Something I don't have a name for.
Something I am utterly baffled by.
Something that needs to change.
In short, I need help.
I have Adult Proximity Disorder.
Or perhaps I should call it Imposer Friend Syndrome? Instant Friend Attachment?
The problem is this. Every time I go to the gym, or to the grocery store...or even to the library or the park with my kids, I am apparently starving for adult interaction. I crave it.
And, my emotional vulnerability and lack of time for friendships...unhinges my mouth.
I talk.
I gush.
I word vomit everywhere.
It just all comes out. My frustrations over my kids. My changing body. The dishes. The laundry. The way I feel discontent and inadequate all the time. How tired I am. Because no one is sleeping. And I'm always tired. Why does no one sleep.
I usually say to much. To a stranger. At the park.
Yes, I'm THAT mom.
Sometimes as I am unburdening my shriveled, starved little mom-heart out I see the person I am talking to just...disconnect. So I try to hold it in. I try to stop.
Once again, I am too much. Once again, I am not enough.
You know how the younger generation is all concerned about being ghosted? Like the boy or girl they are dating just never talks to them again, changes their number or just ignores their texts?
I am tired of being ghosted, but its not by teen boys. It's by other moms. Oh, I know we are all tired. I know we all have a million things to do. But when I can't tell if you are just being polite or if you actually want to be my friend, we have a problem. So many times I have tried to become friends with another mom and been, for lack of a better word, ghosted.
And I understand, I do. Because I have ghosted other women myself. I didn't mean too, but in between pregnancy and childbirth and one to two babies, I lost touch with a lot of people and I know it hurt them. I know they still hurt, because I also hurt.
We moms battle tantrums and angsty tweens while juggling our own mental problems, not to mention the rotation wheel that is housework, cooking, and husbands. But here is the thing. If you don't want to be my friend, its okay to just tell me. If you want to be my friend, but don't have time, that is okay too. Lets communicate. We can text. E-mail once a week. I don't want my friendship to be burden. I'm trying to do the same. To reach out when I'm feeling overwhelmed and anxious, not to fall inward into isolation
But we don't always communicate, do we. Sometimes I just shut down and instigate radio silence. Followed by a text a few weeks, sometimes months later that goes something like.......I'm so sorry, things have been crazy, how are you doing?
And things are crazy. Mom life is crazy.
And yes, sometimes that break of talking between friends extends so long that I don't know how to open communication again. And I ghost other moms.
But what I am saying is, just like you need to learn how to break up with your boyfriend, we need to learn to "break up" as mom friends. Maybe that is the wrong term, because instead of breaking up and ghosting each other we should accept the spaces that children and illness and overwhelmed mom life brings to friendship and give each other grace. We need to stop the peer pressure. So many moms are introverts (spoiler, I am not) yet often feel the need to be "polite" and have "friends" and go "out" when what they really need is to stay home and be alone. And saying that should be okay. We push and push ourselves to have a active home life and have friends and make crafts with our kids and sex with our husbands on at least a semi-regular basis. But I find it hard to have my cake and eat it too, and not just because it contains gluten.
I think that is the thing behind the mom-ghosting. The "and". We try to have a home life "and" __________. Sometimes I can't even have a ordered existence within our four walls, much less without. And so I shut down, stop communicating, when I need to talk the most. The last four years since I became a mother have been the hardest and the most transformational for me as a person. And I'm not a butterfly, I'm some type of wet puddle.
I do need friends. I also need to stop venting to strangers. I find that last sentence highly amusing since here I am...blogging...but you are not a stranger, right? You love me and want to hear all about how I got rug burn in yoga class, and how I ate pizza for the first time in six years last week. It was delicious.
I miss just being alone in my own head and not having tiny humans to manage. But I love them, even if they make me a bit crazy.
I don't even know what the point of this post is, it got lost somewhere between cake and friendship. Have a good night, friends.
