in which i return to blogging (again)... with much shorter hair.

let me be really frank with you... well, let me be melinda, but i'm going to say something in a really "frank" matter...

BEING A MOM IS REALLY F-ING HARD!  people don't always tell you that.  but it is.  or maybe it is just me.. i am finding motherhood very hard.  loving asher, i find easy.  the easiest thing in the world.  caring for him, if it was my only job, i would find easy, the easiest thing in the world.  but it is not.  i am also a wife, and a daughter, and a sister, and a friend (not always a good one, but one just the same.)  i am a wife and mother who has to work full time to pay for the simple life we live.  i find this very hard.  i find it hard to leave my baby boy everyday, knowing my time with him is fleeting.  i find it hard to stop playing with him and clean the house, i find it hard to make dinner.  i find it really hard to make the bed and put away the laundry.  i find it hard to find time.  i find it hard to read, to write, to take walks.  i find this very hard.  this balancing life.

i still find it hard to look down, and see my empty belly, where a 30 week old baby should be.  i have found recovering from a miscarriage very hard, harder than some, much harder than most.  i find it hard to live my life of busy-ness, knowing my baby is not living at all.

and so... for a short while, i quit.  i quit living.  i mean i was still breathing.  i was still getting up and going to work and coming home.  but that was all i was doing.  breathing.  in and out.  on repeat.  sometimes i found that a struggle.  it was a struggle to move my legs to dangle off the bed in the morning.  it was a struggle to walk those few steps to asher's room shrill with screams and crying.  and then i would see his face light up when he saw me, and for a moment... i could feel.  for a moment i could see light.  for a moment i had meaning again.  and then he would laugh... and i would feel my face contorting in an unfamiliar way.  i was smiling.  and then i would have to drop him at the sitters, and go sit at a desk at a mindless job.  and i would drive home, and drag myself back into the house.  it was a struggle to look into my husbands eyes, because i knew he could see the pain behind them.  it hurt to have him touch me, knowing his touch is what had left me feeling so empty.  i didn't clean, i didn't cook.  i didn't grocery shop.  i didn't leave the house.  i didn't smile.  i fell.  into the depths.  i fell hard.  i breathed.  in and out.  on repeat.

and as i fell, i quit writing.  i quit reading.  i quit blogging.

and a funny thing happened.  i felt worse.  but that worse feeling didn't bother me, i welcomed it.  the anger, the denial, the tears, i welcomed them all.

asher turns 1 next week.  a whole year old.  not my little baby boy, my little buddy big boy.  and one day, not all of a sudden, but in a very slow turn, i realized what i was missing.  This child.  This boy.  This love.  This life.  in living a half life of my own, i wasn't allowing asher's life to be whole.  he deserves a whole life.  he deserves a great life.  he deserves a whole mommy.

i needed to change... and i have said it before here on this blog... if you are finding it hard to change your insides, change your outsides, it will almost always drive you to change your whole.  and so i changed what i ate.  and i started feeling better.  and then i started looking better.  and then i knew i needed a bigger change, a GREAT change.  so, i did what every woman does when they want a change... i made a hair appointment.

i went in, and i sat in the familiar chair, and i smiled at mandy's familiar face.  and i told her, "i need a change."  i told her, "i want it all gone."  she understood me to be talking about my hair... but i meant so much more.  i needed to change my life.  i wanted it ALL gone.  all the doubt, and the fear, and the feeling bad for myself.  all the pain, and the loss of interest, and the confusion.  i wanted it gone.  and as she took those scissors in her hands and asked me if i was sure, i closed my eyes, and with the snipping sound, and the weight off my back... i breathed a sigh of relief and opened my eyes.  what was that in the reflection?  who was that?  it was me.  i was smiling.  with every snip, and every cut, a lighter load, a new me.  and amongst the stringy mess of hair on the ground, lay the me i so wanted to shed.  the sad me, the lost me, the bits of me that i didn't recognize.  i got up from that chair, with a lighter load,  a smile on my face.  i lost so much more than just my hair that day.  i lost the evil, bitter, parts of me; the parts that wanted to keep me in the depths.  i got my change, i lost it ALL.  i felt like me again.  i looked like me again, a hotter me, a better me, a me with much shorter hair.

and so i return to blogging, to continue to find myself again.  i continue to blog, i continue to live... but the life i was meant to live.  with a smile on my face, and much shorter hair, i return.  to blogging, and to life.