the Slow Descent into Madness

Albert Camus once said, "In the Midst of Winter, I finally found there lay in me an invincible summer." I might say something else, something more like, "In the midst of an interminable summer, I missed winter."

Not sure if I am going through some kind of latent post partum thing, but I have been in a funkity funk these last few days.

R has been out the last three night playing various sports, so I have been with the babe nonstop from 7 a.m.-9 p.m. And. I . Am. Losing. My. Shite. The heat is insufferable, my motivation to go out super low and my boredom at a high. I could read books or write, but somehow that seems impossible. People keep telling me to get out, but to where? I envy R when he leaves in the morning and wish I could get 8 hours of uninterrupted babyless-time. I am almost regretting the decision not to go back to work.

Given my funk, I have not been in my best mood lately. So, for me to continue to be the fun, energetic mommy my baby needs, I am going to hire someone to help me out. This plan will kill two birds with one stone (such a horrid expression as I would never kill a single bird, let alone two) because I want to hire someone fluent in Portuguese since we are raising the babe as close to bilingual as we can and Portuguese makes the most sense given our neighborhood, who she is likely to be friends with and her grandfather's fluency.

At any rate, I am really hoping that having help a few hours a week allows me to get more work done and appreciate my time with Sam. The other day a mommy-friend who works said that working allows a mother to miss her children. I have not spent more than two hours away from Sam since her birth and, much as I want to be endlessly selfless and accomodating to her, the monotony of our days is starting to wear me down. I want to miss her, to crave her fluffy hair and chubby cheeks, instead of feeling ill when she awakens from her daytime nap. A fun side effect of all this frustration? Enormous guilt at my frustration. It is a merry go round of guilt, annoyance and boredom.

This morning I woke up early, thinking about the day we moved into our condo. I remembered our old apartment and the last time I saw it, empty and filled with dust and cat hair. I remembered that feeling, the sadness about buying a house and moving into a new phase of adulthood. Then it struck me that there was no Samara then, no one I was responsible for and nothing I had to do but live. That life seems so distant now. I once said I would never be the type of mom who could not remember my life BC, but now that life seems like the recurring dream of floating I had during my childhood : hazy, distant, unrealistic, but somehow deeply affecting. Each time, upon waking, it still seemed possible to fly.