fucking nightmares

I hate when I have nightmares, especially the ones where you wake up relieved and go back to sleep just to go right back into it. That’s what happened to me last night. It was two different nightmares that I kept going back and forth from, or maybe it was the same one but different times in the same place? I don’t know. They were new nightmares though, ones I had never had before. That’s probably why I felt so shook when I woke up. Usually when I have nightmares, it’s me stuck in a loop in my old neighborhood in Germany. This time, I was in a house that seemed familiar, but also new.

The beginning of my nightmare started with me and Mav on a ride. The ride wasn’t secured, so I had to hold Mav with one hand and the seat with the other. The ride got faster and faster and we were being tossed around until we finally launched into what looked like a window. We crashed into a dark hallway, and Mav was limp. His eyes were barely opening, and he was barely responsive. I was running around trying to call for help, but no one would help me. They said I shouldn’t have done that if I knew what was going to happen. They said it was my fault. All I did was cry and cry. When I woke up, my heart was racing - but was put at ease when I was able to touch Mav’s warm body next to me, sound asleep.

The next part of the dream was me wandering these hallways that seemed so familiar. I was looking for a restroom that looked like something out of Harry Potter, lol. But no one would come with me because spirits were wandering in the hallways. One spirit in particular kept following me, it was a shadow of a woman that I couldn’t make out. I kept trying to escape the area she was in, but she kept popping up. I woke up again. It was hard to sleep. I kept going in and out of my dreams, and each time, touching Mav’s body to make sure he was alive.

Today was a pretty rough day. I really hope I never have that nightmare again.

you choose what you care about, pick your battles and make them count

It’s been a really long time since I’ve been able to say I’ve made some new friends, real friends. Not a friend from work, and that’s the only place we ever talk. I’m talking about a real friend that comes over, we frequently have meals together, our kids play together, and we spill all of our life secrets together kind of friend. I’ve protected myself from getting close to other people because I feel in the past, I’ve always invested more in the friendship than the other person. It got to the point where it seemed to become a one-way street, and those people weren’t giving the same amount of effort back to uphold the friendship. So I stopped getting close to people. I stopped opening up to people. I hated meeting new people.

As an Army brat, I learned to not get super close to everyone, because eventually, in 1-2 years, you’d be with an entirely new group anyway. There was no stability in my lifestyle or my friends. I was okay with that at the time, but looking back it, I really disliked that. I’m envious of my husband and his sister’s friendships because they all go wayyy back. It’s something I’ve never really experienced except with a few people in my life that are still in my life (Thank God.)

That’s why the friendships I have right now… you better believe I’m going to hang on for dear life. My friend was having a hard time, and I asked her why she didn’t call me. Actually, I cussed her out first and asked her why she didn’t call me, and she said she didn’t want to be a burden. She said she knew my plate was full of my own problems, and she didn’t want to worry me.

Let me tell you, BITCH YOU NEED TO WORRY ME. I believe in life, you get to choose what you care and don’t care about. You get to choose what battles you fight. But as your friend, I’m not going to let you fight that battle alone. You don’t get to choose what worries me or not because I am your FRIEND, and it’s my duty as a friend to make sure you pick yourself up. Because I know I can expect the same from these two friends.

I am a loyal friend. And I will never leave you in the dust, and I will always show up even if we’re thousands of miles away, I’ll be right there on FaceTime if that’s all I can do at that moment. So if you’re here on my blog, then just know that I trust you, and that I am always here for you if you need someone to listen.

bent necked lady and why I was so afraid

It took me exactly 2 years to watch the Haunting of Hill House. I watched the first episode with Sean last year and when I saw the bent neck lady, I told him that it was a series that I was not willing to watch. Not in fear of the bent neck lady, but the fear of living through what the show was going to go through. After watching it, there are some things that completely hit home for me where I could say, “yeah I can completely relate to that. fuck.” other things, I was just like, “meh that’s stupid.”

But looking back at it, it was… well, kind of the bent neck lady that scared me. I would find myself afraid at night to go to sleep or to even think her name aloud. It wasn’t her that I was afraid of, it was the image of my brother hanging that I was afraid of. I don’t think I’ve ever written that in my blog. I always mention my brother committed suicide, but I never mentioned how - he was a bent neck boy. So to close my eyes, and see my brother as my own personal bent neck figure, is probably the scariest thing that I can imagine. Because sometimes, I imagine it is a bent neck lady, but that lady is me.

easier said than done

I get frustrated when my son cries at night, even though I know it’s all part of his development. He’s most likely teething and in pain, but the sound of his cry triggers more anxiety than it does nurturing. That’s hard for me. My husband will say, “we have to remember that he’s a baby and that’s how he communicates.” Of course I know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that my head starts throbbing and my emotions become overwhelmed when it happens.

I say, “I didn’t sign up for this.” I signed up to be a mom to a baby, and I know what it takes to care for a child. But I didn’t sign up to be a mom with postpartum depression trying to heal from her own trauma and ptsd all at once. I didn’t sign up to be the mom that needed to time nursing and pumping sessions with medications to make sure I got the least amount of medications in it. I didn’t sign up to be the mom who needed her husband to lock up her medications because she wanted to take all of them at once when things became too much to handle.

I wish I could be like every mom I know right now, happily watering plants and rocking the whole “working mom” thing and making fucking bento box lunches for everyone in the family. But I’m gonna settle for the “trying to keep it together while faking like we’re doing okay” kind of mom right now, and that’s just gonna have to be good enough.

photography: something that grounds me back to being my own person

I’ve been feeling really out of it lately, out of touch with reality, out of touch with myself. There was a part in Haunting of Bly Manor that just pulled at my heart strings so hard because “I FELT THAT.” Spoiler, skip to next paragraph if you haven’t watched it: When Theo just breaks down crying saying she couldn’t feel ANYTHING at all, like a pit of nothing… I felt that. I cried and my throat got tight because that’s what I feel (or don’t feel) most days.

It’s true what they say - when you become a mom, a lot of the focus turns onto the baby. Everyone wants to know how the baby is doing, but rarely do they ever ask how you’re doing. Unless they’re a mom too, and they know exactly what it’s like to be in your predicament. It’s hard to not feel like you’re being forgotten or feel less cared about. That’s why it’s so important to find something that makes you feel you again. And taking photos or being in photos does that for me.

I’m not the best at taking photos. I’m still learning. Most of the time it was me in front of the camera, but now I’ve found some comfort being behind the camera. And lately, that’s what I’ve been doing with my friends. I’ve been taking their photos and trying to make art, and make them feel beautiful. It reminds me that there’s more to me than just being “Maverick’s momma.” I’m me. I had hobbies before him and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t keep working at them.

It’s been really fun shooting, editing, and then seeing their reaction to how their photos turned out. It makes me really happy to know that I could capture that for them, their beauty, the beauty they’re unaware of sometimes. I hope that in the future, I have more time to learn about photography, but for now, it’s just for fun. It’s for us. It’s for me - to remember there’s more to me than just being a mom. I am still creative.