I Don’t Want An Easy Life. I Want A Meaningful Life.

Good afternoon, World 🙂

How are you doing today? July is almost over, isn’t that nuts? Time to wrap up some projects and squeeze in a few thousand more words before August, woo!

But guys, I’m not going to bullshit you.

Running a freelance writing business while raising a toddler, writing books, and trying to keep up with basic self-care shit like working out and cleaning house is not easy. 

In fact, sometimes it’s so stressful that I just want to cry. Sometimes I do. Like now. Uuuuuugh. >.<

And I just need to spill my heart here for a little while. It is not my intention to wallow in self-pity, or to demand sympathy from anyone. I just feel like I have this weight on my chest and I can’t carry it around anymore. 

And hey, this is my blog, right? No one is obligated to read this, nor am I obligated to write this. 

So indulge me while I indulge myself. Or don’t. Click out. It’s all good. Ahem.

Anyhoooo, you know how basic needs like adequate sleep, proper nutrition, daily exercise, and all of the other good shit is really, really, fucking important? Like do not pass go, do not collect $200 important? Yeah. Well…

That shit kind of goes out the window when you’re trying to wean a toddler. 

Felicity is almost two, which means her brain development is no longer dependent on getting the lion’s share of her nutrition from her dear ol’ mommy. Which is great! Except…

God. Weaning SUCKS.

Every night, at 1 or 2 in the morning, she wakes me up and demands to be fed. When I don’t give in, she will scream-cry, throw a temper tantrum, hit me, pull my hair, and bite me until dawn. This of course upsets my husband, who has to wake up early for work in the morning and isn’t exactly in the mood to have an endless tug of war with a toddler who doesn’t understand why mommy is taking away her favorite comfort object.

So what happens next?

Chaos. 

Everyone screams. I want to curl up into a ball and go to sleep and not wrench my back into an uncomfortable position in order the feed a baby who is growing up, and doesn’t require breastfeeding anymore. My skin is raw and my body is aching and I just want to get a solid six hours of sleep – or even four, God damn it – before the baby wakes me up with a swift kick in the nose or the sound of my favorite books being shredded. 

Or glass shattering, because someone left a coffee cup in reach. 

Or the sound of her attempting to crack open the ps4 controller or hurl the remote through the television. 

I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep, for the love of everything beautiful and good in this world, goddamnit, but I forfeited that right, so now I just have to put on my big-girl pants and deal.

Please understand, I love my daughter. And I love being a mom. I even love my life, strange as that may sound.

But this shit is hard.

You know what I wanted for my birthday this year? My husband could hardly believe his ears when I asked for this, but it’s true: 

I wanted my husband to take the baby out to a park or something so I could sit at my desk and work for a few hours.

Yeah, no shit. I wanted to work on my birthday.

No Sesame Street yammering on in the background, no temper tantrums, no swirling tornado of messes engulfing my bedroom as I battle both my own frail attention span as well as the wrath of a toddler. I wanted peace and quiet to hammer out 2.5k words on vape equipment and a blog post. That’s it. 

No jewelry, no fancy dinners, no designer bag or trip to the spa. 

The opportunity to sit with a cup of coffee on my desk and not have to worry that some angry gremlin is going to grab it and dump it all over my computer, my beloved books, then shatter my favorite mug on the floor. The chance to get into a flow state, my God.

Fucking silence.

But you know what’s crazy?

I’m more productive now than I have ever been in my life.

You wouldn’t think so, right? Given my constraints, wouldn’t you think that my daily word count would plummet too… I don’t know, zero???

And I would have every excuse for this stasis, too. ‘Waaaaah, I’m too tired. Waaaah, I’m too stressed out. Waaaaah, I just want to huddle in the fetal position and cry because everything is just so hard.’

But that’s fine with me, because I don’t want an easy life.

I want a meaningful life. 

Every time I look at my daughter, I’m reminded of who I am working so hard for in the first place. My baby means more to me than any story I will ever write. She means more to me than making any best seller list, any flow state, any goal that I will ever set. I’m not forcing myself to hammer out sentences to glorify my own ego, although don’t worry, that’s in there, too. I want to create a future for my family that is better than we have now. I want to make enough money so that we can finally move into a better apartment, condo, house, living situation… whatever.  I want to do better for the sake of everyone I love.

My baby may be a handful, but she’s wonderful. There are stressful experiences, but there are blissful ones too, and I just have to take the good with the bad.

Besides, motherhood presents me with challenges… and these challenges are the perfect opportunity to show the cosmos how badly I want to achieve my goals. 

Too tired to write? Hey universe, check this out. DONE.

Too exhausted to work out? Hey universe, you lookin’? Watch this. DONE.

And while I may have missed a couple of days of working out due to an unexpected snafu, this by no means indicates that I have failed. I’m a human being with biological boxes that need to be checked, so I will check them as best as I can. But just because I didn’t get a perfectly rounded six hours of sleep last night doesn’t mean that I’m completely tapped out of any potential to secure my ideal future.

I mean, for fuck’s sake. Did you know that during hell week, Navy Seals run more than 200 miles, workout for over 20 hours a day, and sleep for a total of 4 HOURS over the course of five-and-a-half days?

If there are primates out there who can do that, then by god, I can write at least 1,000 words on a few hours of sleep.

And hey, look at that.

Hey Universe, come here. I’ve got something for ya.

DONE.

Thanks for reading. I feel a bit better now. Time to take a nap while my baby’s asleep, then get cracking on my next objective.

Peace out, World. Go get ’em.

xoxo Liv