I'm #&@!ing Tired Dude...
I'm not exhausted, of course, neither am I feeling all that chipper, and you know, it's not me feeding a baby every other hour who's very much still learning how to feed, but I'm tired. You kinda forget about this part.
Last night at midnight I ran to the drug store and spent $100 on a pump that may or may not work for June ('cause it isn't just delivery that her body is seemingly really, really good at), and we slept in separate spots just to try to get the best out of both of us by morning...we nap, but I'm #&@!ing tired dude...like really tired, AND...this is a disgustingly good baby.
How do you manage this when everything is falling apart? When you're alone? When you're being bombarded by other problems? When you're fighting an addiction, or a husband, or sickness? How do you do this when your baby needs more than you think you've got to give? When you're tired you're a very different person, just like when you're hungry, or when you're scared, or when you're upset, or desperate, and it's in these moments that I find the clarity to sit down with other people who are struggling, and how I feel something, even just the slightest shred of kinship with them...when it's not forced or manufactured, but rather intimately understood, and felt.
How do you forget how desperately tired this parenting thing can make you? How do you forget how frighteningly fragile you feel watching the person that you love push herself to the emotional and physical brink? How is it even remotely possible to feel even a shred of arrogance and embrace even a sliver of assumption on this planet once you remember what you look like in your worst moments? Strangely, the part that no one ever tells you is that your worst moments are so thinly separated from your best, and are, in fact, often the same. You don't see the positive, or perhaps, you can't filter out the impressive goodness, but it's exactly what is making you manage in the first place.
It's not how good you are when everything is good, it's how good can you be when everything around you is not.
I'm #&@!ing tired dude, but I'm not as tired as my wife, and I'm smack in the middle of doing something pretty impressive. That's what I try to remember as I wake up exhausted.
I'm certain that I know some girls who have done this alone, or who despite having husbands at home have somehow managed to do this, and most of what happens over the next seventeen or eighteen years, almost entirely by themselves. I know that I know them...and when I see their husbands I am kind, but not respectful. This is hard, and what they've chosen to ignore, diminish, or just dismiss is astonishing. What they've missed... well, it's fairly mind boggling. I think too, to the lost opportunity to influence, or to set in motion the ideas that make your child who they're going to be, or to inspire their versions of love, or just what a man looks like, or how you treat the people that you care about, and I stumble on the notion that your lack of all-consuming care and concern for both your partner and child, or children (regardless of how complicated you want to imagine it) is tantamount to putting your child to bed hungry, or turning the woman you love, or propose to love, away in the worst of winter storms. How do you manage that?
It's not how good you are when everything is good, it's how good can you be when everything around you is not.
Last night at midnight I ran to the drug store and spent $100 on a pump that may or may not work for June ('cause it isn't just delivery that her body is seemingly really, really good at), and we slept in separate spots just to try to get the best out of both of us by morning...we nap, but I'm #&@!ing tired dude...like really tired, AND...this is a disgustingly good baby.
How do you manage this when everything is falling apart? When you're alone? When you're being bombarded by other problems? When you're fighting an addiction, or a husband, or sickness? How do you do this when your baby needs more than you think you've got to give? When you're tired you're a very different person, just like when you're hungry, or when you're scared, or when you're upset, or desperate, and it's in these moments that I find the clarity to sit down with other people who are struggling, and how I feel something, even just the slightest shred of kinship with them...when it's not forced or manufactured, but rather intimately understood, and felt.
How do you forget how desperately tired this parenting thing can make you? How do you forget how frighteningly fragile you feel watching the person that you love push herself to the emotional and physical brink? How is it even remotely possible to feel even a shred of arrogance and embrace even a sliver of assumption on this planet once you remember what you look like in your worst moments? Strangely, the part that no one ever tells you is that your worst moments are so thinly separated from your best, and are, in fact, often the same. You don't see the positive, or perhaps, you can't filter out the impressive goodness, but it's exactly what is making you manage in the first place.
It's not how good you are when everything is good, it's how good can you be when everything around you is not.
I'm #&@!ing tired dude, but I'm not as tired as my wife, and I'm smack in the middle of doing something pretty impressive. That's what I try to remember as I wake up exhausted.
I'm certain that I know some girls who have done this alone, or who despite having husbands at home have somehow managed to do this, and most of what happens over the next seventeen or eighteen years, almost entirely by themselves. I know that I know them...and when I see their husbands I am kind, but not respectful. This is hard, and what they've chosen to ignore, diminish, or just dismiss is astonishing. What they've missed... well, it's fairly mind boggling. I think too, to the lost opportunity to influence, or to set in motion the ideas that make your child who they're going to be, or to inspire their versions of love, or just what a man looks like, or how you treat the people that you care about, and I stumble on the notion that your lack of all-consuming care and concern for both your partner and child, or children (regardless of how complicated you want to imagine it) is tantamount to putting your child to bed hungry, or turning the woman you love, or propose to love, away in the worst of winter storms. How do you manage that?
It's not how good you are when everything is good, it's how good can you be when everything around you is not.
posted by Unknown at
8:03 AM
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