I Need Some Friends....

Despite everything I have going on in my life, I have come to the painful realization that I'm lonely.

Not every day, not all the time. But I'm lonely a lot more often than I should be.

I know I have friends, most of whom are just minutes or a simple phone call away. But they're busy. Out working, enjoying life, going to class, going to the bars, etc.

Basically being young and childless.

I don't feel like I really have anyone I can talk to, who understands me. Most of my friends have been great, don't get me wrong. But I can't talk to anyone who understands my frustration when something happens with my daughter. When she spends all day crying (like today), I wish I had someone I could call who knew exactly what that felt like. Not saying my friends don't try, but it's hard to empathize with a mother if you've never actually been a mother.

I told my younger sister this the other day and she suggested that during those times when I feel sad or lonely, to call my mom. She was about 24 when she had me, and there had to have been days when she felt lonely too.

But sometimes you don't want to go running to your mother. My mom is an amazing woman who works two jobs just to keep food on the table and averages about three hours of sleep a day, completely neglecting her health in order to take care of my two sisters. (And her precious granddaughter, I should say.)

I don't want to run to her, complaining that I'm lonely. She has enough stuff on her plate as it is. I don't want to burden her further.

But I guess that's my problem. I would have no problem listening my friends vent about whatever is on their minds, but I would feel like I was burdening my friends if I spent time complaining to them. After all, I chose to get pregnant and have my daughter and if she cries all day, I feel in their mind, they wouldn't understand because hey, that's what babies do.

The hubby doesn't seem to have this problem. He works full-time and has interactions outside the house and plenty of his friends have children. It helps that he's older. Being a parent at 26 isn't so much an anomaly as it is at 21. Despite what you may think and hear, teenage (or early 20s) parents are hard to come by.

I guess it'll get better once she's a little older and I'm working and not chained to the apartment all day, bored with time on my hands to think about how lonely I am....