No one gets me

Seriously, no one gets me. Sometimes I feel so cut off from the rest of humanity. Not like Bella, who chose it. OK? So we're clear? I'm not some whiny emo teenager here, ok?

Wow, so that sounded a tad defensive. See, here's the thing. I'm wife, and mother, to attention-deficit. And I have no idea how to deal with it. Up until I met my husband, seriously, I'd never met anyone with ADD. I thought it was a myth concocted by shrinks to explain bad behavior, get press, and make oodles doping kids up on ritalin.

Turns out, it's more serious than that. But what kills me is that even though I've learned that it's a real disease, apparently no one else in the educated world has.

Now, I know not everyone has time, energy, or inclination to read my blogs. We'll shame them later. BUT if they did, maybe they'd have a clue into my life, and how hard and lonely it really is, instead of dismissing my gripes. "He's all boy, isn't he?" they say about my son, or, "Wow, he's wide-open, huh?" Um, sure. I guess those apply, but it's so much more than that.

And my family doesn't get it, either. I try not to throw my hubby & kid in with my brothers and father too much, just makes for really tense times. Because they don't get it.

And when I go out, my friends don't get it, either. They tell me I'm really quiet, and then I feel boring. But it's hard to be awesome and the life of the party when I'm so fucking tired. I haven't slept in four years because of this. Sleeping in, for me, is getting uninterrupted sleep until 6AM. Sad, huh? And when I try to explain my kid, well, you saw what they say.

Inside, my 24-year-old self is screaming at me to let her out. To be fun, crazy, and let loose. But it's hard when I have 3 other people depending on me for everything. And it's always on my mind, crowding out all the fun.

Sometimes, I wish I could become a vampire, super-strong, no need of sleep, able to clean the entire house in under a minute. But I'm just me, with an apple-shaped body and gray hair and sunken eyes, and a to-do list that never gets finished.

One of my Facebook friends wrote, "You are only as strong as those who support you." I guess that means I have the strength of 1, then... is it enough? Do you get me?

The Freedom To Write

I have a regular post on BabyCenter.com called Mommy Wore Combat Boots. I get to chronicle my change from active-duty military to full-time mom. And it's fun, it really is. I re-discovered my love of writing. I discovered that I'm pretty good at BS. And I also discovered that as wonderful as BabyCenter is, it's not enough for me.

BabyCenter reaches a wide audience of moms and women. The regular commenters are nice enough, they never flame me for my lapses in parental judgment. But there are those that vehemently flog me with their verbal whip, and that's pretty demoralizing. I mean, I'm putting it all out there for the public, in order to help other moms feel like they're not alone, and I get slammed for it!

So I started this blog, to help myself improve my writing; to give myself another outlet, where I can play around a little more. A place where I don't have to watch what I say quite as closely. And where I can be a little more personal, a little more me. Hopefully I'll have interesting things to write, and learn things along the way!