On Facebook

I first heard about it senior year in college. I'd be standing in line in the cafeteria to pay for lunch when I would hear the girl in front of me say to her friend, "I found so many people from high school on Facebook. I thought I'd never see some of them again!"

I'd go to class and hear someone say, "I used to play with my neighbor every day until we were ten. Then she moved away and I never saw her again, but I just found her on Facebook!"

After overhearing a handful of these conversations, I decided to create a Facebook account. It was still only for people with .edu email addresses. You couldn't post statuses yet, but you could choose how you were feeling from a drop down list of emotions. My first "status update" about Facebook was, in fact, made on AOL Instant Messenger. I informed my friends that I'd joined after hearing about it so many times around campus.

How it has changed.

I like Facebook for two main reasons. The first is that I can stay in touch with family in a way that I couldn't before. We "see" each other more often, thanks to Facebook. It does not replace real life interactions, but it keeps me updated on family news. The second reason is that it helps me feel more connected in general, especially this year. As a new stay at home mom in a new state in the dead of winter, Facebook provided a daily reminder that other people were out there, kept me connected to friends I'd left behind, and kept me in touch with other moms. 

I was seriously hoping the active Facebook mom community I had back home would be here, too. I was disappointed to find it lacking. The majority of people I've met here avoid Facebook or use it sparingly (and I can understand that). I wonder if it'll be more active in our new town.

I do wonder what life would be like without it. I have occasionally thought about cutting Facebook out of my life. Like many others, I also fall victim to the comparison game. I see those status updates and pictures that make so-and-so's life look perfect, and I get jealous. For a while, it contributed heavily to my homesickness. I almost cut Facebook out at that point. Almost. Without it, I wouldn't have nearly as many people to compare to myself. I might devote the time I spend reading status updates to something more important. 

(Side note: before Facebook, I devoted a lot of time to reading books. I'm a huge advocate of reading, but I don't know that it's more important than other things I *could* be doing instead. I kind of think I'd go back to reading more in lieu of Facebook...)

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that the mom connection is currently the strongest reason I stay on Facebook. I don't want to repeat all the mom bloggers out there, but I probably will, because staying home is what I've known this past year and it is much harder than I thought it would be. I was not prepared for the overwhelming sense of isolation and boredom I have experienced. I have found that I desperately want to be out of our apartment at least once day. I am not good at sitting on the floor and playing with my child for hours on end. I WANT to be good at it, but mostly I feel like I'll go crazy. As I've shared before, he's not good with staying home for hours on end, either...but I still feel so hugely isolated. I can't quite nail it down. We go to MOPS and play dates and small group and story time and parks and church, but it never feels like enough. At home, we do chores and meals and take walks (and I can't wait till we have a house again with space for projects and messes), but I still feel like I'm stuck and alone and bored. To bring this back to Facebook, seeing all the other moms I know post similar thoughts and feelings helps me quite a bit.

Maybe it's just the "mommy trenches" that I hear about...toddler life is trying, after all. Maybe this is just where God has me, allowing me to experience this stuff for some reason I don't yet know. Or, maybe I need therapy. Haha. But, as for Facebook, I plan to stick with it for now.

here we go again

Eleven months ago: Nathan had been in Illinois for about two months. I was still in Fort Wayne, working and waiting for our house to sell. Nathan came home for a weekend visit. We went out to dinner, and he informed me that things weren't going well. I had just started to suspect he wasn't happy with our new place in life, and this confirmed it. 

We stopped house hunting and focused on apartments and storage facilities. Nathan wanted to stay with his job for at least a year. After that, he only knew that he wanted to leave this corner of northern Illinois. When Andrew and I moved out here, it didn't take long for me to agree. It's a nice area, but we can't easily afford to live in it.

I had no idea how long we would be in Illinois. Nathan started job searching before the one year mark. He had several offers, but nothing quite fit. The job search that landed us in Illinois was a bit rushed, as his old company was bought out and layoffs were imminent. We wanted to carefully and prayerfully consider options this time. 

The options have been considered. A very good opportunity has come from Tennessee, so we are moving. Again. God knows I never dreamed of living in three states in three years. In fact, it's still something I don't want...I very selfishly want us all to just go back home. I hope that changes, even when I am admittedly bad at changing. This experience has, if nothing else, taught me that I simply can't control where I live.

I will not miss the area very much, but I will miss the people. We've met some pretty amazing people, which I did not think would happen in the space of one year. It will be hard to leave them behind and start over, yet again, making friends. I hope the people we meet in Tennessee are as great as they are here. 

the weight

I think I've established that moving was hard. It's still hard. I don't feel like I've completely transitioned yet, and although people say I should give it two years, I wonder if two years really will make a difference. For the record, it has been eight months.

One of the many things the move brought was a lack of physical activity for me. I'm no longer spending twenty hours a week getting up and down at the library. I was semi-consistent with working out at home because our basement served as a convenient workout area. All of our exercise equipment is now in storage and inaccessible until we get a house. I can't exercise with Andrew around because he doesn't have the patience for it. Gym memberships are out. I don't really want to spend money on workout videos. Jumping of any sort is out, as we're not on a ground floor. And taking care of Andrew is a lot of work, but it is definitely not exercise. 

I also hate exercising. I don't get any good feelings when I do it. None. Ever. Hence, the excuses above. They might be valid, but they are still excuses.

I have gained weight in the eight months we've been here. Most of my clothes don't fit anymore. I am physically uncomfortable. All. The. Time. I could probably deal with the extra weight if I weren't so uncomfortable. I don't know how much I've gained (the scale is in storage, too), but I gotta do something. If it's a good day, I get an hour and a half to myself during nap time. I need to put a work out in there. Then, the really hard part, I need to stick with it. Despite the lack of good feelings, the absence of that positive rush, and the fact that I've never been consistent with a workout for longer than a month. Ugh. As Nike once said, "Just do it." That's probably the only way.

the persistence of homesickness

Every morning, I wake up and think first of home. I think about what I would be doing today and who I would see. The people, the house, the buildings, the roads, all of it, is so deeply ingrained. Whenever I need to go somewhere here, I think almost dually of how I would get to the equivalent place if I were home. I am amazingly homesick. Yes, I am quite sure it is ridiculous to some degree, but it persists.

I am trying. I'm getting involved here, trying to "get out there," and it helps. But I still miss home daily, sometimes desperately. It is, again, probably ridiculous to view one city as "home." I can grasp that there is more to the concept of "home" than that.

We don't know the future. We thought we did, but it was knocked out from under us, and now our future is even more uncertain than it was then. I suppose that's the big lesson in all of this.

Please know that I'm not trying to make people feel bad for me. I'm not looking for sympathy. I've heard all the advice and it's appreciated. I'm just processing, and blogging helps.

What should I say?

This article about what moms don't say in regards to new motherhood recently appeared on my Facebook feed and I read it with great interest. I found everything on the list to be true to my own experience. From what I remember only two people really spoke to me about the difficulties of becoming a parent. One told me about some serious breast feeding issues she'd faced. With the other, it wasn't even specifics, just some general "it's really hard and I am so tired" comments.

Everyone told me that being a mom would be great and I would love it and, yes, it wouldn't be easy, but I would just love it. I do love my little one and there are great times and I would not give it up. I just wonder if it might have been different if more people had told me about the difficulties of those first months with baby.

I felt like I got hit by a truck after giving birth. I did not love it. I did not like it. I thought something was horribly wrong with me because I was supposed to be loving it. Everyone said I would love it! My poor husband didn't know what to do with my misery because he was supposed to be loving it, too. I kept it from everyone else because it must have been just me; I had to be doing something wrong. And then I couldn't stand it and went to the doctor and she said I had postpartum depression.

I posted a blog about my experience shortly after my PPD diagnosis. Suddenly, all these moms were telling me about how hard having a baby was for them. I was so relieved that it wasn't just me. That was a big aspect of my recovery. 

I have wondered ever since why I didn't hear about the difficulties before baby. Maybe that part was just me... I didn't know to look for them or ask about them. But some of the same people who said I'd love it also said it was so, so hard after I told them I was depressed.

I don't judge them because I also wonder if I help perpetuate this problem. I don't readily tell my first-time pregnant friends about my experiences. I wonder if I should, because for me they were pretty bad. I don't want to scare these new moms or make having a baby sound like the first step to depression. I know it's not always that hard for everyone, but it does seem to be hard for many people. I will gladly talk about it if asked, but I really don't know how to bring it up unasked. And maybe that is why only two people told me (unasked!) about the hardships of the early months of parenthood.

on staying home

What do stay at home moms do all day?

Last week was my first official week as a sahm. We were still living with my parents because we were stuck in a snowstorm. It wasn’t too hard because I had their help and company. 

This is my first official week as a sahm without help. Ha. Thanks to my husband’s mad organizational skills, Andrew and I moved into our apartment on Saturday and we are pretty well settled three days later. 

And now…what am I supposed to do? I mean, yes, there are three meals a day and regular diaper changes and play and discipline, but I have no idea what kind of routine to create. It’s really weird to not have to be anywhere. It’s really weird to not know anyone within a ten minute driving distance. I can’t even get in my car and drive without the help of Google maps because I don’t know where anything is around here. Plus, it’s against the law to drive and use a phone. Which is good, but still. It makes going out feel like a pain, and then I just don’t do it.

Then there’s Andrew, who doesn’t sit in a stroller or cart very well. He wants to run and get into everything and the playgrounds are cold and yucky for another few months. He is another reason it’s hard to get out, even though I know he’s bursting at the seams to get out. It feels like chaos when I take him to a store, and so, well, I don’t. 

Ah, if only we’d moved in the springtime. Three and a half more months!

While I know routines and relationships and familiarity will come eventually, I still find myself wondering what stay at home moms do, because I feel like I am facing a lot of potential boredom! I’m guessing they go places and just deal with the fits of little ones. I’ll have to learn.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m not stay at home mom material. I know, I know, it’s way too soon to tell. It hasn’t even been a week. But that’s how bored I already am!

*I should clarify. I only have one child. My only stay-at-home stint was during maternity leave, and I battled some serious depression and physical pain at that time. I know plenty of sahm moms with more than one kid or a kid with extra needs who seem to always be busy. I know what stay at home moms “do,” this is mostly about how I have no idea what I am doing!