violently allergic to touching the carseat (forget actually being strapped in and going anywhere...) snoozed blissfully through a FOURTEEN HOUR trip with like three 15 minute bouts of waking up for a drink/food/change before drifting off again??? I hope you are able to get out to the ocean soon, fingers crossed!
I'm glad you're feeling a bit better already. It sometimes really doesn't take much, does it? :o) I can understand how you miss the ocean. I have always lived near the sea and I love it (Iluka, the name, is actually Aboriginal and means 'near the ocean')... And you'll get there again, and appreciate it even more!
And even though you give up a lot when you have children, see how far you've come, see what you've received in return. It's just magnificent. Just magnificent!
WOW Amanda! Fourteen hours?! You see, I hear stories like that and there's a part of me that just can't believe it, that one day she will happily travel for LONG distances! I think maybe once she reaches that stage I will buy a van and travel around australia (or at least up the east coast!), just to make up for all the travelling we have forgone! Oh wow, fourteen hours. (shakes head) Thanks for the sympathy and injection of lost hope.
Wow, have I ever been there. Two things made it better, Over time, things changed and got better in various ways. But first, there was just an internal giving way and easing--a huge step on the maturity scale for me, basically a vastly increased ability to accept things the way they are now. For me as a parent, it was like I was going from the frustrations of toddlerhood to the more balanced coping skills of an older kid. I'm just about to plunge into baby territory again with my second coming this fall--time to develop more coping skills!
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