{"id":3493,"date":"2015-04-22T22:38:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T22:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/?p=3493"},"modified":"2015-04-23T11:54:19","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T11:54:19","slug":"motherhood-is-not-being-selfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/motherhood-is-not-being-selfish\/","title":{"rendered":"Motherhood Is Not Being Selfish."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n

\"11008510_10152848412765197_690930836727837742_n<\/a>I close my eyes and listen to the sound of my breath leave my nostrils, slowly yet hastily.<\/h3>\n

My heart pumps blood quickly and my throat clenches.<\/p>\n

I feel anxiety at seeing familiar faces, made unfamiliar by lack of recent recognition.<\/p>\n

My strong hands shake as I grasp my wheat grass shot; I feel embarrassed by it.<\/p>\n

I’m again a new mom, not seeing another adult face besides my husband’s for days. I feel greedy and thirsty and hungry when I’m around others taller than four feet.<\/p>\n

Some people seem to snub me; it bothers me, but I ignore it because people are mean.<\/p>\n

It’s funny because I love people, but I know, too, that people are not always innately wonderful—more, they are scarred by their own hardships.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they are selfish and hard and downright nasty; in accepting this I find the grace in the rest of the population who, like I, tries to be good despite cranky, never-enough-coffee mornings and behind-closed-doors fights.<\/p>\n

I sniff and breathe in cold air that doesn’t fit the season. Snow drifts almost angrily outside, and I look over at a small glass of rich red wine next to my elbow.<\/p>\n

My heart is slow.<\/p>\n

My heart is steady.<\/p>\n

My heart is wanting to see the best in people, but ready to see the worst.<\/p>\n

I decide to end here, for today.<\/p>\n

I decide to end at being potentially snubbed and gawked at when manic-excited to break free from my new-mother (wonderful-yet-contained) chains.<\/p>\n

I end at red wine and a husband in a baby carrier, and precious cargo of eldest daughter who hugs my leg while I type.<\/p>\n

I end at accepting that my pulse quickens because I want friends and life outside of my tiny little world of home, but I also want where I am right now: this place of quiet solitude where I tell my husband over our wine glasses and olives that “we’re all putting our kids first, and I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyone who wasn’t.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo: Author’s own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I close my eyes and listen to the sound of my breath leave my nostrils, slowly yet hastily. My heart pumps blood quickly and my throat clenches. I feel anxiety at seeing familiar faces,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[137,142],"class_list":["post-3493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to-love-be-loved","tag-friendship","tag-motherhood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/mommy.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4dYEp-Ul","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3493"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3505,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions\/3505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}