It's That Time of Year Again

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new."
  ~Rajneesh

I have been celebrating Mother's Day every year for the past 8 years, since I was pregnant with C. I will never forget that awkward Mother's Day when my parents had only known I was pregnant for 2 weeks at that point. It was tough for our whole family as well as myself to accept that in just 6 months from that point, I would be an actual mother. I was only 20 years old.

Of the past 8 years, 5 of those years have taken an emotional toll on me. I would say 6, but the Mother's Day I was pregnant with Hope, I was in denial that that was actually happening to me. Every year, I get bitchy, and sad, and mean, and angry and I tend to push people away from me. I get overwhelmed with these emotions and rather than do something productive to honor my daughter who I haven't held in my arms these past 5 1/2 years, I cave. I fall into this deep, dark area in my heart that takes me a long time to get out of.

I wish I could just embrace the fact that I am obviously still a mom and should celebrate the gifts God has given me. I am C's mom. I am also Hope's mom, regardless of if she knows I exist or not. I wish I could be happy for these little blessings and miracles of life rather than keep punishing myself for the mistakes I made. I wish these tears would stop falling from my eyes and that this feeling of sadness starting weeks prior to Mother's Day would just wash away, and I could be happy and free once again.

I tried to explain this to J, since day one when we started dating nearly 5 months ago. It's so easy to tell someone "Btw, there are two times out of the year that I get pretty emotional -- Mother's Day and her birthday." He probably thought 'this won't be that bad'. But it's pretty bad. There's nothing worse than being told by your boyfriend that you are no longer the girl that he first started dating, and he just wants his girlfriend back. Sigh.... but this IS ME! This is a part of who I am. I so badly wish it wasn't, but it is, and take it or leave it, but that emotional wreck that comes only two times a year is the same girl who was amazingly happy and positive for the first 3 1/2- 4 months of our relationship! I'm so glad he hasn't taken the fact that I push him away personally. I hope he doesn't give up on me when I need him there for me the most. It's really difficult to be needy and to want to be comforted, and I'm glad that he does it regardless. I am super lucky to have him as my boyfriend and am thankful that I have someone so supportive by my side.

There are two more weeks until Birthmothers Day and Mother's Day, so I know this won't be the first of this empty feeling. I am thankful for the love and support that I have from my close friends and from J. I am so glad that I have things such as work, and school, and C to occupy my time and get through another year marked off the calendar. A few more weeks of pushing myself to get through the days without crying because I am tired of being sad.