weight.

As I was laying in bed, nursing Jameson to sleep tonight I had this brief revelation stop and settle in on my shoulders:

Life is so much heavier than it used to be.

I think it has to do with being a parent: all of a sudden the choices I make seriously affect another person's life in a total and complete manner. 

It's different than having a spouse, who is also a fully-grown adult, and is capable of making their own minor decisions and also has an opinion on major decisions. With a child, I have to do what is best for them--I have to think for them. And when you really stop and think about it, that's a terrifying prospect.

If he grows up with certain character flaws or ends up in therapy later on in life, chances are that it will have something to do with my decisions for him. Wow.

To be honest, it's no wonder that I've spent the last twelve months drowning in a sea of anxiety and despair. The weight of this responsibility is enough to bear, without all of the opinions and commentary that everyone else likes to heap on top (whether it's well-intentioned or not). 

To be brutally honest, I feel like it's only now that I'm starting to climb out of this fog and step into this place of freedom with my parenting choices--to be secure in them, and to not care what anyone else thinks. It's like a weird form of self-esteem, and I've had to stop being validated by other people and do what is best for my son. Mine. Not anyone else's.

Even though I thought about all of these things before I got pregnant, and before Jameson was born, there is just something so solid about it all now that he's here and starting to exercise his independent will. It's got a whole new real-ness about it now that I am just discovering and figuring out how to handle.

I hope we don't screw him up too much. Just kidding. Sort of.