When anxiety and small humans intersect
I had my first baby a couple of weeks before I turned 45.
As an older, charmingly termed, ‘geriatric’ mother with an only child, I’ll never have a ‘training baby’ to cut my teeth on: this will be my first and only lap of the parenting stadium.
Sometimes the pressure I feel to get it ‘right’ the first time, my lack of a second chance to perfect my ‘methodology’, pings on my anxiety like a harp, playing jangling melodies that I find hard to still.
And, as a perfectionist who’s never been particularly good at just kicking back and going with the flow, Motherhood has been a huge challenge.
My default method of getting through life so far: scan any and all situations for danger, then pin down and troubleshoot as many of the variables as possible, just to keep things safe and predictable. Spontaneity? It’s for hippies and suckers as far as the small anxious voice inside of me is concerned. I’m aware that my methods are not among the most effective ways to survive and thrive and I am doing things to address that. And I do have my reasons for them, but that’s a different story, for another time.
Of course, everyone tells you that parenthood changes your life. But less is said about how utterly it changes you as a person, or rather it’s not elucidated…
