Suck It Up!

I came across a cool blog about being a stepmom called The Erin Experiment www.erinexperiment.com . I liked what I read there--especially her last post about why people feel the need to say to stepmoms to "Suck it up!"  I'm pretty new at this gig & I gotta say to all those folk out there who tell me that "I have to rise above it", or "You knew that he had a ton of baggage", can blow it out their collective ears!  Yeah, I'm well aware of what I signed up for--it just doesn't mean that I truly get it & frankly I probably won't for a while at least--maybe never.  Do you?  Does anybody?  And when will I have the emotional fortitude to rise above the fray?  I think I asked in my last post when do I get a break? And I'm seeing that stepmoms usually don't get a break & are expected to be calm & have a quiet grace--ah, anybody out there believe this load of crap??  OMG!  I think I may be in trouble here--I'm really good at that mantra below in a professional way but when it comes to my personal life, well....I keep looking for gray hair.

I've discovered that I'm a very different person when the kids are around--not my kid, the Skids (I'm finding ALL kinds of acronym-like stuff for stepparenting).  I am a ball of stress & anxiety--one of my girlfriends stopped by last week to see the new house & as we were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying cold glasses of water (I know, not wine!), she told me that I looked very different from when I lived in my old house--she said that I looked anxious & stressed.  Even Xing Fu said something to me about it--that I act differently when his kids are around--wouldn't you if you felt scrutinized & judged at every turn?  I don't want to feel that way & when they are not here I definitely relax & am able to think more clearly.  

Like this morning as I sat looking around at the boxes still to be unpacked in our bedroom--I thought to myself, "is this what I really want?  How did I get here? and, Am I delaying the unpacking because of the drama/trauma I've been going through trying to be the uberstepmom?" I decided that I did want this & that I've gotten to this place because I love Xing Fu & want to share my life with him.  Ah, such romantic notions--hard to see because those feelings are often clouded by everything that's been going on.  But, as a way to face the fears, & prove my commitment, I unpacked a bunch of stuff.