I felt like crap today, so I decided to just go with it. I built myself a little nest on the couch and surrounded myself with books, music, knitting, tea, and chocolate. I felt a little bit guilty for what I felt was wallowing in the crap feeling. But as I finished a book (the last in The Hunger Games series), started a couple new ones, did a little schoolwork and knitting, I began to feel better. And I decided that although I see the value in "act[ing] the way you want to feel" (from The Happiness Project, one of the new books I started), I also think there is value in being honest and just acting the way you feel. I am all for trying to feel happier and better, but I also that we have a tendency to fight negative emotions and to try to push them away, which often doesn't work and ends up making us feel worse. I think sometimes we need to just name how we feel and live with ourselves in that space, and allow others to do the same.
When I was pregnant, anyone I asked, and many people that I didn't ask, told me that having a child is both the best thing and the hardest thing that they have ever done. And that is exactly right! That is exactly how I would describe it. It strikes me that pretty much everyone describes it this way. It doesn't really tell you much though, and it leaves a parent-to-be looking for guidance, or a brand new parent looking for reassurance, a bit adrift. The description "it is the best and the hardest thing" seems like a nearly universally accurate way to describe having a child, but the particulars of why that is true, of how it is experienced, are very different for everyone. The particular way it is hard is different depending on who you are, and the particular way it is the best is probably different too. So I think we should try to expand on how it is the best and the hardest, even though it is hard to put into words. I've been on the other side of the question ...
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