"Another twin mum. Yeay. Nice to meet you."
"Yeah, nice to meet you too. ... So, how is it going?"
"Ehm. Yeah. Pretty exhausting ey?! I mean let's be honest...two kids...not so easy."
"Well I don't know. I find it easy to be honest...."
"???"
And so I hang up. Another twin mum - another story but EASY?! You have got to be kidding me. Maybe I suck at this, maybe I am making a thousand mistakes every week, maybe I am still learning to live with dirty diapers, milk and spit, maybe I am just tired but still: EASY??? I hang up knowing that I will never talk to this person again, that the person on the other end of the line is a thousand miles away from what I feel.
The last couple of weeks have been intense and insane with both twins screaming until midnight, refusing to go to sleep, refusing to calm down...I have been on the edge multiple times and when I am not I am rushing around trying to organize their life - my life. I decided to do this by myself because it was the best for me and them at the time but being responsible for EVERYTHING makes you tired and hopeless and sometimes I shake my head and picture my life without them until I feel guilty and selfish.
I went back to work this week, teaching one class per week and I loved it. I loved it although my students were annoying and lazy and hard work. I loved it cause for once I was someone else - someone I know and can count on.
For 90 minutes I teach, help them with their homework, listen to their story - how much they dislike their teacher and what made their day. This is me. For 90 minutes I am in control again. I know what to do until I go home to find two infants are screaming their lungs out refusing to sleep. With rings under my eyes getting bigger by the day I go home to find a very helpless me.
Sometimes everything seems to have changed. Maybe I have changed too. I have entered a new world but am still trying to find my way around it. But although I am tired and lonely and exhausted I want to be a part of it: the mums club. Until now I suck at it. I suck cause it is hard to find people like me, people who adore their sons eyelashs or their daughters smile but more than often are too tired to pay attention to the beauty of it all. Mums who find themselves too busy to eat, sometimes too busy for anything but caring about their kids, who need time to get used to it, who are happy to go to work cause milk and diapers are just not enough for now. Instead I talk to super twin mum who does not seem real the second I hang up.
So I sit down and write. Words of an honest mum. Write down the fear and tiredness, hoping and waiting to meet more who share the same story.
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| Nele, 9 weeks |
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| Noah, 9 weeks |
After reading this post..i tried to put myself in your shoes,i can imagine how exhausting it is..taking care of all responsibilities yourself. Yet, I am sure what i can imagine is nothing compare to what you really experience daily.
ReplyDelete"who are happy to go to work cause milk and diapers are just not enough for now"..this even make me almost teary,to be honest. You gain all my respect for your decision to live and handle things by yourself. Hang on there Alex, you can make it! And Im sure you'll find other mums like you wish too in time.. :) big hugs!
Oh my goodness! How did I miss this post? I am only a new mom of one and I hear exactly what you are saying! Even just one baby has NOT been easy for me! I need to tell my school if I will be accepting my old teaching position again for next year by the middle of next month and I don't know what to say! I long for that control, that feeling of accomplishment, that "escape" from the life I live here at home, but in the same 30 seconds, my heart says I couldn't do it and I'm not sure I want to. I want to get "better" at this "mom thing". I want it to get "easy", though that just seems like a joke! I would be more prone to say that their smiles, their tiny toes, their eye lashes, even the grunting sounds he makes when filling his diaper :)... make up for how hard it really is. Hang in there, Alex! Sending you lots of love - doubled so much for your two little darlings. The pictures are adorable! Keep it up - you are a great mom. I know that.
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