A Change

I knew having a child would change me. Of course, it had to change me. But I was still surprised at how I started to look at the world a little differently once I became a mother. I was more sensitive, a little more fearful of the world outside my doors, and so incredibly vulnerable.

After children, I have a harder time enjoying my favorite crime dramas or suspense novels when they depict a child in distress. I cry when I read news stories about children neglected or abused. I spend a lot of time worrying about the what ifs or the could bes, trying to control so much of the world that I can not. I feel more. I hurt more. I worry more (and more). I love more than I ever considered humanly possible. I now understand what it means when you say you would give your life for a person.

The last day or so has sucked for me personally. Old hurts and childhood memories have been unceremoniously dredged up from behind a door I thought I had closed. I had already dealt with these hurts and achieved some semblance of emotional peace. But now, I feel as if I am back to square one, reanalyzing, reliving and wondering how, what and why. And you know what? This time, it hurts more. It hurts more because I am a parent to my children. It hurts more because I would do anything and everything before I would allow emotional harm to my children. It hurts more because now I know and understand there are people who are not like me. People who become parents but don't allow it to change them at all.

I want to feel sorry for these people, this person. But I can't. I want to be the bigger person. But I won't. Because I am just too fucking angry to feel anything else.