Today’s precious little moment is brought to you by:
food.
When you realize you no longer quite chew, enjoy, savor, fully swallow.

No.
There’s a new habit of inhaling... as quick as possible with hands and nails and food flying quickly with precision.

​I mean really shoveling it in.

I’ve been having a hard time on the inside lately.
All the different split up parts of me can’t agree.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with agreement, but if feels like everybody’s trying to talk it once and I don’t know which voice to listen to.
My life feels like one big sequence of conflicts.
Here's a conflict: I’m sick and tired of seeing FOB. I see him four or five times a week, text him every day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He feels like the only person I can really share all of Nugget with. You know, cuz he's the other half of her. He is also the last person I want to share anything with. It’s been about a year since he and I were dating and in love. Facebook likes to remind me of memories I’d rather forget, but can’t avoid. It’s a really weird feeling being so utterly heartbroken over the memory of an expectation. He never was what I imagined him to be and we never were exactly what I thought we were but yet sometime how feels like the whole world is wrong. I need space and time, but have to be around him.
Here's a conflict: His family is in town. All of them. His sisters, niece, nephew, Mother. I’ve been a really really good sport about exposing Nugget to this family. Encouraging it actually. They're very nice people, don't get me wrong. It's just that... I had to sit in his apartment yesterday for the first time since he dumped me. And yes, remember, he dumped me. And I haven’t sat in the apartment since the last time I was there when all I could do was sob and wail and question. When I was shattered and forced out. Not that long ago... when I was so pregnant and alone. I can't be in those rooms anymore. I don't know how not to be for Nugget's sake.
So to be sitting there with my four-month-old baby with the enemy and all of his support system... it hurt. I felt like I was being tested not just emotionally, but literally being tested. Every diaper I changed his sister and Mother watched like a hawk.  Or at least I felt like they did... My fingers fumbled. I felt like I was cracking under weight of judgement and eyes.
These are just the feelings I have with others. They don’t even begin to touch the feelings I have myself about myself....about who I am now or who I am as a Mother... or who I was but I am now. There are so many voices shooting off inside me from different parts of me that I’d love to get control of.
Maiden to Mother to Crone. Alone.
Here's a conflict: maybe I need to pump up the Prozac dosage? Maybe I need more pill to feel more me? Maybe that would just be bottling everything up further? Can breastfeeding take more pill? Can Dotty? Will I ever create again on these drugs?
Here's a conflict: My Mother hates him. Can't stand him. Can't take what he's done to her daughter and granddaughter so we live in moments of utter secrecy and silence in regard to him. The air fills with tension. I censor what I say or what has happened. I am careful to emote. I think of her feelings before my own. I tip toe where I sleep.
Here's a conflict: still haven't spoken to my sister. Still abiding by her desire and proclamation to leave her and her family the fuck alone. Still don't feel guilty about it. Still totally happy with the decision--and when I talk about it with other people, they try to convince me otherwise.

Maybe that's the problem?
Thinking of Nugget's feelings before my own.... Nugget's and my Mom's and FOB's and who ever else I'm in the room with. All go before mine. As a courtesy, as a recovering Catholic, as a human. I've always jumbled up my feelings, my future, my worth, my goals, my heart, my brain... with whomever I'm entangled with--lover or friend. And here I've gone and made another human I'm so connected with for eternity... without backing up the structure of myself completely that I feel lost as her leader and protector.

Here's a conflict: Feeling lost while not going anywhere.

Droolia Goolia naps again!

Wow.
Making time for me is hard.
Making time for you is hard.
Making time for anything other than boob and baby is hard.
I mean, as I sit here and type this... my magnificent nails are clickety clicking off the keys because they've had all this time to grow and not be nubbed down by blogging and keyboard. You have to rearrange your survival program every week. It's like you have to bake an entirely new pie and divvy up all the slices completely differently every time you need to do something.
Last week's pie was consumed by Nugget's vaccines and a make-up shower party sip and see thing--both of which took incredible mental and physical preparation. Every morning of the week I was up by five preparing one thing or another--one pie for organizing, one pie for cleaning, one pie for moving furniture, one pie for time with her Dad, one pie for shopping for supplies, one pie for research...
A lot of pies.

It's really easy to neglect the pie for me.
The one that brushes her teeth... once a day if she's blessed, every other day if she's lucky... and when the teeth sweaters start to rub together if she can. That sweet self-care pie that showers, shaves, makeups, eats, socializes, creates, and sleeps.
It's a mythical pie. Doesn't exist. Yet.
Still working on the recipe.
I think it involves asking for help and sharing--both of which I'm terrible at when it comes to most things, especially Nugget.

She has recently allowed me to sleep in longer increments because we've begun co-sleeping. I haven't given up on the crib by any means. I don't want her sleeping in my bed when she's older than a couple months (fingers crossed), but it sure beats sleeping sitting up... or in a chair.

Sidenote: I'm done shaming myself for co-sleeping. People act like parents who co-sleep want to murder their babies in the bed, like we don't understand the risks, like we're doing everything all wrong.
To that, I kindly say--fuck off.
Thanks but no thanks.
Not sorry, not sorry.
Worry about something else for the sake of humankind and leave us to rest, thankyouverymuch.

We sleep from about 10pm to 6am, waking up twice to feed and handle her night shits. I've begun dreaming again... which is nice and also awful.
I guess it's good because it means I'm getting deeper sleep, but it also means my subconscious has presented it's own pie.
I dream that he and I are still together, but usually down the dreamland narrative twist he abandons me, betrays me, ignores me--basically breaks my heart again. It repeats literally like a broken record and feels eerily similar to real life except for the sensation of knowing/expecting the outcome of sadness. If that makes sense? My dream self knew this pie was coming... and seems to want to say 'I told you so.' Almost every night and nap he makes an appearance, casually showing up and curving the content of whatever might be happening to dramatic feelings not to be ignored. This pie tastes like shit and leaves my eyes wet and mouth dry when I wake up.
I don't know how to stop it.
I guess it will stop itself in time.

I live and breathe for this baby. I sacrifice my comfort for her happiness. I do it all day, all night, all the time. Dream time and sleeping is the very last thing of my own and I.... I just.... wish it could really be all mine. I wish it would protect me. I wish my subconscious would cast him the fuck out and be somewhere I can dream about flying and sex again. Sans him. For good.