The one who climbed in play tunnels, who went down slides and rode the teeter totter, the one who chased her child through the park screaming sarcastically just to make her laugh. I was not only helping her climb ladders I was following and managing the monkey bars she was so obsessed with and pushing her on the swings and tire swings (then jumping on) until my arms felt like they'd fall off. And then, I pushed some more.
But not any longer.
Now I sit on the sidelines, I laugh and encourage while my children play and beg me to push them or watch while they climb really high. I watch while my oldest crosses the monkey bars that she's still obsessed with and struggle with my insecurity that people are judging and staring at my free range parenting: my "parenting" that's really another form of neglect and ignoring.
I preach independence and learning their own limitations which is partially true, but it's not everything. Yes, I totally believe in teaching my children to be strong women and men that don't need to depend on anyone to hold them up. I push my kids to do things for themselves that surprise others because they WILL be able to care for themselves if need be.
I'm sitting there not for any of those reasons though. I'm sitting there because I physically can't go play anymore.
I see the stares.
I'm not stupid.
I know everyone watching me say "no" and shooing them away assumes I won't get up because I'm fat. My insecurities tell me that every time I smile and wave or choose to shoot a picture rather than stand up I'm being judged for my weight.
The sad part is that I'm generally correct. At least 90% of the time people assume I'm lazy and a bad mom because I'm fat.
Not that I have health problems.
But I do.
They're practically invisible which means that even though they're so bad all my doctors are working to get me disability, no one notices.
Fibromyalgia seems to be a big one, and the back pain from damaged nerves during my surgery for spina bifida at a young age, or my dislocated knee cap/torn meniscus that seems to keep re-dislocating no matter how much rest I try to give it, maybe it's the debilitating headaches from my pseudo tumor that keeps me from doing anything. Oh I know, it's probably the hashimotos that's killing my thyroid making me so fatigued I can't move and still making me unable to lose weight.
Y'know, that weight you're judging me for.
I'm constantly in pain. If it isn't my wrists and elbows throbbing or going numb it's my back or my ankles giving out. Sometimes my hip/groin area pops out of place for awhile or my legs go numb. Every once in awhile I can't even carry a bowl of food because my arms are too weak to hold it, my hands to weak or numb to grip the sides.
If I manage to take enough pain pills or push it away with force of will hard enough to play with my kids I pay for it all night. I cry myself to sleep because of how much it hurts, I barely manage to stand and walk to the bathroom, and getting into a position that doesn't make me throb or ache is such a fight it takes hours.
Yet I still wake up multiple times a night to rearrange myself. On top of the boys waking up. On top of Reyna refusing to sleep. On top of my own insomnia and sleep problems. So I'm even more tired on top of the already so exhausted my eyelids feel like they're being held down by tiny sand men who are throwing grit and sand into my eyes the handful just because I have crappy health.
And before it's argued, my health problems are not in any way related to my weight. In fact, most are causing the weight that's just making everything even harder.
A simple trip to the grocery store takes me a few hours to recover from; my joints and muscles and bones fully aching as if someone hammers them over and over and over. Then a few more times. And then, for good measure, they run me over with a semi.
It kills me.
Not being able to get on the floor and actively crawl after my kids, to chase Reyna while she screams down the hallway, to go down slides and swing, to not be able to to do anything I want to do is slowly eating away at my insides like a new disease that crawls through my skin coating it with shame at being a bad mother; it's so thick I fear I'll slip on it while attempting to play.
I sit there shooing them away and hate myself. I take extra pictures rather than participating because I can't participate and dig my nails into the skin of my palms to keep from crying my frustration and rage.
What people don't realize while they sit there judging is that I'm sitting there judging myself too. I hate that I can't do anything anymore. Coming to terms with the fact that I have to be sidelined for the entirety of my children's lives rips me up inside. I'm not being lazy, i just have these stupid invisible diseases no one knows about. I have to convince myself that I am not a bad mom every second that I can't do things normal people can.
Stop making it harder by throwing around judgment, please.
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