What is it with my natural leaning towards wanting to be better than these other moms? I want to be fitter faster. I want my baby to progress better, to be overall better. I want my parenting to be better. Etc. Etc. Etc… And so on and so forth.*
Intermingle, though, I only seem to have such thoughts regarding those who are at a similar place as I am. A mom I know who has slightly older kids who are doing great? I strive to be like she is. I look up to her. There is no question of wanting to be better. I merely want to learn from her and grow to be like she is. But the moms who are at roughly the same point I am? Nope. Everything in my brain wants to do better than they do. Even the clothes I select when doing something with them stresses me out because I want to make sure I look good enough… that is, I want to look good enough that they can see how well I’m doing both emotionally and physically.
Ironically, I know I’m not doing better than they are emotionally. Not in-the-moment, anyway. They seem to have reasonably simple and straightforward routines with caring for their current babies. Not many struggles, especially in terms of mom breakdowns. Given my baby’s struggle with gas, I have had loads of struggle as a mom. My emotions have been torn apart these twelve weeks. Not to mention my postpartum emotional struggles in which I cry heavily at all sorts of things still.
And my vagina and pelvic floor still are not recovered. They didn’t deliver vaginally, and apparently have been having sex plenty already. I haven’t emotionally been able to consider it yet, not have I wanted it. Not really. The physical state of my vagina – you know, the bit st the back the doctor never sewed up – makes it a zero desire for me still. Let alone all the crud that is still pouring forth throughout the day.
So, while they seem to be doing better than I am on several fronts, the areas where I technically can be competitive with them, my brain just hard core aims to be. I prefer not to compare myself to others for success evaluation. And yet, here we are. Automatic competition.
Is it something in our evolutionary DNA? Got to be competitive and win in order to survive and thrive? Perhaps so. But it sounds stupid when it comes to recovery from very different events or to very different children developing natural skills as their own DNA sees fit.
Oh, well… ::big shrug
P.S, The thing is, if these women were friends of mine, I’m pretty sure I would make the effort to look cute, and then talk about how I made the effort for them and how I am to tell struggling most days and still look somewhat homeless most of the time. But I see that they are not friends in my brain, as I feel a sense of stress and competition toward them instead. Kind of weird to me, but that’s truly how it seems to be. Perhaps the competition is for non-friends and non-family. For the others. Huh…
P.P.S.*Please, tell me you got this reference. It is in my head all the time, yet I rarely use it in conversation with others – just with myself. Haha 😛
Post-a-day 2025
hannah ananas 