through it all

As promised, today I write more about the particulars of my every day struggles.

I have a history of depression that started in my childhood. At the beginning, I was convinced that my feelings and actions were a normal result of the stressors in my life. I learned when I got into college, that somehow everyone around me was able to function perfectly well with similar or worse struggles, and on top of that manage to be happy. Since that time, I have come to accept that depression itself is one of my struggles and it is reasonable and "normal", but that I can choose to find happiness through depression.

This was something I learned through postpartum depression particularly. The worst part of PPD for me was the guilt. I felt like I was choosing to be miserable and angry about something wonderful and beautiful. I would get mad at my daughter for not being an "easy baby". I would feel like her cries and needs were a judgement of me.
Sometime in the future, I will expound upon this struggle and how I got through it. For now, suffice it to say that I got help.

*If you think you may be suffering from depression, please, please, please find someone, or many someones, you trust to help you. It is not only difficult, but lonely and often worsening to try to try to get through it by yourself. I am able to see things the way I do now because of the great support that I now have.*

Many days, I still struggle to remind myself that my daughter's misbehavior is not her way of telling me I'm a bad mother. I have to stop myself from thinking she acts up solely out of a desire to make me batty. I have to  consciously remember that my child, and every child, is an  individual, like me.
When I was a kid, my thought process never went "Mom told me not to do that. I think it would be fun to do it, so that she knows she's a horrible person.", or "This would make Mom's day really hard, so I'm going to do it-and then find something dangerous to do". My only thoughts were of having fun and doing things that make me happy.
 My sweet, and heart attack inducing, daughter didn't just try to climb the outside of the banister, over a ceramic tile floor, because it scares me. She is adventurous and daring in her own right, and I am very much the same. Her purpose in yelling at her cousin and stealing her toys was not to confound my teachings of love and compassion. My daughter has her own desires, personal only to herself. Right now they may seem selfish and superficial, but after all she is two, and what is my job as a parent if not to teach her to be a successful and whole person, including the ability to  think about how her actions affect others.

It is a very big success when I am able to direct my daughter in using that desire for fun and happiness in a positive, productive way.

celebrating success

After over a year of more important things than blogging, I have discovered a desire to explain my blog title.

I feel that any success in life should be celebrated.
All too often, we focus on needing to do big fantastic things with our lives. We teach children that they can do anything, be anything, by using examples of people who have had great success, that have changed the course of history. Abraham Lincoln started in a log cabin in Illinois. Martin Luther King gathered a nation to fight for equality. Steve Jobs made millions out of his brilliance making products people think they need. We focus so much on these big successes that not being a well known, brilliant, rich, powerful person becomes a failure.
It's just not true.
I am a success.
I succeed as a parent. I succeed as a woman. I succeed as an adult overcoming her fears.
My small successes may seem trite and insignificant compared to the work of Mother Theresa or Ghandi. I may not be saving thousands of lives or souls. I had no more time or energy than to get myself and my daughters dressed this morning, but I did that! I got us dressed and fed and fought through the trials that every day presents me with (more on that tomorrow).
My lovely child shouts "I did it!" every time she does anything herself. She constantly asks, "Mommy, I try it?" and leaps at the opportunity to experience something new. She isn't disappointed with herself for not being a YouTube sensation, or child prodigy. She is happy in her everyday accomplishments.

So, rather than grading our success on a spectrum, comparing it to that of others, making it a competition, and making ourselves feel obsolete, we ought to be shouting from the rooftops, "I did a good thing!".  

Celebrate yourself and the marvelous things you can do every day!
There are no "small" successes!