Accepting Changes in Life

**SomiticPit** · 09-08-2011 05:47 PM

I didn't know quite where to put this thread, so since a lot of what I have to say leads up to the fact that I am going to have a family of my own soon, I just posted it here.

First off, I need to make this brief. I have to get started cooking dinner in a few minutes in time for my boyfriend to have a meal when he gets home, and this is really my only opportunity to express my feelings while I am alone. I don't post to the forum when he is around because a lot of what I could say here might be about him or other personal issues I may have that I don't care to get into with him. And I have past threads about other men on here before he and I got together and I worry he may try to read them if he knows my alias on here. So anyway...to the point, yeah? I did say I wanted to make this brief....lol

Anyway, I am having issues I think being happy with the way my life is turning out. I am 6 months pregnant, living in a small town with my boyfriend away from my hometown, my family, and my friends. I don't have any friends right at the moment, haven't really networked with anybody or branched out since I've moved here. I was doing the dishes this morning after my boyfriend left for work. I'm standing there scrubbing a plate for the millionth time this week and all I can feel is that scrubbing this plate is all I am good for. Finishing the laundry is all I am right now. I feel like a maid. Once this baby arrives, it's just going to pile up. Dishes, housework, taking care of a baby, tending to my boyfriend's needs, cleaning up dog , feeding the dogs, making dinner, changing diapers...it all seems so bland, so overwhelming, so ORDINARY...

Just a year ago my life was the typical party. Go out with friends, get drunk, dance to a live band. I had a roommate, I had a place of my own, a place where I had a bit more freedom. No boyfriend, single, party girl.

Okay, I get it that my life is changing. I can't be that party girl anymore. I have to be a mother. And don't get me wrong, I am happy that I am pregnant, that I have a son on the way. I love him to death already....but when it comes down to accepting the changes in my life...I just feel tied down I guess. I know I have to grow up, but I still want there to be EXCITEMENT in my life. I don't want to be at my house every friday night doing dishes.

Maybe I need some harsh advice thrown in my face, maybe I am in the middle of a reality check. But I know I am not the only person on this planet to go from one lifestyle to another so quickly...from a partying single girl to a committed girlfriend and mother...I mean there is no similarities...How can I get through this LIFESTYLE change smoothly, gracefully?

**Little** · 09-08-2011 06:11 PM

It sounds like you are in the middle of a reality check ... one of your own. It sounds like you are coming to the "right" conclusions all by yourself. Sounds pretty graceful to me.
But I can understand your feelings. I'm a stay at home mom in the middle of nowhere. Most of my friends are still in college, or starting "real jobs." It's enough to make one feel a little out of the loop, a little boring.
But your baby will come, and you will be busy. You will enjoy every moment with your child. They are learning and growing at a rate you'll find astounding.
And hey, everybody is NOT cut out to spend every moment with their child. There is no shame in going to work, putting baby in daycare, or even getting a babysitter for a night. You can still go to parties! You just can't come home drunk

Or grind on other men :P

People are going to tell you a LOT of things that you can and can't do. But at the end of the day, if you're taking care of your child's physical and mental needs, you're fine. And you're better if you take care of YOUR physical and mental needs too. Having a baby isn't the end of the world; it's a new beginning! Some things that belonged to your old life will have to go, but you don't have to throw away your individuality. Instead, embrace it.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 09-08-2011 08:38 PM

You've had an interesting and confusing life up until now sweet

Alot of changes have happened and guess what, you coped through all of those and you will cope through this too.

It's entirely up to you if you want to "feel" like a maid, or if you want to make things different and happy, to find new friends and to have them over, to have pillow fights with your boyfriend, and to have togetherness sometimes where you both cook and you both do the dishes

It's entirely up to you on how you orchastrate the next phase of your life...

You are looking at the "now" so now you see it.. Change it to suit your needs and his and the babys.

Make it equal and happy and honestly, you will be too.

**SomiticPit** · 09-09-2011 07:49 AM

Thank you for your kind words. I guess I can say I probably am beating myself up about it right now by putting myself in the mindset that all I am is a "maid" or that all my life is going to be is centered around being a mother. I really can't wait to be a mother, to look at my son for the first time, to experience the intense happiness of holding him in my arms. But I do know myself well. I have always been a rather independent type of person, always been a socialite. I have always tried to find excitement in my life; I guess I was just used to finding excitement through parties with friends and drinking at bars. I always considered myself open-minded too, but I am not being very open-minded here if I can't open my mind to finding excitement in a cozy life with my boyfriend, or excitement in making new friends.

I was listening to this John Mayer song called "Stop this Train" and some of the lyrics go:
"So scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young..." and I think that is exactly how I feel. I guess I feel like that young me that had fun around every bend is turning into an old me...maybe it's just because I'm pregnant that I feel this way...

And now I sit here and the thought comes to me that maybe I need to re-prioritize my goals. Maybe I need to take the time to sit and think about what I want to accomplish in my life now that I have a baby on the way. Because now that I am going to have a baby, my goals WILL be different, and they WILL take longer to reach them. I guess I got stuck on the idea that other things in life are unattainable now that I have to be a mom. But I can still finish school, find a better job, make friends, enjoy a night out with those friends, and then come home to the biggest reward in my life: my son.

=)

That is what I'll do today. I'll make a list of goals. That will make me feel better.

Thank you ladies, you sent my mind rolling in the right direction, and now I feel a lot better.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 09-09-2011 02:08 PM

[QUOTE]And now I sit here and the thought comes to me that maybe I need to re-prioritize my goals. Maybe I need to take the time to sit and think about what I want to accomplish in my life now that I have a baby on the way. Because now that I am going to have a baby, my goals WILL be different, and they WILL take longer to reach them. I guess I got stuck on the idea that other things in life are unattainable now that I have to be a mom. But I can still finish school, find a better job, make friends, enjoy a night out with those friends, and then come home to the biggest reward in my life: my son. [/
QUOTE]

I'm smiling reading that

You know even if there wasn't a son on it's way a time would have come where the life as you knew it, would change and then 10 years later, it will change again. The gift you have now is that you get to choose in advance exactly what and how you want it to change...

Not only set your goals and what you are going to now do with your life, smile, because, it's going to be different, a few hickups but it's going to be exciting why? Because you are going to find out more about yourself than you ever had before.

CW

**Seeker_Advice** · 09-09-2011 03:25 PM

It appears to me to be all about choices you are making...

Are you taking birthing classes at your local hospital? At a local church? Anywhere? Or haven't those started yet? When we were going through it, twice, they were called Lamaze, now it's "birthing" (I think)...Good God am I feeling old all of a sudden!

Go out and find new friends...Pregnant women are like magnets...somtimes, whether you want it or not, you draw people in. My ex-wife use to say that all the time...and we lived in an area with no family or old friends either. It was a metropolitan area, with hundreds of thousands of people (strangers) but we still felt all alone. So use your "magnet" to draw people in and meet them.

Make choices that benefit you, your son and your BF. Make Friday night "date night"...now, as soon after giving birth as you feel physically able (of course take your newborn with you) and learn to enjoy the attention you are given and later when you find a sitter you are comfortable with in a year or so. "Looks from three are free" and "touches of any kind are not allowed". Looks from three...as in feet from your newborn son...that is.

Whether you are "religious" or not is really irrelavant, but churches and other places of worship can be extremely helpful without being a pain in the buttocks. Contact one or ten. Use them. Ask them where do pregnant women go, what do they do and how do they get involved in the local community...

Check to see, online, if there is a MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers) chapter in your area or something similar. I'd be willing to bet that there is something through the hospital where you will deliver. While "cold and sterile", hospitals can also be great sources of info. for you. Call one...

To heck with the stupid dishes... This is your time. The dishes will be there tomorrow. Buy a dishwasher or ask for one as a baby gift!

Woo Hoo!