Loneliness

Loneliness. Usually you can't use the words billion and literally correctly in the same sentence. In fact I'd probably say that if you're using billion, you can rest assured that you're using literally wrong. But, based on the fact that there are 7 billion of us whizzing around the sun right now, half of which are women, and 490 thousand babies born every day, it's probably safe to say that there are literally a billion mothers on Earth if not more.

One billion people more or less sharing the same experience.Yet the consistently hardest thing about being a mom is loneliness.  Not the loneliness of being isolated, though that certainly comes into play when you're only able to communicate with yourself, but I mean the loneliness of experience. 

It's the feeling that creeps into your heart when people coo at your baby and say "8 months?  This such a fun age isn't it?" or you overhear a conversation about "adopting a new kid" that turns out to be a puppy.  It's the loneliness of thinking you're absolutely the only person on the planet that understands your own emotions.  Because yes, 8 months is a fun age. But it'doesn't always feel like it. Sometimes it's so frustrating its nightmarish. And yes, puppies are lots of work and I get that you love your dog, I do. But no, it's not at all like being the mother of a baby.  And really, it's not okay for you to say that it is. Because completely decent human beings say "you know, we had to give Spot away. He just didn't fit with our family and our lifestyle" -try saying that about your son. Get my point? Good. 

Being a mom is lonely because you never want to talk about the days where you feel like trash. You have this beautiful, amazing child that shrunches up his nose when he giggles, and in the fabric of your soul you know that you are so ridiculously lucky to be a mom. You don't want people to think poorly of your super awesome baby. You don't want to talk about how rough it is, because when you do you feel like the kind of person that complains about how hard it is find a wallet big enough to hold all your cash. 

So you turn to internet forums filled with other clueless parents trying to figuring out what the heck they're doing--trying to find some hint as to how to deal with erratic sleep patterns, or developmental delays, etc. And inevitably someone on the forum is blasting whatever you are currently doing as sending your baby on the bullet-train to life-long failures in reading and math, relationship problems, and bad hygiene if not eminent death.

And other days your baby is so breath-taking that all you want to do is shout "oh my heck, look at him!" as he lifts himself off the floor or gives you a huge grin or figures out how to get closer to a favorite toy, but there's no one to shout to. You alone are the witness and the camera's in the other room and soon the moment's passed. 

But you're not alone. Really. I know exactly what you're talking about. Hold on. He'll fall asleep eventually. You'll get to eat something soon. Buck up, you're in the Lucky Sometimes Lonely Mom Club, and sometimes you get to the camera in time.