When I was very new to motherhood and barely had my feet wet, I heard of MOPS and MOMS Club and I steered far-away from them — convinced that it was a popularity contest and surely I wasn’t ‘cool enough’ to sit with the pretty girls.
I mean, I see how the mom Facebook groups work: moms judging other moms for not doing this or that, moms offering advice and being (painstakingly) accused of calling the other one a bad mom.
No thank you.
I was fine in my bubble — even if that bubble meant that my son would be my only friend.
So fast-forward a year or so later, where I was now a stay-at-home mom with two under two and my family uprooted and moved to Germany for my husband’s work.
At that time, I was in the throws of a deep depression; to say that I was lonely was an understatement. I was becoming increasingly unhappier as the days went on– I knew nobody, had zero friends, and was stuck inside all day long with my boys. My only adult interaction was when my husband would come home from work every evening, before he was even through the door, my word vomit would go off like an alarm bell.
I needed friends.
I was at a stage in my postpartum depression where I didn’t have the energy to get my sons (and myself) ready and out the door, for anything other than grocery shopping. I just didn’t have it in me, and so meeting people for playdates where I needed to physically get dressed and out of the house and make small-talk sounded like running the Boston marathon.
If you’ve ever struggled with depression, then you can understand– you really want to get out there and interact with other people, but your need to crawl into a ball and stay secluded is what your soul desires. And that always wins.
Eventually, I began to manage my PPD and that meant I wanted to get out of the house more. I kept seeing all of the events that my local MOMS Club would have– coffee playdates, weekly crafts, touring a fire station– it all sounded pretty amazing and a few moms couldn’t stop raving about it.
I began to peek in at a few MOMS events. It sounds crazy, but I was so nervous the first time.
What if they don’t like me? What if I say the wrong things? What if I say “I’m good, you?” when someone says hi.
