Appreciation
My lovely caretaking friend left tonight. It’s nice to have the house to myself again, but I’m also sad to see her go because it’s been fun to have company, someone to talk with and make jokes with and laugh with over crappy movies. She also did many nice things for me while she was here, such as cleaning my kitchen and bathroom, vacuuming my entire apartment (the edges and everything!), scrubbing my kitchen floor, laundry, replacing lightbulbs and feeding my one year old and I three meals a day (not to mention taking him in the morning so that I could actually sleep in).
But by far the best thing she did for me was give me a break from my little one. Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about what a lovely baby he’s been, but then I realized that he’s actually just being the baby he always is, but for once I could relax and just enjoy him instead of jumping up every five seconds to attend to his latest need. I actually liked him and found him to be sweet and very funny (and so, so smart!!) and let me tell you, those aren’t the feelings I generally feel for him on a daily basis. I feel simultaneously happy and sad — happy that I had these moments to appreciate what I have in this little babe o’ mine and to understand why it is that I don’t feel so appreciative on a more regular basis, but sad about the fact that I indeed don’t feel so appreciative on a more regular basis, and that I often don’t feel much of anything other than resignation and resentment.
Hopefully, just the realization will make a difference.