Sucks

I wanted to say this in Spanish, but it just didn’t have the same je ne sais quoi I was looking for. The power, the anger, the polite American way of saying something isn’t nice. And that’s motherhood—a not-so-nice way of doing life that eats you up slowly. It crawls under your skin so quietly and for so long that you stop feeling it as it devours you from the inside. I wish I didn’t have to feel this way. But I do.

On good days, I can hear the birds and the rustling of the trees in front of my window. And that’s when I feel most alive—in that short-lived, ephemeral moment of quietness. A true sense of happiness washes over me; I feel the earth breathing, my lungs expanding, and I am truly happy. How I wish these were always my days, that I didn’t have to experience the soul-breaking sounds of screams and cries that can awaken inner beasts. I cry alone and cry quietly because even the sound of my own tears make me so nauseous; I feel as though I am in a state of endless, limitless pain.

I am in a constant state of paralyzing fear that I will lose my sanity and become the angry beast I see in the mirror so often—that ugly creature lurking beneath me, inside of me, yearning to be set free in a world that punishes raw emotions. Am I the beast? Is the beast me? I feel lost, my body strange, as if it’s here yet not here. I can’t quite describe the feeling, but it consumes me and leaves me adrift. I lack clear direction, and my creative voice feels silenced, distant.

I don’t feel sadness or pity when my kids cry—I feel anger; extreme anger. It triggers something deep in me. Is that what my so-called father felt when he heard us cry? He would beat my mom so brutally, it hurt just to hear it. The sounds of the sticks hitting flesh had a sizzling quality, like boiling water scalding skin—sounds so violent they seemed to scare even the wind. He was violent. And my biggest fear is that I, too, could become violent. Oh, how I break at the mere thought of it. That I might raise an angry hand against my kids—I should cut off my own hand if I ever did that. But then why do I feel so much anger? Am I alone in these feelings? Do I need medication to ‘tame’ the beast? Will this anger ever go away? My voice cracks, and I gasp for air in my silent screams for help.

I am ashamed of my emotions and the anger within me—and I am ashamed to admit that I should have never become a mother. But motherhood caught me; it embraced me so tightly I can hardly breathe. It chased me, and it caught me three times, and each time, I cried, unsure of the purpose behind it all. Was I so lost that I ended up found? I’m not the best at doing life either, and perhaps that’s the scariest part—that I am life, that I am forming and shaping life, that it exists within the confines of my reality. I can’t escape it, and I am forced to do life in this way.

When my daughter was about 7 years old, she told me that before being earth-bound, she was perusing the skies and saw me—so lonely and sad—that she chose me. She wanted to keep me company. I remember her words and the warm embrace they left in my heart. She truly did save me from myself. I had just turned 18 years old, which, in Costa Rica, is when you are legally considered an adult. But truly, I was just a kid giving birth to another kid. Her birth was one of the most traumatizing events of my life, but that’s a story for another day.

How can I love my kids and yet hate motherhood?