jmax chat room

@brolin just catching up. feeling for you. new dadhood is tenebrous territory. the memory / blocking stuff out is funny. i remember before my daughter was born, a dad of older kids told me "it's not has hard as people say it is." he was 100% wrong, it's actually way harder than people say it is, inexpressably hard. but now i sort of see why he said it. after some time, i have found that the bad parts are easy to forget. but the good parts i will remember forever. not necessarily particularly helpful right now.

another thing that has helped me has been to completely give up on "enjoying it while it lasts" or whatever. that just felt like extra effort on top of it all. just accepting for myself that sometimes it is only bad, it only sucks, and not trying to spin it as a good thing or feel the burden of guilt for my ingratitude can be helpful. telling myself "yeah you're not supposed to like this, it's ok" helps me get through it (i am still racked with guilt but it's not terrible).

anyway sorry for spouting all this off. but i feel for you. and it can be so challenging when you don't have anyone in your life going through the same thing (outside of reddit ofc). it was similar for me.

my phone number is (216) 956-2230 if you ever wanna chat more!

@brolin in this case reddit is right lol that first smile was huge for me! sleep is also huge. day by day!

@brolin the rage is so real. i have found that it is helpful to name it and be honest about it, because fighting yourself and shaming yourself for it can make it worse. idk why humans evolved to react that way but it's natural.

the unconditional love has gotten a lot easier for me as time has passed... it used to be that i had to make a huge conscious effort to love this screaming lump of flesh who made my life 1000x harder and gave me basically nothing in return. now it's still an effort but it's not has hard.

i will also say, it has ONLY gotten easier for me. lots of parents of older kids used to tell me "appreciate these times when they can't walk or talk, because once they can, your life is over" but i think that's garbage. it does feel more exhausting now that my daughter is almost 2, but it is SO much easier emotionally. every day she becomes more of a person and every day I love her more. and she is also just cuter. newborns are weird looking

@brolin i think i blocked out most of the first 2 months or so of my daughter's life because of how hard it was, so i don't really remember much other than it's so hard. the crying was especially grating for me. some of the things that helped me though:

- newborns are basically in their 4th trimester, torn from the womb before they're done cooking - your only job is to keep them alive

- new moms sometimes have hormones that help them deal with the crying more easily - new dads often struggle more with the crying (i know i did)

- you get basically no reward for the first 2-3 months of caretaking - very little reciprocal affection (typically even less for dads)

- you are a good parent

i am happy to talk more if you wanna chat about new dadness, it can feel like a very lonely place.

@ztbd i know it wasn't addressed to me but thank you for sharing that clip. really helpful framing and understanding of one's relationship to themself!

@brolin congratulations!!! welcome to parent club!!

@brolin ours was a lot more sudden! we went in for one of the appointments around 3 weeks before the due date, but there was a slight issue with the baby's heart rate so we went to another place to check it out and then she was like "are you ready to have a baby today?" and then all at once we were in labor & delivery mode. and then she was born the next morning at 3:24am!

@brolin every time i see you have updated a file i think it's going to be baby time!!

@lizardking my dad was disabled and a lot of what you said resonated with me. he has since passed away and i am so glad for the sacrifices i made to take care of him. it was not easy but i think it was worth it. every situation is so different though! my sister took the opposite approach, almost to the point of cutting ties with him because it was so hard... but it never meant she loved him any less. and it's hard to know, but definitely possible that their relationship would have been much worse if she tried to be a caretaker.

anyway i dont have anything helpful to say! but yea it's hard

@benjamin hey

@ztbd thank you! there will certainly be much "labor" on that "day weekend" (^:

ps also another great set of nightwalk pics

@everyone im doing the musical thing. meaning the thing where i wrote a musical and am going to produce it. i dont think anyone here other than my wife lives in cleveland ohio so this is largely irrelevant. but check out this cool announcement video i made

https://youtu.be/keCKURg6kEs?si=bxXvF8gReFR8NgRr

@flounderfriendsaccount clerb was robbed

@evilswampmonster agog gang rise up

@ztbd good night pics

@idi i was revisiting burn notice a few months ago. watched the pilot and had a serious mandela effect moment when I heard Fiona's irish accent. Did she always have an irish accent? did i just misremember this entire show? then ep 2 she drops the accent entirely. any way burn notice rocks

@biga**bug 2 none among us should be so blessed!

it's preposterous

https://youtu.be/1ROiIM_G1SE?si=IxnsPEBh9rSiNUQe

and me, i can't even heelflip, let alone perform subversive & influential sketch comedy!

@bugleague you are so real for inner shaggy

@brolin if you are anything like me and @alioop then yes. you will have 10000 photos of baby. we took pics constantly the first year of my daughter's life. now she is always on the move and trying to steal our phones so we have far fewer.

@mo-money wow. the number is infinitely higher now!

@mo-money very intrigued by your

counting number. i hope you make it to 1000

@ztbd thank you, i appreciate that! the doors will stay open for sure. and we will see what happens!

@lighght best of luck on your sobriety journey and job search. im jealous of your laid off coffee shop ableton mash up life style. sorry you can't sleep though, that sucks

@idi a font can make or break a movement. i have recently become a lil bit obsessed with Apple Garamond and I think it's like 90% of the reason Apple was popular in the 80s and 90s

@pinecone-enjoyer how do I sign up to become a parishioner of your church

@everyone please watch this music video my friend Luke made. it's really cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4pmeGA0ZSw