Progress report, note to self

It's the hardest job I've ever had. I will do things the me of several years ago would never imagine I would be doing. I will clean up a lot of disgusting things. I will both resent that these gross things exist and love the one who exists to do gross things. I will find myself talking with absolute strangers about gross things without flinching because there is a special bond you share with people when they, too, have cleaned up the crap of someone else out of love. Parents get this. I will rediscover myself a million times over. I will find myself capable of doing the unimaginable. My patience will be tested and I will pass. I will take care of another breathing being and find myself forgetting how to fear failure.

Chaos will ensue, and sometimes it will be funny. Sometimes there is nothing better than making an enormous mess. I have recently spent many moments in public restrooms trying to clean up a code 5 diaper while Hannah has been stripped nude and proceeds to pee all over the changing table. That scene has taken place no less than three times this month. I panic, sweat, and laugh all at once. I let her flail her arms around in the bathtub and splatter water all over me and the room because it looks like an insane amount of fun and I kind of wish it were just as cute for me to do the same thing in the rain.

It's party time.

Chaos will ensue, and sometimes it will NOT be funny. Sometimes it will make me want to curl up in the fetal position and crawl up in my own womb (eew). Sometimes it will make me want to pass by my exit on the highway and keep heading west until I hit the Pacific. Sometimes it will make me cry like the baby that is crying in my arms. And sometimes we're just going to have to cry together to get through it. Hannah is on a mission to chew on wires, open off-limits doors and drawers, and bother Benson and thinks it's absolutely hilarious when I say "no." I will have anxiety. I will fear those who depend upon me. I will second guess myself. I will panic upon their injury. I will worry that Hannah is overfed/underfed, too hot/cold, too wild/bored, and so on. I will question how I'm doing and wonder why I am doing it at all. I will realize there is no one right way to do it, and the only wrong way to do it is to do it selfishly. My life is no longer about me alone. Sometimes I am going to hate the responsibility. But I will always love the one for which I'm responsible. Since Hannah has been in our lives, I have grieved the loss of my former life because it looked like a vacation compared to this. I haven't slept all the way through the night in over a year and I have an immediate loss of blood to my head anytime I hear something that sounds like a crying baby. I got used to it. Parenthood is a trial. I will conquer it. I will learn that our life is meant to be a Richter scale of madness because without the highs there would be no lows and without the dark we would never learn to love the light. My emotional muscles will be pushed and stressed until I'm as strong as I need to be to lift any weight placed on my shoulders. Adrenaline will spike. Time will work for me as long as I am dedicated to the magnificent cause. I will discover a new kind of love. A unique feeling I have never felt before. I will take an enormous drink from this cup of insanity and close my eyes, praying that I never forget how bitterly it begins and how sweetly it ends.