I’ve led a charmed life.

Not that there haven’t been some rough spots.

There is the chronic depression and anxiety that’s been hanging around since my adolescence. There was the alcoholic, emotionally abusive boyfriend. There was that one job I was let go from (which I still feel bitter about). There was the time the bottom dropped out of the economy about a year and a half into my career as a full-time freelancer (which eventually led to an inability to sell our condo). There were the three and a half years it took us to get pregnant. There was that time we almost separated.

But I tend to approach everything with the attitude that someone else probably has it worse, so I should probably just shut my damn trap and quit it with the “woe is me” Sturm und Drang.

Though obviously, in the moment, I can tend toward the melodramatic.

Still, when the tide turns (as it inevitably does), I can’t help but think I’m pretty darn lucky. That things, for the most part, come easily.

And the same is true of motherhood.

Sure, I puked multiple times during labor, and lost a lot of blood during delivery. Sure, my nipples hated life the first month or so of breastfeeding. Sure, I felt overwhelmed and claustrophobic and helpless at first, and cried every other day. Sure, Em is screaming bloody murder right now as I try to get stuff done, only quieting when I pick her up and dance that particular figure eight dance with her.

But there is so much else that is good, and reminding myself of those things makes me feel gratitude at times when I might instead succumb to frustration. [Read more…]