i’m not very good at updating my blog on friday, saturday, or sunday. i know that a lot of people aren’t, but i don’t like leaving my thursday post up all weekend. it seems lonely there for so long after it stops getting comments on friday. at the same time, i don’t have a blog topic tree, and i kind of run out of creative steam towards week’s end.

so i want to ask you people out there if you would like to guest post for me. come one, come all (snicker). i’ll put up a new guest post every saturday, and it’ll be win-win: you’ll all get to meet amazing new bloggers every weekend, and i’ll get to spend my saturdays smoking cigars and eating rocky mountain oysters. just email me (there’s an email form on my about page) if you’re interested in posting at depressionsandconfessions, and we will make it work.

first up: jenn from quirky pickings. she is a thoughtful, smart, and funny woman with what seems to be a large brain full of knowledge. she has been so supportive of my blog and me, always leaving the most insightful comments, and i have loved reading every one of them. i’m delighted to have her guest posting for me here today.

even better, jenn told me to ask her any question and she would answer it. not one to beat around the bush, i asked her something that would probably offend about 98% of the female population, not because i’m a jerk, but because i was honestly very interested to hear her perspective. but she didn’t even bat an eye, which i thought was pretty awesome, and she kicked that question’s ass. so here she is–i dare you not to be blown away by her honesty.

me: you’re single and don’t have children. how do you feel about married women with children, especially as a blogger surrounded by a forest of mommy bloggers? do you envy them? or thank god that you don’t have to live their lives?

jenn: oh, it’s envy. i wish that weren’t the case, but alas, it is. when i was a child, what i most wanted to be when i grew up was a wife and mother. not because i didn’t think i was capable of doing anything else–both of my parents are teachers, and my mother, and her mother, are very independent women. so i learned at a young age that boundaries are like that code in pirates of the caribbean–more like guidelines. no, i wanted to be a wife and mother because i thought that was the most rewarding, the most important job a woman could have.

the trouble is, i’m not pretty. i’m not one of those beautiful people. and i’m extremely picky. my parents taught me to value myself, and somewhere underneath all the verbal abuse that’s been heaped upon me, either by my peers or by myself, i know my worth. i’m an incredibly smart cookie with an abundance of talent and compassion and a great sense of style and … see? i know. god gave me all these gifts, but the packaging … well, it sucks.

and guys, they do like the packaging. a lot.

in fact, i was just talking about this with my younger brother and his closest friend today. if they were to be presented with two women of equally beautiful physiques and equally appealing personalities, and one was (were? i can never remember) dressed like a two-dollar hooker and the other was dressed with class and panache… if all things were equal, save for their attire, which one would they prefer? the hooker. why? because she shows more skin. actually those were the friend’s words. my brother said something more along the lines about how he’d get to see more of her boobies more often. i should mention that my younger brother is thirty-three and happily married with nineteen-month-old twins. i used to think that when he settled down and had a family of his own, he would settle down. how silly of me.

anyway.

my skin’s got about thirty scars on it. six of ‘em are on my face. no, these scars wouldn’t be visible to you, were you and i facing each other. but they’re visible to me. monumental to me. and that affects my psyche quite a bit.

but more, i have bipolar disorder. there are days where it knocks me flat. like yesterday. yesterday was hideous. i woke up feeling despicable. four hours later, i was feeling insane and suicidal. i managed to pull through it. i always do. but it takes so much out of me, so much. and afterward, i am surly and snarly and rude and hostile. and that could last for hours. yesterday it lasted all day. i was mean to an elderly woman who worked in the floral department of a grocery store–how lovely that job must be. seriously. happy and thoughtful. people are buying flowers just because. it’s sweet. anyway, i was evil to her because she hadn’t washed her hands after using the restroom before returning to work.

i am difficult. living is difficult. living with me is difficult. asking someone to love me. to love this. i can’t do it. giving this to a child. watching them endure the years of verbal abuse i endured. no way. i won’t do it. i’m like sylvia plath. only, i don’t plan on sticking my head in a gas oven. i’ve got those nineteen-month-old twins to spoil. when my mood is good.

i have become the thing i most feared becoming.

some women aren’t meant to have that life. and not all of our dreams and aspirations are meant to be anything more than that.

still, it makes me nauseous to feel this way. it makes my stomach clench and my eyes well.

most of the blogs i follow are mommy blogs. not because they are mommy blogs, but because they are written by strong women, much stronger women than i.

do i wish there were more blogs out there written by single women? of course. do i like mommy blogs any less because they are mommy blogs? of course not. do i wish more of them would write posts about themselves and less about their children or about raising them? absolutely. because first and foremost, they are women. and then wives. and then mothers.

see? awesome, right? now go check her out at quirky pickings.

— Alexis

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