My love for my son is no less fierce or intense. But yes, it is different. Part of this is clearly because of their 3.5 year age gap. For example, communication: My daughter has a stunning vocabulary for her age and a wisdom that is hard to put into words. My son is just learning to speak. It is easier for me to relate to my daughter in many ways, because she can tell me how she is feeling and what she wants and she will sit down with me, whereas my son uses non-verbal communication, his dozen words and a lot of running.

But, as I said, my love for him is unquantifiable. Just this morning the four of us were up early and all cuddled on the couch in the basement, listening to my son’s new favorite song (and let me tell you, he makes it known) and I kind of nuzzled up to his head and inhaled him, like people do with newborn babies. He smells delicious. I can’t describe it, but I got so lost in that smell, I could have stayed there forever.

But if we are being really, truly honest, which I always am, I think that the part of my relationship that mixes me up a bit is the fact that he was born and I subsequently lost my mind. So my feelings about our introduction are a combination of bliss, gratitude, joy, terror, sadness, pain, guilt and some PTSD. Once my mental health started to improve and I was left alone, again, to take care of my son, I thought, “How am I going to do this? How will we work?”

My little guy has surprised me from day 1 of his existence in my womb, and hasn’t stopped. He cracks me up, for in the span of 3 minutes, he will steal my kale smoothie, switch the Living Room TV to a setting that I can’t figure out how to fix, take apart my bathroom vanity, while marching around, bag of pretzels in one hand and blowdryer in the other. (This is what he did after lunch today.) He just tried to race his Matchbox cars over my computer keyboard. He is just different than I am. I am lazy. I like to play chill games. He likes to go go go go go go go go go go.

But something hit me today, as I got dressed, and I was inspired to journal it, as he deserves it. I wanted to write about him. My closet happens to be in my son’s bedroom, so as I picked out my outfit, I sat him on his glider and talked to him. “I’m just putting on my shirt now! What do you think?” And I smiled at him as broadly as I could and he smiled back, with his entire face. I ran to the bathroom that is across the hall from his bedroom and waved to him. He continued to beam.

“We are doing this,” I thought.

This, this period of time right now, is an odd one; This is not what I expected from my life, and I feel the entire spectrum of emotions when I think about it, ranging from extreme sadness to pure happiness. This morning, on that couch, my head in his hair, I was as blissful as anyone could be.

And then there are other times, when I am trying to figure out my path forward, and I get down.

But I realized today that I have this constant reminder with me; My little strength symbol.

I want to be happy, not just for myself (in fact, I put myself last, but that’s a whole different story), but for him.

So right now I am sitting on the floor of the basement, perched on his “Anywhere Chair”, typing, as he runs around, playing trains, sliding down the rollercoaster, handing me a plastic croissant and saying, “Apple, mama?” as he shoves it into my mouth, climbing on the furniture and continuing to mess with yet another TV. I am now listening to the sound of my home phone dialing.

But we’re doing this.

And even though I just had to get up from my chair on the floor (despite my inherent laziness) to hang up the phone because he actually did just call someone, we are doing this.

And so I am going to go now. Not just because he is dialing more numbers, but because I want to give him my time. I want to play with him, cooking together in his fake grill. I want to help him to do a puzzle. I want to smell his head.

So, it may not have been the easiest path,

and every single day still has it’s challenges,

but I get to smell a heavenly head, and see a huge smile that has all but 2 teeth filled in, and laugh at the little drop of milk that gets caught in the cleft of his chin and live in a constant state of surprise and amazement and awe.

And I get to continue to learn, from my baby, how to be strong.

(Our respective perches. At least for this second.)

Update: My mom just called.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing. You called me? I got a missed call from your home phone.”

My son freakin’ called my mom.

“His first call to Bubbie!” she exclaimed, so excited.

“He is delicious.”

And I have to agree.

The post We are doing this appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

My grandparents came over for lunch, as I needed them to watch the baby for me so I could go to a doctor’s appointment. There are times on this site when I share more details than others–sometimes I am purposely vague–but today I will open up and tell you the whole story. Pardon me if things seem a bit scattered; I am doing the best that I can.

As I have mentioned, we are now in the end stages of finishing our basement , (Carpet goes in tomorrow! We have outlets!) after we had a great flood last year, ruining an entire POD worth of possessions and leading to the carbon monoxide poisoning of both me and my children. That was (is) stressful, but I am very excited about our new big, great living and play space. Not only do I love this because in the finishing of the basement do we gain a new family room from our sunroom and a new guestroom from our former playroom, but I love home design (if you are new on here, I wrote about the transformation of my home on a site called 511 Ever After). I have had a ball picking out paint colors and fixtures and carpeting and tile and it feels kind of nice and grown up to build something of our own, truly from the ground up. But not only am I excited about my basement, I am proud; I felt proud when we got up from the lunch table and I toured my Mommom through the partially finished space. I am going to be honest in saying that it felt good to be able to say, “Here is where I had them put in closets with built in shelves for the toys and then look, we created a nook over here.” and “Look at my new laundry room.” because I have always struggled with feeling like a real grown up (as if I am some sort of imposter) and this made me feel really accomplished in a way that I have not before.

And then…

And then, Mommom and I walked up the steps and someone working in the house said, “Um, I am not sure what is going on, but I think that there is a problem in the garage.”

To give you a visual, our garage is off of the kitchen, next to our back door and powder room and mudroom area. I opened the door and saw water spraying out from the house-side of the basement. Spraying with force. A pipe had burst (I am assuming) and water was covering the things that we moved from the basement to the garage to store, and also things like sports equipment, bikes and strollers. Fortunately, I had electricians working here, and they knew more than I do about home repair, so they shut off the faulty pipe, but I was very upset. Another burst pipe? Really? Just as we are getting our (house related) lives back together?

And then I realized, I was running late for my appointment with the doctor. And this wasn’t one of my normal doctor visits. And I couldn’t find my keys, so I ran around, and my Poppop told me to slow down 15 times and cautioned me to drive safely to the hospital, but I was in a frenzy.

As I drove to the hospital, the place where I had both of my children

and the place where I was told that I would not longer be able to have any more children,

I called my dear friend. “I just needed to say this out loud to someone who will understand.” And she was so kind and compassionate and she did.

I walked through the hospital feeling trailed by ghosts. As I walked in the atrium, I saw myself, 18 months ago, walking through the same area, my belly so far out in front of me. I remembered the kind of tea I had ordered and I remembered the hard phone conversations I had had on a specific bench and I broke a little inside.

“I am never going to have that ever again.” That sentiment echoed in my head on repeat. I couldn’t help it. And I am grateful for my family and my children and my recovery, but I am still in pain.

In any case, I was particularly nervous for my visit to this particular doctor, for a very specific reason. In “The Hardest Post I’ve Ever Written”, I said:

“In having my son, my sweet angel of a little boy whom I love with all of my heart, I experienced great depression…the hormones. The crushing hormones that sneak up on you and embrace you in their anxiety-producing grasp. So I suffered what I now know is called peripartum depression. I felt down. Not all of the time, but some of the time. A lot of the time. I couldn’t focus on my family. I had scary thoughts. But I was ok. I was still myself.

And I saw doctors and they were all concerned for me for after the birth. I remember one saying “I am concerned about you having this baby and having a walloping case of postpartum depression.” And I didn’t quite understand it but I knew to fear it.”

My appointment today was with a neurologist. I have never written about this before on here, but when I was 7 months pregnant I had a severe migraine with a complex aura. I am sure that many of you suffer from migraines, my oldest friend has had them for years, but that day was truly one of the scariest in my entire life. I have had many migraines in my life, most of them silent, but twice I have experienced an aura. The first time was in 7th grade math class. I began to see bubbles in front of my eye and my hand went numb and then went home with a crushing headache and vomiting. And by home, I actually mean to Mommom’s apartment where she took care of me and I watched “The Price is Right”.

The second time was much worse. As I said, I was very pregnant and I was sitting in my sunroom and playing with my daughter when I started to see black spots in front of one of my eyes, as if I had been looking into the sun or a bright light. That then quickly turned into a trail of shimmering lights and a vague headache. At this point, because I knew enough about migraines, thinking I was on the verge of an ocular migraine, I called my mom to come over to help me with my daughter.

She took me into bed and we all cuddled up in my darkened bedroom and she kept the dialogue going with me in order to distract me, but suddenly I realized that I was losing a word or two per sentence. And then I lost the ability to speak or communicate. I could think what I wanted to say, I could speak, but I was talking in gibberish. And I sent a few text messages during that time to try to ask for help, but they were in completely incoherent as well. I could not get words out. That was the single scariest thing I can ever remember happening to me. After that, the numbness and excruciating headache that lasted for two days seemed like a piece of cake. Truly.

In any case, I went to a neurologist early in the Fall of 2013, 33 weeks pregnant, and was diagnosed with “Complex migraines with aura”. And then I sat in my new neurologist’s office and I sobbed. I sobbed to him about my fears about a repeat C-Section when my OBGYN was not taking me seriously (he intervened and wrote a note to him, explaining that I needed to be treated with more care, thank you very much) and I sobbed about my fears about a repeat child. And more. And he is the doctor who said, “I am not worried about a neurological problem with you; what I am worried about is that you are going to develop a walloping case of postpartum depression.”

He gave me prescriptions that day, for medicines (that I have not taken), for tests (that I did not have done) and a note with the name of a psychiatrist.

This is the psychiatrist whom I see twice every week.

This man, this doctor, had a profound impact on my life, and he had no idea (because I never followed up with him as I was supposed to). I apologized today for being a “bad patient” and he said “I am in no way angry with you, I just want to get you better.” and ordered a new round of tests (I have to suck it up and get the dreaded MRI/MRA but this time I do not have a basketball sized stomach and can take anxiety medicine) and will be seeing me again in a month. He truly seemed to care.

I left the hospital a little shaken. I was nervous about my upcoming tests and nervous about what I would come home to find, and the elevator was not working, and because I had not been able to find a parking space, I had to park on the top tier of the garage. I took a deep breath and walked up the four flights of stairs (which, I realize, is not a lot, but for me, right now, it is) and got to the top when I realized that I had not paid for parking before leaving the hospital, which is their newish policy. So back down I went. And then back up, again. And I had to laugh.

What a day.

I got home and my grandparents were playing with the kids and my aunt had come over and brought them fun toys and my husband was home and hugged me in the way that I needed to be hugged.

And if I haven’t gotten real so far, here it is.

I have been advised by some people to share less on this site; all of these suggestions have been well intentioned, absolutely, but they have basically ranged from the notion that I am perpetuating my “hard story” by continuing to write about it and myself, to the fact that I want to still be regarded as a trustworthy member of the community, without the stigma of mental illness attached to my name.

But I don’t believe that.

Because the first thing that I wanted to do after holding my son and snuggling my daughter and hugging my husband was to let my fingers slide across this keyboard and let the words pour out of me (like, let’s say a flood. Too soon?) This is my outlet. Yes, my primary goal with this site is to help others, but I am most definitely helping myself in the process.

So you may have noticed that my posts recently have been a bit more upbeat and light. That is for two reasons: First, because things have been going pretty well, and for that I am so grateful. But second, it is because I have made a conscious effort to try to make this blog less “harsh” or “honest” or “self-reflective”. But that’s not who I am.

And today was a bad day. And it is OK for me to admit that I have had a bad day.

If people look at me differently for it, then it is their problem.

My tribe, my true, deeply rooted tribe of people, love me and support me and build me up, even on my weakest days (and sometimes mostly on my weakest days. Do you know how many of my people have sat on my bed with me in the past 6 months alone? When I’ve needed them they were not only “there”, they were right there). They don’t try to silence me, they let me be who I am, and that is honest and communicative and as I said to my husband during a teary conversation on Saturday, “I must be doing something right, because look at my friends.” I have the best friends in the world. No, really, I do.

So today I felt anxious, I felt proud, I confronted a new home challenge and ghosts from my past, and took steps towards taking care of myself, both medically and emotionally. Like my basement, I am a work in progress, and unexpected obstacles come up, but I am learning to fix them. I am finding my strength.

And it’s funny; as I type this I am realizing something. Maybe today wasn’t so bad, after all.

The post It is OK for me to admit that I have had a bad day. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

Up until last year, I experienced the winter holidays in nearly the same way every year for as long as I can remember:

Hanukkah was a time of many big family gatherings

(when you have a huge family that all lives locally, the pile of presents is pretty epic);

It was a time of latkes and blessings and rituals that were passed down from my grandparents to my parents and then to us.

And I think that somewhere, deep within my being, it got engrained in me that that was the way that things had to be.

Christmas was equally predictable; we would all see movies (sometimes together, sometimes separate; the most notable example being the time that my mom, sister and I saw “Little Women” while my dad saw “Pulp Fiction”, alone, in the theater next door.) We would often times do the stereotypical Chinese food dinner, other times my dad and I would cook a proper turkey feast, but it was always a big family event.

(Note: There were two Christmases, 1987 and 1988, where things varied a great deal, like with SANTA, but I will save that story for another time.)

And then last year happened. And I can say quite honestly, I have no idea what we did on Christmas day. Nor do I remember Hanukkah, which I think was around Thanksgiving.

The holidays were a blur of sadness. I did not revel in the joy of the season. I do not remember giving or receiving gifts or saying blessings, or really being thankful for anything. And I am sad for that and sorry for that, but that is my story.

And now my story has changed.

This year, I made a promise that I would do things differently. I would live richly.

I have made great plans for this holiday season, but have also savored the smallest of things, a sentiment that I never really understood fully until now.

Sometimes it takes the darkest of darkness to see the true brilliance of light.

This year, Hanukkah and Christmas almost overlapped, making it a true holiday season.

And instead of big family dinners with tons of presents, we did 7 out of 8 nights of Hanukkah as a family of four.

Each night we gave one gift. There was no pile of presents. We were trying to teach the meaning of gratitude to our fortunate children. When my daughter opened up the nineteen dollar blanket that has a hood that looks like a cat head and glows in the dark, the same blanket that she had seen on the TV and begged for, she could not have been more thrilled and has used it every day since.

There was true appreciation all around. There was appreciation for our fortune, there was appreciation for our presents, but, most of all, in all honestly, there was appreciation for our presence.

I mentioned that there was one night when we did not do Hanukkah alone, and that was because we had my grandparents (my kids’ great-grandparents) for dinner. My eyes are filling with tears as I type, and struggle to find the words.

We lit the candles and said the blessings, Mommom and I bouncing the baby, my daughter sitting on Poppop’s lap, and I could hear their voices together, one small girl’s and one old man’s, singing in unison.

And then, last night, we had Christmas Eve.

Again, it was the four of us, which was ever so special.

After a family dinner we lit a fire and roasted marshmallows.

To keep the old Jewish stereotype alive, I roasted MY marshmallow using a chopstick!

And then, this.

So, I think about the past.

I think about the words of the blessings we have sung.

    When our own strength failed us.

And I realize how far we’ve come.

Happy Holidays.

“May your days be merry and bright…”

and, from me to you,

may your load be a little more light.

The post The way we do (and how it’s new). appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

By the way, you must remember, I am the girl who has only had one set of business cards in her entire life…

and they were Betty Boop business cards I had personalized for me at FAO Schwartz that read, “Star of Stage and Screen”.

The fact that I have a whole team is extremely exciting and entirely humbling, to say the least.

I have spent the past four and a half years writing about nursing a toddler and nursing colds,

meeting milestones and making mischief and making mistakes–

and this next step–this leap of faith–has been huge.

In any case, we were discussing Mommy, Ever After and the new site and some real businessy things that are too businessy for me to even try to explain,

and then we ended the conversation with her saying, “Your voice is different in this “new” MEA. I can’t really put my finger on how, but it reads differently.”

And I think I get what she is saying. The fact is, Mommy, Ever After has evolved and morphed and shifted in ways I could have never predicted when I started writing. It used to be more of a daily diary, with tidbits about my goings-on and the chronicles of new parenthood.

It was my baby book.

Once I started developing an audience, I wrote more in depth posts, serializing stories like how my husband and I met, how we got engaged, my birth story, etc.

I talked about tutus and dance parties and sparkly shoes. I talked about some more poignant things, like my lost loved ones and how that has given me my thing for feathers. But, one thing that hasn’t changed is that I have always been really honest. I have called myself out for being crazy, I have talked about my weaknesses and fears, I have asked for help.

Because I have always wanted to help. I wanted people, women or men, parents or teens or grandparents, to be able to read a post and say, “I am not alone.”

That was when Mommy, Ever After was “A Happy Story”.

And then my life took an unexpected turn. “A Hard Story”.

And as I slowly climb back up, step by step, day by day, sometimes minute by minute, I do feel like I am living “A Hopeful Story”. Because I refuse to give up.

In any case, the conversation with my manager inspired me to tell you a little bit about what you can expect, in just the coming week, as we all get acclimated to our new home here.

(By the way, I hope you like our new digs. If you get the chance and have not already, check it out from a computer. There is so much more to see in a less condensed way.)

So this week I will be:

Giving a tour of the site, so that you can see all of the new features I have to offer. I will guide you to the best places that will meet your needs and you will learn how to use all of the new buttons and categories and columns most effectively.

Posting the sequel to my old post about music; because since I published that post years ago, I have been lucky enough to become the lead singer of an amazing band, Fox & the Hounds. It has changed my life for the better (and for good).

Sharing a behind-the-scenes look at an amazing skincare line, as you learn everything you have ever wanted to know about how to reveal your most beautiful self. And not just outer beauty; these ladies are all about supporting one another, encouraging true teamwork and being positive cheerleaders for friends, colleagues and life.

Exploring the world of anxiety, which is an affliction that so many people face, but so few actually verbalize.

Reflecting on my recent Hanukkah experience and all of it’s firsts.

Telling the stories of our fun holiday happenings with The Tribe.

And just being the Me(a) that I have always been; forever candid, sometimes cray cray, occasionally humorous and ever so grateful.

So settle in, find a cozy spot and stick around.

The best is yet to be.

The post What is in store? Ever so much more. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

T.S. Eliot

Welcome to www.MommyEverAfter.com.

It is so nice to have you.

Here, let me make you comfortable.

For the past four and a half years I have spent every day hanging out at a simple, static, steadfast site over on WordPress.

Mommy, Ever After started when I was the new mother of a two month old baby girl. I had always loved to read and write, but found myself, at that time, with no resources that were actually helpful when it came to being a new parent. Everything was either a tale of absolute enchantment OR a hyperbolic message board of terror.

So I took a leap of faith and somehow figured out how to make my very first post.

It didn’t even have a title. I used multi-colored text. Take a look:

and by the end of day one I seem to have gotten a bit more bold:

I did not know what I was doing or where I was going (or, to be completely honest, how to even define a “blog”) but I knew it felt good. And people, being voyeuristic by nature, started to read and I, being brutally honest by nature, shared it all; the good, the bad, the inane, the insane, the heavy and the hard.

I will soon be publishing a post that is a guide to this new site, because thanks to the incredible folks at Brand Revive, I have a real, big girl website now, with pages, categories, sections and more. I don’t want you to miss a thing.

But for now, I will either assume that you are an old friend, having traveled with me over here from .wordpress.com (thank you, by the way–so much) or you are new and can lose yourself in the hundreds of archived posts I have up there, neatly categorized, under “A Happy Story”.

And, I will say that the old Mommy, Ever After isn’t here anymore. That chapter has ended.

Welcome to a new beginning.

And what better way to start than with a prologue…

Emergency rooms 3 and 4 were connected, separated by a thin curtain that could easily be opened to make it a makeshift suite of sorts. In room 4, in a stretcher that appeared humongous, lay my son, 3 days shy of 2 months, hooked up to an IV, oxygen monitor and receiving O2 through a tube in his nose. In room 3, I lay, dizzy and disoriented, hooked up to an IV and receiving my third bag of fluids. A nurse handed me a yellow pill. Potassium. She told me that I was deficient and to swallow. We were in a suite in the Emergency Room of a hospital. He and I were together, but still so far apart, as we were each confined to our beds. He and I were ailing. He and I were both being poked and tested and medicated. He and I both needed help.

That snapshot is from exactly this week last year. It is also the prologue that I have written for my book proposal. Yes, I am writing a book (or at least I am trying), and at the rate I am going, the book is writing itself. I have a literary agent shopping my book to publishing houses, and I am hoping to find a good match. My story will be told in the way that it is presented above: “A Happy Story”, “A Hard Story”, and then, ultimately, “A Hopeful Story”.

When I say the book is writing itself, you can probably conjure examples that I have shared from the past year; the flood and subsequent CO poisoining; my hospitalization; the incredible closeness of my group of friends that has now become a family;

But what you do not know is that this past weekend, at the very time that we were supposed to be on a plane to St. John, we were back in the Emergency Room with my son.

Not only were we back in the same hospital, but we had the same nurse that he had had exactly the same day the year before. She wears a necklace with three charms symbolizing her three children and I remembered their names.

Being in the small triage room was surreal. How are we back here?

But, fortunately, we were not there for a feverish 8 week old with a terrible respiratory virus.

My son had an allergic reaction to Penicillin, swelled up, we called the paramedics (our besties!) and we took him to the closest hospital with the Peds department, which happens to be where we spent this week last year, as he was inpatient, on oxygen, as I was fighting for my life in my own way.

This is where the story gets kind of crazy. Before our planned trip to the Virgin Islands, I asked my Pediatrician if it would be safe to give my son a small dose of Benadryl in order to calm him during the flight (please don’t judge. This is the baby who slit his wrist on my coffee table 3 months ago). He approved, but suggested that we test out the drug on him before flying, as in rare cases it can have the opposite effect and actually make kids more wired and not at all sedated.

So, Sunday morning, I was being treated for my severe ear infection, my daughter for her own infection, and my son, prophylactically, as he was fussy, warm and pulling on his ears. Before his nap that morning I suggested giving him some acetaminophen. My husband chimed in and suggested Benadryl instead. At that point, we did not know whether our trip to St. John would be postponed or completely cancelled, so we thought a solid nap would do both of us good and it was the right time to experiment, so we dosed him up with the proper amount of the antihistamine.

But he didn’t sleep well. He was restless. And red. And, actually, my husband and I were laughing at him when we finally brought him downstairs, because he was acting–

forgive me for not being able to find a better way to say this–

high.

He stood, staring at the vacuum cleaner for 20 minutes. He doesn’t stand still for 20 seconds, ordinarily.

And we were cracking up. Evidently, he was in that small percentage of kids who have a paradoxical reaction to the drug.

But after his 20 minute date with the vacuum and some other strange behavior, I noticed that his eyes were swelling up. The redness on his cheeks had intensified and on his forehead there were big hives. His eyes swelled to near slits as I spoke to the 911 operator.

The problem was, he had not just been given one new medication in that 24 hours, he had been given two.

The police arrived immediately, before I could even change out of my pajamas, and the paramedics soon thereafter.

On the way to the Emergency Room, I just laughed. “This must be a joke, right? This year is just a joke.”

As it turns out, by the time we were seen by the Pediatrician in the ER, his swelling had gone down some. This lead them to believe that he had experienced an allergic reaction to his second dose of amoxicillin, and that the Benadryl, the coincidental, serendipitous drug, actually helped to start calm down the effects. Had we been on the plane to St. John, his allergic reaction would have happened at 30,000 feet.

The doctors and nurses were so nice. It was so much better than last year, when he had to be put on breathing tubes, given a spinal tap, a catheter and IVs, and when I was losing my mind.

But it was then that I did something that I rarely do these days; I started to cry.

I cried to the nice doctor in the dark blue scrubs and white coat.

“He has had so much happen to him in such a short life; he is only 13 months old and look what he has been through.”

But it was then that I remembered my recent epiphany;

My son has not only survived some crazy medical and safety situations, a crazy mother and an all around crazy first year, but he is huge and thriving. The doctor looked at me and told me to look at my son.

“He is a moose!” she said.

And she is right. He is so strong and resilient and now that he has had six emergency room visits, he is tougher than ever.

But,

But…

He may be a moose, he may be strong, but he is still my baby.

This is a hard time of year for me. It is the one year anniversary of when I was supposed to go to Brown’s postpartum unit,

when he got hospitalized,

when I was forced to wean him against my will,

when I had akesthesia as a reaction to Abilify,

and when things really started to crumble.

While my real support system became stronger than ever, some real, trusted people let me down, and it was a blow that was hard to handle when I was already in such a weak state.

This week last year, I truly did not know if I could go on. It is scary for me to admit that, but I would be doing you a disservice by being anything less than brutally honest. I was low, like many other people I know who have been or who currently are suffering.

And so, I have decided to do something about it.

I have already proclaimed that this will be the year of really living; of celebrating things big and small, by organizing parties and dates and by making an effort to tell the people around me how much they mean to me.

But there is something else.

This year I want to be a better person.

I want to let go of all that has weighed me down, not just for the past year, but for my entire life.

I want to be good to people. I want to go out of my way. I want to give back. I want to help. I want to be vocal and make a difference.

And that is why I decided to take yet another leap of faith, bigger than my intimidating first blog post back in June of 2010.

I have decided to put my all into Mommy, Ever After, in an effort to help others. When I have opened up about topics like postpartum, anxiety, depression, fear, doubt, self-worth and other hard things to touch upon, I have received an incredible outpouring of support and gratitude. Most of it you do not know about. Most of it has been private. Most of it has been me making emergency phone calls to friends in crisis, or driving to the hospital to hold a hand, or giving someone my phone number to use 24/7. And I do not say this in any way to applaud myself. I am humbled by the fact that there are people who trust me enough in order to confide in me their deepest of secrets and fears.

And so, in moving forward, I will have those “pity party” moments, but hopefully much less than the dance party moments.

I will continue to be an advocate, a voice, a friend.

I will strive to be the woman whom I have always dreamed of being; lighter, happier, and more content.

I will celebrate the big, of course, but also cherish the mundane.

Last night, before bed, my husband and I had just finished the last installment of the NPR Serial Podcast. We talked a little about our thoughts and then I asked him to tell me a bedtime story. I wanted him to tell me about the last few episodes of Homeland, a show that I haven’t watched in several seasons, but that I was curious about, based on all of the hype. He is the best at telling stories.

And he looked over at me and I was smiling, my full face in an enormous grin.

“What?” he asked with a tiny giggle.

“I get to go to sleep next to you,” I said. “I get to have a sleepover with my best friend every night.”

And with that, he kissed me and told me stories of Iranian leaders and CIA infiltrations until I was sound asleep.

That was how I ended my day. And then, as it does, the sun rose this morning, and there was a new beginning.

And today I did some things right, and other things still need work, but guess what?

It is the beginning. I put an end to something dear to me…

and from there, my friends, is where I shall start.

(Featured Image via Lindsay Dochtery Photography)

The post “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning… appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

***

I love home decorating, especially covering my walls with meaningful pieces, as  511 suggests.

But in all honesty, I am not yet in a place in my life where I can collect a lot of real art;

I have my framed piece from the Festival Internacional de Musica en Barcelona in my Living Room

and a photo of Keith Richards that my dad shot as the Stones played in Hyde Park last summer, which hangs in my Entry Way.

And this and that.

I have but one piece of true art in my home, and it means a great deal to me. It is a framed and signed poem by Ray Bradbury, given to us as a wedding gift, from an incredibly person in our lives.

It is so significant for so many reasons; I am obsessed with words;

It is something so unique and rare;

It reminds me (us) of just how complex, complicated, confusing and often consuming the human mind can be.

Here is the text:

THE POET CONDIDERS HIS RESOURCES

The autumn sea, October sea
Tears darkened seams inconstantly
And stitches clouds with rain and fire
And charcoals hearths with dead desire
And turns old souls on burning spit,
Forget all Good, because of it;
Because of traveling night and clouds
Which bury moon in winding shrouds
The heart is buried , blood turned ice
And all the fruit jams, teas, and spice
Are pantry poisoned, forced to change
By weathers that incline to strange.
So what was dead now bolts upright
To knock is head on lid`s midnight,
And while all cold things jump and start,
Antarctica floes in warm heart
And tropic seas of blood are purged
By nightmare iceburgs, once submerged
Which now lift blizzard brows to seize
Sane room, sane door, sane locks ,sane keys,
And shriek the tumblers , warp the walls
With panic-colored storms and squalls.
And all of it, both live and dead ?
. . .
Trapped in circumference of my head.

Ray Bradbury 1979

Tonight I am brought back to the piece I wrote about depression, entitled, “Oh Captain, My Captain”, in which I discussed mental illness after Robin Williams’ devastating suicide.

In that piece, I made a plea to the people reading to help to protect their friends. I also tried to remind sufferers that they are not alone.

But today I had a conversation that explains it so perfectly.

If you have never experienced depression (which as of two years ago, I had not, in any way) it is very hard to understand.

It is insidious and it is debilitating.

But I think the most confusing part, despite the notion of “But you have so much, what could possibly be making you sad?”

is the feeling of abject loneliness.

Someone who is depressed feels so lonely. They can be surrounded by people, with friends, at a holiday dinner, not alone in any way, but still terribly lonely.

It feels like drowning.

I am welling up with tears even typing this, as it is the worst feeling imaginable.

I am lucky enough to have a network of soul friends, as I call them, who can relate to me on this deep level of understanding that only sufferers can. But my heart aches for them, my stomach gnaws at itself, every time I hear that they were unable to get out of bed that day, or are feeling at their lowest, or can’t imagine ever feeling better.

I am not a doctor. I am also not “better”. I am still dealing with a lot. But, if there is any message I can impart to you

(and hopefully, if you know someone in need, you can share this with them, I implore you),

it is that things can and will get better. Even at the worst of times, when you can’t move or breathe or open your eyes because everything looks too bleak, but you can’t close your eyes because your brain is pounding you with it’s incessant ruminations and chatter,

it will pass.

That spell will pass.

I believe in intervention. I believe in therapy. I believe in medicine. I believe in alternative medicine. I believe in support systems.

I believe in holding your best friend’s hand and saying “I am not going to let you go anywhere.”

This post may seem out of the blue, as the last thing I posted about was my son watching Bravo TV, but trust me, it needs to be said.

Much love.

The post “Trapped in the circumference of my head.” appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

This was sent to me yesterday by a dear friend. I needed it.

I then sent it to another dear friend. She needed it.

Every day, we all carry things with us; hopes, fears, ideas, identities…

Some of these things lift us up. Some of my labels I wear proudly:

Wife, mother, friend, daughter, grand-daughter, teacher, twin, writer, confidant, sister,

dance partier, loud laugher, decorator, front-woman for a rock band…

Yet there are some layers of myself that I wish to shed.

I will probably always be on the slightly anxious end of the anxiety spectrum.

But I would love to no longer be a sufferer. A worrier. A scaredy-cat.

Those things weigh me down. They are the labels that can make minutes feel like hours, make days feel dark and make my stomach feel like it has a led weight inside of it.

I want to be lighter.

So I am making a conscious effort to take off the things that I no longer wish to wear.

I have written many times over the past year about the shift in my friendships; that through the trauma of postpartum depression and it’s after effects, my friends have become my family. We talk every single day. They humor me when I send out 15 emails about our holiday cookie Pollyanna party, because they know how important it is for me to embrace this holiday season. They are just my people.

Then there are the new friends I have made. They have changed my life. The ones who spent last year sitting on the floor with me, as I opened up about my depression. The ones who have been so selfless. The one whom I’ve followed on the internet for years, and turned out to be even more beautiful and amazing and spectacular in person. The one who understands every one of my faults and loves me because of them, not in spite of them. The one who sees a pair of Fox leggings in the store and buys them for me, because…obviously. These friends have been a gift. I carry them with me, now.

And as far as everyone and everything else,

all the drama and the ghosts and the pain that try to cloud my mind and cause me anxiety, I am trying to let it go.

Like Elsa.

Just letting it go.

I don’t want to carry them with me anymore.

And so I won’t.

The post Letting it go. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

This summer, I was fortunate enough to be asked to participate in a story for Main Line Parent Magazine. I was approached after publishing my originally story on my postpartum depression. They took my story, and the stories of two other women, to print a feature in the goal of helping others, which is all that I want to do. I want mental illness to be de-stigmatized, I want those in trouble to seek treatment and I want to provide solace in those who feel alone. In sharing my story I hope to help others who are feeling lost to find their way.
Mad props to Carrie Bender Hill of Carrie Hill Photography who captured some exquisite family portraits for us to cherish. I have already framed two for our living room (thanks, again, Carrie!)
You can look for the latest issue of Main Line Parent Magazine, or you can enjoy the online copy here:

The title says it all. Everything is not okay. But some things are. And those are the things I hold onto.

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