Oh I have such a swirling of things in my head.

I think I'm postpartumly depressed. I'm giving it another week (maybe) and then I'm off to get help.

I'm reading this and it makes me want to cry. I really love what Moxie does for mothers. She rocks. This is the place where I have gotten the very very best parenting advice about everything. Love. her. Everywhere else on the internet and in the world seems set up to make women who are also mothers feel horrible about themselves and about their decisions. (Like here. Read the comments. Made me absolutely sick this morning).

But this post of Moxie's and the resulting comments comes at the exact moment I need it.

Had a dream the other night about an old student of mine. I don't know what the dream was about, but it made me remember something that happened in class. We were doing a unit on family in a humanities class and I had students bring in a family picture--didn't even have to be their own family, could be something from a magazine. Q'shonda brought in a picture of herself as a kid and a photo album of her sons. The picture of herself shows a little girl, about 4 years old. She told us that this was the only picture ever taken of her as a kid. And then she shows us the photo album, which is full of pictures of her two boys (whom she had at ages 14 and 16--AND she finished high school on time, went straight on to college and did well in all my classes at least). She said she made sure to take three pictures of each of her sons at every major event/family gathering/milestone moment, etc. I get a little weepy thinking about it now. Because that's the kind of mom I want to be. Do you know what I mean? I want to do right by my kids in the ways that I don't know how to do right by them because I wasn't treated that way.

And that's what Moxie's entry is about, too (or, maybe that's just what I'm reading into it?). Being a parent brings up all this anger that I didn't know I had about my mom. I don't know how to process it all. I can't actually go to my mom with it because she's such a broken person--it wouldn't do any good and it would do a great deal of harm. No sense in that. And I can't keep talking to Jeff about it. I think I need a therapist. Ugh.

I don't know how to write about the other major swirlingness, but this is the thing that's REALLY got me all a mess. I've lost confidence in myself. At least that's what my brain keeps telling me and that's what I dreamed two nights ago. In the dream, I had to buy a birthday present for Ossie. So I went to Target and had no confidence in my ability to pick a suitable gift. Therefore I just bought everything I could lay hands on and brought it all home and asked Jeff what we should give him. I told Jeff I'd just take back everything else, but that I didn't want to choose "wrong." And the fucked up part was that Jeff didn't say: that's crazy. He went along with it. Now, this isn't about Jeff, of course. But there is something like that in our relationship these days, which just makes me ill. I don't know how to write about this without sounding critical of Jeff and that's not at all the problem--it's our dynamic that's the problem and that takes both of to fuck up and both of us to fix. Anyway. I think I need someone to talk to about that. Maybe I need some happy medicine, too.

Lastly is my bonding paranoia. I think this is normal, but, see above: I have lost confidence in my own perceptions. I think I'm not a fast bonder. I remember it took me a month or two to warm up to Basho when I first adopted him and it was the same with Peaches. I have to know them before I can love them. I assumed when I had kids that I would have the instant LOVE that I hear so much about. This definitely did not happen with Ossie. I remember Jeff and I talking about it (it didn't happen for him, either)--how weird to have this strange person in our house. We didn't feel negatively toward him or anything. I just was never overpowered by my maternal love. Not until he was a little bit older. I don't even know when it happened, actually. But of course now I am overpowered by my love for him. But I'm not so much with love for Matilda. Again, I feel very nicely toward her and think she's great and what a cool baby. But I don't feel that I'M HER MOTHER thing. It makes me worried sometimes. I feel stupid even writing this stuff.

Gah.

Sometimes I feel so cut off from my own life. I know, intellectually, that I've got it pretty good. I am with the person I love most in the world, good job, great healthy kids, lovely place to live, etc. etc. But I see it all from a distance, like through water. Like Prufrock (and I actually had this thought the other day and it actually had me in knots for about five minutes: should I wear my hear up in a clip or in a pony tale. Sounds an awful lot to me like: "should I part my hair behind?").

Yes, here's the relevent bit (this is IT, exactly--also why I should never teach this poem):