Changingwoman

How old is your child? How much adult contact do you get? When my daughter was 2, a trip to the supermarket was a treat, because I could talk to another adult, even if it was only the check-out girl! I remember asking my children to call me by my first name for a day, because I had not heard my name in weeks! You sound as though you might be clinically depressed. It is time to do something about it.

I know how hard it is when you have a child and husband to take care of and there is always more work than hours in a day. And you cannot force yourself off the couch to do any of it! Deciding to brush your teeth is a major chore. Getting dressed seems like a waste of time and energy. So what to do? TURN OFF THE TV! Get dressed. Get the kid dressed. Feed you both something you love. Heck, go buy your favorite fast food treat!

What did you like to do before you were married? Is there a skill you used to have or want to learn? A craft or hobby you want to try? Do you like to garden, sew, write,read,paint,knit, do needlework, woodworking, crafts, memory albums/scrapbooks, decorate, sing, etc? What are you good at? (Don't say nothing).

Get up in the morning and put on your favorite music. Turn it up loud and take your child and dance around the room. Sing! Do you have a pet (dog, cat, bird, goldfish)? Go somewhere cheap (garage sale, thrift store) and buy some little thing that gives you pleasure. Set a $3.00 limit if money is a problem. Cut up a favorite old piece of clothing you can't wear anymore and make a pillow or just a pillowcase from it. Plant something, even if it is only a few beans, an avocado seed, carrot top, or sweetpotato in a tin can or jar of water! Let your child help you do this. Get out of the house, even if you can only walk down the street! Show your baby all the things you see...a flower, a butterfly, a weed growing up through the sidewalk, a pretty pebble.

Go to the library and pick up some story books and read them with your child. Check out anything by Erma Bombeck or the Sidetracked Sisters, (look them up on Google). I promise they will make you laugh. Start a diary of "good things" and enlist your child to help you find one thing that gives you joy each day. Look for them. A hummingbird at your window? A neighbor's cat rolling on the driveway in the sun? Kids coming home from school laughing and yelling? Sunlight on a flower? Sunlight on a sparkling glass of water in your kitchen....look for beauty around you.

Walk! Take your child and force yourself out of the house. If you live where the weather is bad as I do; (hot, humid, Houston), go to a big home store where they sell all kinds of stuff and walk all over it,looking at everything. Dream! Plan the house you would build if you won the lottery! The walking will help you feel better and lose weight. Go to a college campus, craft store, building center, library, and find out what you would have to do to take a class.

Make a list of everything you want to accomplish around the house and do 3 things each day, even if it is just to wipe off the kitchen counters or organize the sock drawer! Post the list and pretend you are instructing someone from the past...an ancester of say 150 years ago, on how we do things today. Imagine how she would marvel at electric lights, microwaves and cars!

I am 62 and over the years have realized that the ups and downs come and go. Don't be afraid of getting old! It gets better and better. I'd love to have the energy and body I had at 30, but I would not trade the self confidence and knowledge I have today for anything! A woman doesn't even begin to come into her own until she is 50!What you lose in looks, you gain in self-confidence and just plain joy. I love having my life to myself. I don't have to worry about what people think if I throw on a T-shirt and shorts and run to the library! I don't bother to wear my breast prosthesis and I don't worry about my 200 pounds in shorts. I don't have to wear make-up. I can do what I want, when I want and feel great about myself. I certainly wasn't able to feel that way at 23 or 43! Sure, I'd like to lose weight, and look better, but I've realized it truely doesn't matter!

Hang in there. Take charge of your happiness. Stop waiting for something or someone to come along and make it better. You are the only person in the world who can make you happy. Find what you like to do and find a way to do it. There was an old saying that went around in the 1970's about "someday my Prince will come and I'll come too" (pun intended). It meant that women had to take charge of their own happiness and achievements and not blame or wait on someone else to do it for them.

"My husband won't let me" or "I could NEVER do that", or "I can't afford it", are only some of the ways we stop ourselves from doing the things we need or want to do. Change is frightening and growing up means taking responsibility for your SELF. So, life isn't like the movies, sex isn't always wild and wonderful, kids are often a pain, the house is a constant battle against the dirt and clutter, families are not at all supportive when you most need them to be, and everyone else looks happy and prosperous and you wonder what happened to YOU! Nothing. You just discovered we have all been sold a myth by Hollywood and the manufacturors (sp?)of everything. Have you EVER seen a beautiful group of young people as joyously, deliriously HAPPY as they are in the commercials? Neither has anyone else, but we still tend to think they must be out there somewhere!

See your doctor and make sure there is nothing physical going on. Check with your local college for student therapists if you can't afford therapy. Find a support group or start one of other young mothers. Swap house cleaning, errands, chores, babysitting, cooking, or get together and go from house to house and help each other. Put an ad in your local paper, supermarket bulletin board or church bulletin to find other mothers in the same fix.

Good luck! You can do this! And don't worry about getting older, I swear it gets better with every decade!