I've just found this thread & have sat here for two hours reading, gin in hand, in blessed relief. The timing could not be more perfect.
I never really wanted to be mother, never had the burning desire for children people talk about, never felt the need. I had a foolish first marriage very young & slipped off one weekend, never to return, the world was mine, I could do as I pleased & pretty much did, & it was fun, glorious fun & fulfilling & airy & bright & FREE.
& DH (2) along & we were so in love & made that stupid pact that people so thrilled with each-other & themselves often make, 'we're so perfect, so happy, so full of possibility & bloody life, just imagine, just think, think of the amazing children we will have'. We made lists of names, made love, made plans.
& lo, I was fecund, they popped out a breeze, I popped back into shape, they suckled like lambs & slept like cherubs.
So easy, so breezy, so perfectly me-sy.
Six years down the line, I am a shambling wreck of a woman, I realise I sold my life down the river on a narcissistic dream of perfect little mini-me's, who would thrill the world with their beauty & wit. It turns out I did get two little me's & I never realised what a pain in the arse I actually was. For that I thank them every day (when not feeling the urge to stick my head in the oven).
This thread has actually been a life-saver for me, it's been liberating & such a bloody relief to hear other people say this. I seem to be surrounded by a sea of seemingly perfect mothers who float through life in a cloud of fucking fairy-dust & endlessly picture perfect days, where the last rays of sun shine poetically through their mountain-side sausage cooks with their adorably grubby offspring & mama's always laughing in the (vintage) rowing boat whilst papa heaves manfully on the oars, (it's just Face Book, it's not real-life, repeat the manta whist sobbing , silently into the nearest alcoholic drink & ignoring the constant mama, mama, mama, ma mammmmmmmm blends seamlessly into the background of the endless washing cycles, feeding cycles, clothing cycles, cycle fucking cycles).
I once tried to share how I felt, thought we could laugh about the indignities & horrors, they looked at me as though Id suggested gently barbecuing the first-born with a few springs of thyme. I've shut up since then.
I did wonder recently if I was depressed, I decided I'm not, I'm just suppressed, which is different, but when they go to school & I lie in the bath, staring at the blank, white tiles, I wonder what became of me.
Oh & I think it was Shakey who said up-thread she freezes when her child runs off, I do the same, I stand there, frozen, as they career off to uncertain fate, caught in the moment of fear & indecision. I know I can't catch them, can't get there in time if they go flying down the hill & land in a heap. There's nothing I can do. Most of the time it's ok though. It's just ok.