life, apparently

I was slightly offended when anyone (and everyone) said “We are soooooooo proud of you” when I graduated high school. Really? Are you? Did you think I couldn’t pull it off? High school was about as difficult as brushing my teeth and no one sent me a $100 check for that!

In grad school, I never had a day like this. I just didn’t. Certainly I had plenty of days when I felt stupid, stupid, stupid, confused, ignored, afraid, uncertain, underappreciated, exhausted, angry, and stupid (did I say that one already?) But I never contemplated dropping out. I had no back up plan. I wrote my dissertation and defended while pregnant and it was stressful for sure but not overwhelming. I never felt like I couldn’t do it.

So please tell me why I am unbelievably overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks involving The Kid? Packing for an overnight trip brought tears this weekend. Almost every day I wonder how others are getting along so easily with their 4 kids when I can’t even get through breakfast with my 1 kid without feeling like it is simply not possible.

Feeling overwhelmed or frustrated with getting a PhD is perfectly acceptable, right? “Oh, isn’t it hard? Aren’t you sick of being in school?” everyone asks. If I’d have dropped out of grad school, I’d be in the majority (on average 60% drop out in my grad program) and everyone would understand.

But no one asks if being a parent is hard. Everyone says “Isn’t it just the greatest? Don’t you just love being a mom?”

Maybe I find motherhood difficult because it can’t be organized in folders, there is no simple To Do List to track progress, you can’t fiddle with the parameters and see what happens, the results are not obvious or immediate. I don’t really know. After 19 months, I haven’t figured out how to successfully navigate this sea.