The First Outpouring

So. I'm not quite sure what to write in here, except maybe just what I'm feeling, or what I'm thinking, and who knows where to start with that.

I have twins. Lydia and Conner. They were born 14 months ago, on May 3rd. They're funny and sweet and smart and kind. They simultaneously make me laugh harder than I ever have and want to cry more than I ever can. They are my serendipity, my 'fortunate accident'.

Loving them. That's the part that has turned out to be easy, not that I thought it would be hard. But it's the only easy part. Being a single mother of two was not in my master plan. I feel like a statistic. For the moment at least, we're not on assistance, but we will be, because they don't have insurance right now. Not that I'm knocking the mothers who are on assistance, or the fathers for that matter. I pay for it, we all pay for it. It's ours to take advantage of. It's the knowing looks of the cashiers who actually know nothing, and the old men who come up behind you in the grocery store to ask if you're married, and then tell you that you're supposed to be married before having children. Like I didn't want to be. When is it okay to turn around and scream at those people, "I WOULD HAVE LOVED THAT, BUT IT DIDN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY, AND YOU KNOW LESS THAN YOU THINK, SO SHUT UP!!!!"

That's what I'd say if I wasn't racked with guilt. That I probably should have paid better attention to birth control, and worked harder at the relationship between their father and I. That if I would have waited five or ten years, I could have provided for them in so many ways, and been more ready to take on the everyday battle for time, and attention, naps, mealtimes, and tears. I could make every moment laughter and hugs and kisses and absolute adoration. Or not, I don't know. Perhaps I'm good enough for them, and I wouldn't trade a second of having them for a few years from now. I wouldn't change their father, he loves them and he's around, he just doesn't love me, and that's my issue.

I just needed to say these things, to scream out to something or someone, and since I could always write it better than I could actually vocalize it, I'm writing it. There's something safe and reassuring in a journal like this, although anyone can read it, you're still protected while you write it, while the feeling is strongest. Because you want to say all these things to everyone anyway, but you can't, because the immediate reaction is more than you can handle. Because you're afraid of what you look like in the daytime, or your brain, rather.

There's no holding back when it's just an empty page and your keyboard. I can say that I am more depressed now than I can ever remember being, even when I was in high school and had several ugly haircuts. I want to break the smiles off of peoples' faces and tear them into a million tiny pieces. I want to have magical powers so that I can turn indifference into agony. I want to have everything the way I want it. And that's selfish, and it's not politically correct, and I don't give a damn. The shiningest things in my life are my children, and everything else dulls in comparison.

I don't really know where this is all coming from, and I may look back tomorrow at this entry and think, OH MY GOD, I wrote that? For everyone to see? But isn't this kind of the point of these things, airing your laundry and relative anonymity, except for the people you give the address to, and telling the world that you couldn't care less if it fell down tomorrow were it not for the two small people holding you and all of it up?