Dear friend without a baby,
Let me start by saying I love you, just as much as I did before my baby came into my world. But I am struggling. Struggling to reconnect with you. What we had was so great! So fun. So uncomplicated. And then I had a baby....
Now it's been a year. We haven't talked much. You know, I was busy changing diapers and trying to sleep train a tiny human and you were busy doing non mommy things. Doing spontaneous things like dancing with friends and spending summer nights on patios til whenever the hell you felt like it.
I wanted so badly for everything to be the same the day I returned. For us to go back to what we were before. But that can't happen. I'm not the same. I was sure I would be the same person as I was before but I am anything BUT. I am obsessed with a 2.5 foot tall lil creature who toddles around my home like a little drunk adult. Everything, and I mean EVERTHING, she does is amazing. The fact that she can stab her own food with her tiny fork is incredible. That she can tell me in her own language of grunts and squeals what she wants and doesn't is mind blowing.
You don't care. And that's ok. I mean it. You don't view my daughter through the same eyes as I do. You love her, and think she's adorable and that's enough for me, for me and her.
When we talk, I try, try really hard to avoid mentioning her every sentence. But it feels next to impossible. I try to ask questions about your life and what exciting things you do because I know if I don't I will only talk to you about the latest and greatest thing my daughter has done.
You probably think to yourself "she's changed, she's not who I remember". And you would be right. It's really hard to remember to who I was before I was a Mom. And I worry. Sometimes, a lot, that I will lose myself in being a Mom. That I will sink so deep into raising a child that I will forget how to be a wife, be a friend, be a daughter.
When it comes right down to it. I am jealous of you. I envy your free spirit. I too want to drop everything and go do something fun. Anything fun. But I can't. Because at home there is a small baby who depends on me. Every waking moment, and sleeping moment to be honest. Even as I write, she is tossing and turning, finding it difficult to sleep on a hot summer night. Possibly needing just one more mommy snuggle to settle in and those are the moments I cherish and wouldn't trade for the world.
I now try to live through you. Experience your exciting nights through your posted photos and statuses. Because I no longer get a text from you. Perhaps you think I'm too busy. When really I am hoping that one night I will hear from you, randomly, just because you are thinking of me. Even though I'm not the same friend I was before.
I hope that you know, when I rush out instead of lingering to chat, it's because if I hurry home there is a chance I might make it back in time to give her a kiss and a snuggle before she goes to bed. I might get to see her laugh at everything I do because she is overtired and anything I do at that point is hilarious. And that giggle, it makes my heart soar. In a way I can't put into words...
I need you to know that I am scared. I am truly afraid that you see me differently and you don't like the new me. I struggle to find my place again. At work, in life, everywhere. I often feel left out. Alone even.
I ask you to be patient with me. Smile and nod, throw in a "wow! that's awesome' even when what I mention is mundane. Humour me and accept me. Love me for who I was and who I am now. Because I still love you and miss you.
