Emotionally unavailable

If only I were to be that lucky. I’ve always been a villager, hoping desperate that someone would be one for me too. I’ve set myself on fire to keep others warm and I’m lucky to have been spit on when I was burning.

I went out of my way to help those who needed. Answered every phone call of someone having a crash out. Went over in the middle of the night to be the crying shoulder or the reassuring voice. I have rides when all I wanted to do was relax or rest. I brought food and entertainment. I stayed until they were safe for me to go. I stayed and talked when all they did was sit there, completely out of it.

I was the villager.

And what did I get when I needed a village? Criticized for being so sick that I could be the villager when I was pregnant. Abandoned and judged when I got pregnant again. Called selfish when I started putting myself first because I was sick in the mind. Told to suck it up or get over it, that it wasn’t that bad when I felt like my world was ending.

Sure, I got words of congratulations when I had my sons and condolences when my father unexpectedly died. But that was it. I never got even an ounce of what I gave.

Why didn’t you tell anyone that you are not okay?

Which time?

This time? As in right now? Because I’m not the only one who isn’t okay. Because I can say that nobody else around me cares about one of the problems and I’ve talked about another so much I feel like I’m beating a dead horse and another is because I can’t bring myself to say any of it loud out. Even to my therapist I had to write it down. I don’t know why it’s so hard to say out loud. Why am I so plagued with guilt and shame when I’m the victim? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Exhausted. Maybe because I haven’t slept well in three months. Not since the baby was born. I say that like I slept well before. Mentally, I’m exhausted too. I make all the decisions and appointments and worries and find the solutions for everything and everyone. Kids are sick? I get the medicine and make the doctor appointments. What’s for dinner? I don’t know but I’ll figure it out. A letter came home from the school about his attitude? I’ll make a meeting with his teacher and a follow up with his therapist. All while feeling like such a shit mom and nothing of a person because when something fails, it’s all on my shoulders and my fault.

Overwhelmed. There is always too much going on all at once. I’m always being touched. I’m always being talked to by more than once person at a time. Even my mom can’t figure out that certain times aren’t good for me to listen to whatever the hell she is saying to me. I’ve got a baby crying on my shoulder and two other kids asking for two different things. I get you’ve got something on your mind but now isn’t the damn time. Chores are piling up because I can’t get nearly as much done anymore because so much of my time has to be dedicated to just the baby.

Unappreciated. My husband works second shift so I’m essentially raising the kids as a single mom most days. I’ve been trying so hard to teach my boys to be polite but I swear it gets erased in the mornings when my husband is with them and lets them on YouTube. I’ve seen some of those “kids” YouTube videos and shorts and all it does is teach them to be little assholes. They’ve both taken to saying I hate you or I’m the worst mom when I tell them no, even when I try to explain why I’m telling them no. It’s heartbreaking. Same thing with doing things for them. They used to say please and thank you, and the middlest one still does but since the biggest one started at his new school it’s all disappeared. He demands stuff and gets beyond angry when we say no or try to correct him to be polite. I have zero idea where this attitude came from because it’s not how we raised him or taught him to behave.

Annoyed. I recently started looking into scholarships and loans to start attending the local community college in the upcoming fall semester. I filled out a couple of things online, thinking they were going to email me the information to get information on how to get financial aid to pay for in person classes because those were the boxes I checked. No. I am getting at least 5 calls a day from Phoenix university no matter how many times I tell them to stop calling. I didn’t realize what I had filled out was for that online crap.

Burnt out. I could probably sleep for a week and not feel any better. I could have a full nine course meal of my favourite foods and not feel any better. A fully planned by someone else vacation where all I had to do was show up and relax and I’d still feel like shit.

Alone. All this being said, I am alone. I only have friends online. Somehow most of them are on Europe so time difference make it hard to talk with them. My husband works second shift and is rarely around during the week because of it. And because of it we don’t even sleep together anymore because I’m usually asleep maybe an hour after he gets home and that is me purposely staying awake to see him. Even on the weekends I swear I don’t see him that much. My companions are my three sons, all under age 7. Sure, I’ve got my mom but she is so caught up in herself and her shit that she doesn’t actually listen to me when I talk.

If you could say one thing to your mom, what would it be?

I don’t know if this is true or not for me. I was there in the end. That much I can say. When I got the call—“dad’s in the hospital”—from my little brother, I didn’t hesitate at all to drop everything I was doing. I was in the middle of an online biology quiz. My husband was napping before work. My oldest son was in school. My middle son, who was my youngest at the time, was playing in his room. I slammed my laptop shut, grabbed my keys, woke my husband, barely got out what was going on, and I was out the door. Didn’t change out of my giant pajama shirt or dirty leggings. I don’t even think I put socks on. That day I was nothing but his daughter. And for the rest of the week I was too. I was at the hospital every day. I studied there. I brought my sons with me. I talked to him. My dad’s side of the family. Helped make those terrifying decisions about what to do as he got better then sicker. I was there for every decision involving his funeral and visitation. I held my siblings as they cried. Talked to his friends and coworkers. People I never met before. People who didn’t know I existed as his oldest daughter.

Write about a time when you realized you were no longer a child.