When I was just a few months postpartum, I went through the hardest breakup of my life. It wasn’t my first friend breakup, but it was definitely the one of my friend breakups after babies that hit me the hardest. Maybe it was the hormones coursing through my veins or maybe it was the raging pandemic outside, but this friend breakup was as devastating as when I got divorced at 23 years old.
This friend (not married or a parent) decided that they had enough other friends who weren’t “consumed by being a mom” and didn’t like how little time I had to offer her in the first months of my own journey into motherhood. Let me say that again…. She thought I didn’t offer her enough of my time in my first few months of motherhood… While quarantined at home. In an unprecedented global pandemic. With a newborn. Sleep deprived. And an anxiety disorder.
GIRL. Let me get something straight – I was still talking to this friend on the phone at least once a week, told her what time she could text me every day when I knew I would be nursing the baby at night, and was generally fairly responsive. But, she was single and unattached, so she needed me to be more flexible and available, I guess. I *changed*, she says. Well, yeah, I changed. Another human suddenly relied on me to keep them alive. The pressure that comes with that when that human literally cannot tell you what they need is absolutely overwhelming at first. But, sure, I wasn’t giving enough to this adult who had other friends and could take care of herself.
So, she started to distance herself, would cut calls short when I did find time to chat, and one day I finally asked what was going on. She laid it out and basically didn’t call from that day on. All of a sudden, I didn’t have one of my very best friends.
This was the first friend I made when we moved out of state. This was the friend who flew to Kentucky to see me twice, spent time at my parents’ house around the holidays, and even came to town to help us pack and move. This is the friend I drove 9+ hours to spend a long weekend with the Summer before I got pregnant. We talked every day. I told her about my married life, and she told me about the dating scene in her small town and kept me in the loop about her crazy ex.
To go from talking to someone every day to not even getting a response or an occasional text… sucked. Top that with being isolated because of COVID and not being able to go out and see any other friends or make new ones, I felt very lonely in my baby-centered world. Motherhood was a big part of who I was that first year, because motherhood was about all that was stable in such an unpredictable world. I mourned the loss of my pre-baby life, my non-pandemic life, and my closest friendship all at once. Top that off with a healthy dose of postpartum and breastfeeding hormones, and it’s a wonder I came out on the other side unscathed.
All of this to say… For the first-time pandemic mamas, for the moms who have gone through friend breakups after entering parenthood, for the mother who has been told too much of her life revolves around her children… I see you, and I’ll tell you the things I needed to hear two years ago, “You are doing your best, and you’re rocking it. We all do motherhood a little differently, but there is no WRONG way. Keep going, and don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. Good job, mama!”
