oh yay....it's the holiday

hey, this is allison. it’s the day after christmas and i cannot wait until this whole holiday thing is over. i really don’t understand those people with holiday cheer. for me, it’s one more thing. and that one more thing sends me over the edge. my photo clients are going crazy. they all want their pictures yesterday. i get it, they want to send out their holiday cards. and then last week, my external backup drive crashed and i lost so many photos. i called seagate, the company that makes my external hard drive. after two hours on the phone trying to recover lost files, the man said he couldn’t help me. he asked if I had a backup of my backup. really? what is a backup if not a backup?

our last class for our second semester was last wednesday. we all arrived at 7pm at the university of miami and the doors were locked.  no one thought to call to see if the university was opened christmas week. also, diego, our audio guy, was nowhere . when I called, he said, “oh shit, we have class tonight!” i get it, class during the holidays it’s one more thing.

we caravanned to my house and held class at my kitchen table. my five-year-old was asleep in the back bedroom, but my eight and ten-year-old were playing in their rooms. i didn’t want them to hear my story so, i passed on the piece i wrote in response to the prompt, “a bad decision.”

that got me thinking. if i didn’t want my kids to hear my story about wondering if having three children was a good decision or a bad one, i should probably not be writing about such things. but is not writing about it good for me? i love my children, but i need to understand why three children feels like too much sometimes.

recently, a guy i started dating wanted to hang out with my children and me. great thing, right? well, i wanted time alone with him. but we stayed home and hung out with the kids. they loved it, loved him. afterward, i told him that i would have preferred time away from the kids. that it was too much to be here with everyone. he made the comment i’ve heard many times before, “YOU CHOSE THAT LIFE.” 

true, i chose to have the kids on my own. true i chose three rounds of fertility treatment. true, i wanted three kids more than anything in the world. but i never imagined how hard motherhood could be every hour of every day.

sometimes, i look at my kids and i wonder wtf i was thinking. then a second later, they do something cute, like make their own lunches, or make their beds or color a picture for me with hearts and stars and i think, ok, i’ve got this.

i wasn’t saying i don’t want this life. i was saying, sometimes i need a break.

i listened to dear sugar radio yesterday. the episode on motherhood. two moms wrote in about how much they hate motherhood. i felt for those women. i wanted to call and invite them out for a drink or ten . i was sure i could talk them down.  i wanted to tell them that they were normal and great and that we’re all going to be fine. i wanted to invite them to our writing class, so they could hear my story, tell their own stories and not feel judged.

i should write them, but i won’t. i have photos to edit and friends coming in next week for new year’s eve. writing those women is one more thing….