I feel like my periods of equilibrium are short and not satisfying. My life has been in limbo for pretty much all of my life. I’m always transitioning. I was transitioning from “done breeding” into “more exciting” and then that got… interrupted. Instead I’m back to breeding.

If only I didn’t want more children so much that I cry with every period.

I miss being exciting. Being a wife and a mother doesn’t feel exciting. Being sadistic and masochistic and slutty feels exciting.

But I want these children so much that I deal with not feeling exciting. I want these children so much that I will defer most dreams. I will put off most goals. I want these children so much it physically aches.

I thought that having two kids might scratch the itch. No. I want more. I want more kids so much I feel like I can barely cope with the urge. I feel no end of gratitude that my partner changed his mind about two and done.

But I’m struggling with feeling like so much of me is shoved into a box in the closet indefinitely. It’s like those other parts of me don’t exist.

I am sadistic. I am masochistic. I am submissive.

How much of me are these things?

Not as much as being a wife and a mother. No matter how much I resent the fuck out of mostly being a wife and mother.

I want to be something different. But instead I’m typical. I’m a wife and mother.

I really want to be a badass motherfucker. Instead I’m a wife and mother.

How do we decide who we get to be? What we are? What makes us?

I don’t know. But I struggle.

My partner has gone from saying “One kid… maybe two” to saying “As many as we can” given the constraints of our life/age/health. That means we will have three or four. He’s open to five. The reality of my age is that probably won’t happen.

I feel like there is something I have to give to these children. Something that is so important that it is more important than fun or excitement or personal projects.

I need to have these children to repair the damage I feel inside me.

I don’t know how to get over grieving that I didn’t get to grow up in a family. I didn’t really get to have a mother or a father. So instead I give to my children. That is my only route to having a family. Because I feel like I am dying from lack of care and love that I should have gotten from a parent.

Instead I have children who shine with love, attention, and good health. Because I wither on the vine because I still miss my mother. I still wish someone wanted to mother me. But no one does. That door is closed. I get to give, not receive.

Life works that way, sometimes.