Here I am, attempting to write again. I have spent the last few months rambling, ranting, rewriting and deleting. I find myself up late at night and before I even know it with a pen in my hand, scribbling. Filling pages with colloquial renditions of my life. Finding humour in the places that no one else does, that’s how I cope when I feel like I may be on the edge of going full crazy. That is, until the morning, when the half-finished rant reads like a fifth grader was the one doing the midnight scribbling and it in no way has a chance of being finished and worthy to be shared.
So please forgive me, for what is to come is not my usual babble, nor is does it entail any humour. It is however what poured out of me in the middle of the night while I lay next to my completely exhausted husband who just came home from a 16 hour shift without ever complaining. While I stay awake because I just know, that as soon as I close my eyes that sweet babe of mine will be waking up, needing me for a resettle.
To my friends with kids before me:
Please forgive my ignorance - the terrible baby shower gifts. The house cluttering junk.
Please forgive me for not “getting it”, when you really needed me to.
Please forgive me for constantly hassling you for advice and reassurance.
To my friends without kids:
Please forgive me for secretly resenting you for having a social life. (Not really…maybe?)
Please forgive me for always having an excuse to cancel.
Please forgive me that it’s been weeks between contact, let alone catch ups.
Please forgive me for the times I have thought that you just don’t “get it”.
Please forgive me for needing you, when I need adult time. And forcing you to listen to my mum stories, but never making it past midnight.
To my Ivy:
Please forgive me for not being over whelmed with the instant bonding experience that is expected on your arrival.
Please forgive me for not always knowing what it is you need.
Please forgive that time you were screaming in the hospital while I was struggling to feed you via a syringe (girls not a natural on the boob), or those times I kept feeding you, thinking you were hungry when you in fact had wind!
Please forgive me for those days I snap at you, the days I expect you to understand what it is that I am saying, or those times I end the day feeling defeated.
Please forgive me for palming you off the second I get the chance.
Please forgive the trial and error games I play with you.
Forgive me for laughing at you when you fall over. Forgive the times I gladly take a photo of you in an awkward position before helping you.
Please forgive me, I am but learning.
Please forgive me for covering you in a thousand smooches a day, for being so in love with you that I don’t know what to do with myself. Please forgive me for telling everyone how amazingly lucky I am to have you, for looking at you and wanting to cry.
To the world at large:
Please forgive me for only having ‘mum’ things to discuss.
Please forgive me for flooding every social media outlet with way too much babyspam.
Please forgive me for passing accidental judgement on other mothers.
Please forgive me for not living up to your expectations.
To my darling husband, my one and only:
Please forgive the mess. The fact you have no clean work clothes…. (again), forgive the cereal we are having for dinner, for the piles of unfolded laundry amassed throughout your home. Please forgive me; for we didn’t move from the couch today.
Please forgive me for ever treating you like my child and not my husband.
Please forgive me for crying to you when I couldn’t handle it and expecting you to fix me.
Please forgive me for hating to be touched, for wanting my space because I have been latched onto all day. Forgive those times that it’s been far too long to even remember the last time we had sex.
Please forgive me for being angry that you still get to live your life as normal. Forgive me for not realising how hard it is to leave us each morning.
Please forgive me for being frustrated that she only wants me, and insensitive to how this makes you feel.
Please forgive me for ever thinking you don’t understand, for ever thinking I’m in this alone, when you are the only person who is in this just as much as I am.
Please forgive me for being too tired to laugh with you, forgive me for forgetting you, for not investing time in you.
Please forgive me for not knowing how to prioritise you, now that my life has two great loves.
Please know that I can’t stop smiling at the thought of you, know that I brag about you and tell our baby girl she has to best dad in the world, maybe a little too often. And this I’ll never be sorry for!
To me:
Please forgive me for forgetting who you are sometimes and forgetting what it is you need.
Please forgive me for letting outside pressures take over at times.
Please forgive me for ever thinking that you couldn’t do it.
Please forgive me for ever comparing myself to other people.
Forgive me for ever thinking you HAD to live up to others expectations.
How easy it is to fill yourself with mama guilt, to allow yourself to fight to live up to the expectations of strangers, of family, or yourself. It wasn’t until I scribbled this all down that I realised I really did beat myself up for all of these things, and here I was thinking I was coping like a trooper!
Originally posted on @melwatts - thanks for allowing me to share my words when I had no platform x