OK, so this blog has been in the works for a while now. I would say at least for the past 11 months. If you count back that would be around the time my daughter was born. At night, while rocking Anna to sleep (because she absolutely will not go to sleep for my husband) I think about my life now and what it was before she came along. It's sort of my quiet time; the only moment of the day where I am "by myself" because the baby's asleep. So even though she's in my arms asleep, I still rock back and forth and continue my reflecting, putting off going back to the living room to pick up toys or to the kitchen to wash bottles and put up the clean dishes. In this time of quietness, I realize that I have become a completely different person since Anna came along. Now, this may not be so apparent to those around me (maybe a little to my husband) but its most noticeable in my mind. Since none of you can actually go there, my mind that is, I'll share with you how exactly I'm feeling. I recently finished a book comprised of true, short stories written from different women all around the U.S. It's a book called "The Bitch in the House."
As I had stated before, I have become a different person since Anna was born. I absolutely sometimes feel like the bitch in the house. I think if my husband could read my mind sometimes he'd be a little scared and, frankly, put off by my attitude and perception of the situation I am in at the moment. Sometimes I feel angry because I want to share things equally in the relationship with my husband and he is is more than happy to oblige. Yet, at the same time I want things done my way with the organization and timeliness that I'm used to. I feel frustrated by the guilt that I feel when I ask my husband to wash the bottles or vacuum or even change the baby's diaper. I don't want to be a "nag." Sometimes I feel as though I must choose between doing everything myself or asking my husband to do more when I know he gets up early to go in to work just so he can leave early to spend more time with his family in the evening. In a short story in the book, by E.S. Maduro, she states, "I already know how to manage a household, not because I asked someone to teach me, but because I watched my mother and learned while I spent countless hours by her side all those Saturdays when she worked from morning to night to keep our house running. I never asked for this knowledge. I never wanted the internal clock that tells me enough time has gone by that we really should change our sheets; never requested the awareness of how long it takes to make lasagna and thus the willingness to give up an afternoon so that dinner will be ready when the guests arrive. I never asked for anyone to teach me how to wash my silk shirts by hand. But, of course, as almost all girls do, I learned, and now I'm stuck with it. And no matter how much I sometimes wish I wasn't the one in my relationship who knows all this, I admit that I also sometimes feel proud of knowing it all, and proud that I do it all well." That quote describes one of the newer thoughts that's I'm having as a wife and new mother. This is where my inner bitch starts and she doesn't stop there...
In one of the other short stories by Susan Squire titled "Maternal Bitch" she describes how she too has an inner bitch. However, this inner being wasn't fully released until she became a mother. So true for me! She states, "Motherhood, whatever else it did, sooner or later made the woman feel put upon, which released her bitch, who deprived the man of the lavish attention he secretly needed, which turned him into [an infant]." It was refreshing to read this particular story because she goes on to talk about how right after she came home from the hospital she and her husband were completely scared and had no clue what to do with this tiny little thing that depended totally on them. She remembers back, before the baby, how confusion and ignorance had been the source of hilarity (think trying to fix a dishwasher or do minor repairs around the house). The reality of the situation is that she, as a mother, needed to be soothed and shown the way. "Was I, as the Mother -God help me- supposed to soothe [my husband]? Was I supposed to be thrilled that he was trying to master the Pampers Challenge, even though, like me, he was failing? I was not thrilled. I was freaked out. Weren't women supposed to know how to be mothers automatically? But I'd already noticed that I was missing that instinct. [My husband], by now, fully regressed to his own level of helplessness, whimpering and fiddling in frustration. The number of mangled yet unsoiled diapers in the shiny new pail was up to four. When [he] gamely reached for number five, I knew I was about to snap. Not me, actually; it was the Bitch, rattling her cage. At that moment, [he] got the diaper on. The Bitch was, for now, silenced." It makes me laugh at this story because I have totally been there! Maybe it wasn't about diapers but there have been times where something so little and meaningless has made my inner bitch rattle her cage. Why? Why have I become this way? I don't want to have the wrath of my inner "friend" thrown upon my husband who is a great father and tries his best with his daughter (and me). He does do a great job. But as the author goes on to put it, "[The Bitch] roared [at my husband] to keep me from doing something worse, like roaring at a(n) [infant] not yet equipped to understand that moms, even good ones, sometimes lose it a little so as not to lose it all. " She goes on to share how "once she's finished her business of protecting me, she vanishes, and no one has suffered permanent damage. And she's still around, keeping me vital and strong, enabling me -and my daughter - to weather those inevitable working-mom stretches of feeling put upon from "having it all" (as in doing it all). I count on the Bitch to keep me honest and my family informed of my whereabouts. It's okay, that is, as long as I make it clear to them that a bad day does not make a bad, or a sad, life. I've learned that while motherhood guarantees quite a few of the former, it does not guarantee the latter; quite the opposite. On that assumption I was way off. And who taught me that? Thank you, Bitch."
Sorry to use so many quotes but it fully encompasses how I feel. Now I haven't gone full out bitch-mode on Travis, yet. It's usually just in my thoughts. I have a hard time expressing verbally to my husband how I feel. I'm not sure if he really wants to know all the time. I don't blame him. Even I'm a little startled of my thoughts sometimes. But, its usually nothing that a really hot shower and a good face-washing wouldn't fix. So, I guess I should embrace my new inner friend; understanding that maybe she is here to protect me as a mother and wife and to protect the ones around me. I'm just not completely used to her yet. Its still a new relationship. :)
