@stillbecomingmama: they describe the sleep deprivation but they leave out the silence. they warn you about the exhaustion but nobody thinks to mention what it feels like to be awake in the middle of the night with the whole world gone quiet around you and this brand new person who needs everything from you and no script for what to do with all the feelings that show up in the hours when there is nothing to distract you from them. the quiet is its own thing. separate from the tired. you can be exhausted and still have the quiet get to you in ways that exhaustion alone never could. because the quiet is where the thoughts live. the ones you don’t have time for during the day, the ones you smile over when someone asks how you’re doing, the ones about who you are now and whether you are doing this right and whether the version of your life that existed before is still accessible to you somewhere or whether you have just become someone who stares at a sound machine at 2am and calls it a night. nobody warned me about that specific loneliness. the kind that isn’t about being by yourself because you are never by yourself anymore. the kind that comes from believing the quiet yours alone. and then the dots. and the understanding that the quiet is full of us. all these moms awake in it together without knowing it. #postpartum #newmom #postpartumsupport #momlife #newbornmom
