Grind

Imagine a worm cut in two and then cut in two and then cut in two again until your hands are filled with a heap of little worms.  This is a bit what maternity leave is like.

It's the repetition that gets to me.  Each day is the long, wriggling twin of the day that came before, and also the day that came before that, and also of tomorrow.  You get up, you feed the baby, you change the diaper, you jolly the baby to sleep, you wash the bottles, you sit for a minute or maybe get really ambitious and try to unload the dishwasher, you get up, you feed the baby, etc.  Over and over and over and over, for literal months -or if you don't go back to work, years.  It's what I imagine incarceration must be like: day day day day day day day.

I can't tell if everyone finds the repetition as grinding as I do, or if I am constitutionally ill-suited to today's version of stay-at-home mothering.  Maybe there's a way to spice up the iterations I haven't figured out yet.  Or maybe it's like gardening- something I'd dearly love to enjoy, but, despite many attempts at emotional reform and a past strewn with dead plants, continue to detest.  

I claim to crave stability, but I pursued three different majors in college and my work life is startlingly varied.  Maybe I wandered into multiple careers and freelancing because I have a secret yearning for instability.  Or maybe years of career whiplash have made me a variety addict, jonesing for the next twist.

Speculation is useless, but it gives me something to do while I repeat.