suck it up.

I can't do this. I am totally being swallowed up by my obsessive guilt over my inability to parent. I don't know what Lily needs, and yet, Mark takes one look at her and can figure it out. I spend a whole day with her and I feel worn out and frustrated from not knowing what to do. I am allowing my need for food to supersede her needs, finding myself saying "Mommy NEEDS to eat!" How am I going to do this with two? What happened to maternal instinct or intuition or the special bond a mother has with her kids? I'm just the lady with the num nums most of the time. Daddy is the coolest guy in the world. Mark can handle all of it and I am feeling more and more like a loser for even feeling this way. Is my daughter going to look back at this and think I'm a total idiot? Will she maybe be going through the same thing with her own children? Will she turn out to be the best mom in the world and just think I couldn't have loved her enough?

Every time I think like this, I just tell myself to suck it up. Get yourself on track and do your job, you big whiner. But I feel like I am drowning here. I have fleeting moments where I actually think of running away. Where? I donno. But somewhere where I can just sit and be adequate. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying being back at work. At least at the Globe, I know my shit.

But then. But then. But then I look back over the last year and a half and I see this amazingly beautiful, smart, funny, happy kid and I know I can't be doing this all wrong. I know that a lot of her fabulousness has to do with having a great father, but some of it... it has to come from me, right? If I was a total loser, it would show on her.

I just have to find some peace with this. I just have to figure out how to be a mom, whatever that means to me. I have to stop trying to live outside of this moment. I have to accept that I am deeply flawed and am growing another human being, while trying to rear another one. Despite the fact that Mark is not the kind to coddle, and in fact, would probably just tell me in his matter-of-fact way to suck it up, I am weak right now. I am tired and hormonal and I am doing a level of molecular biology that he will NEVER be able to do. I have to not allow myself to feel guilt over needing things. I have to realize that it's ok to be weak sometimes; I don't always have to be the tomboy.

I'm just so... so... defeated right now. I am just so... so... afraid of screwing this all up. I remember when I was in labor with Lily, I turned to Mark and I said "I can't do this!" and he told me that I already was. I can't do this. And yet, I am. How do you make peace with that? How do you DO this? And why can’t I figure it out?