I'm a Mother, Not a Martyr

This blog is a work of love. It's my love child, of sorts. It's purely for me. For the love of ME.

Sounds selfish, yes? How dare I take the time and energy to put my deepest thoughts in writing. How narcissistic of me. You are a mama first, for God sake! You should not have the time, desire or energy to do anything of this sort (my inner voice screams at me). Why should anyone care what YOU think?? What gives you the right to think that you can just vent to the universe in this manner?? This is only going to be a place to complain, whine and cry, isn't it?? ISN'T IT???

Yep.

Well, sort of.

This blog will, in the end, beg only one thing of me: Honesty. It's so much harder than it seems...

This idea has always been in my head...the idea of a place where I can be totally honest about life, about parenting, about being a wife. It has seemed like a far away dream. And it got more distant with each "put on a happy face" post on my other blogs. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my life. I have an incredible, amazing and blessed existence that I thank God for every single day. But I have always longed for a place to write down my darker thoughts, work through some things I am grappling with and just write honestly in general.

But I don't want it to be a bitch-fest, a woe is me, an angst-ridden tirade, a pity party table for one. After all: I am a mother, not a martyr. I don't cry myself to sleep. Most of the time. But I do feel bottled up, contained in a box that I have built for myself. And I am ready to bust out! Ready to spread my wings and write. Ready to finally have an outlet for all the things that I wish I could say that I don't.

You see, the silence has been deafening. At least for me.

But there is a problem. Well, 3 problems, actually. 1) I am Scandinavian. 2) I am Lutheran. And 3) I am a Minnesotan. When it comes to being honest and forthright about our feelings no matter what, WE SUCK. I have those 3 strikes against me. It's in my blood, in my upbringing, and in my soul to be nice, to spare people's feelings at the expense of my own, to be humble, to not complain. These are the basic core values of how I was raised. When it comes to breaking free of those things in order to explore the things that I want to explore, it feels like there is a mountain in front of me...

But I will try, I will do my best. I sincerely don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, it's true. But I might. I sincerely want to be nice. But I might not be. I will apologize once and only once. Here it is in advance: I'm sorry.

Now that that's out of the way, on with the show.