The winds of change are blowing in a meltdown

Sometime in the wee hours of todayness, I turned 31.

I've been legally allowed to purchase and drink alcohol for a decade, and have known my husband just as long.

Damn, I feel kind of old.

It doesn't help much that my uterus feels lonely and the baby fever is spiking. The kids tearing the hell out of the house this morning, Charlie falling and bruising her face and Josie refusing to put real clothes on until nearly 1 p.m. isn't even swaying the want of another squish.

No worries, though. Despite wanting another, I think I need to wait a little longer before we travel that road again. Like, when I'm 31 and a half we can talk about it.

Hopefully I'm out of my funk by then.

The last week I've been in shut down mode — I haven't touched my list, I keep seeing things that need to be done and not doing them, I've lost my temper more times than I can count and I just want to curl up in a ball and watch "Sleepless in Seattle" on repeat.



The clutter in this house is officially a problem again and I'm overwhelmed. Happy birthday to me. I went through this last spring, too, and it got bad enough I sought outside help because I thought I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. No, I didn't hire a cleaning service. I started seeing a local psychic.

Stop laughing. You're being an asshole.

Too many things were happening that were far outside my control and I put my heart and soul in her hands to figure out how I could fix the problem.

I'm not lying when I tell you I've heard voices and there are things that go bump in the night. I grew up hearing the sounds of days gone by when there was no one else awake. My wake up call to figure out the root of my more recent issues came last spring.

My temper flared and toys were being flung across the room because I just could not handle the fact no one else gave a shit the house was overrun with crap. There's that word again. I think I've used it in almost every post I've made here. But it's the truth — there was just so much junk here and it weighed on my mind more and more to the point that I literally could not function. It was all I could do to take a shower before 3 p.m. I didn't care if the kids got dressed and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were the most served lunch for ...  I don't even know how many weeks. Make-up had no place in my medicine cabinet. Jeans? Nah. Yoga pants for the win.

Then it happened. In the middle of my complete Mommy Meltdown, someone grabbed hold of the screen door handle in the dining room and shook it with such violence, I was sure the police had been called and were trying to break down the door to find out what was going on and why I was yelling — screaming — about everything a person could scream about.

No one was there. Just like for days, no one had walked past the house, but I saw someone pass the living room windows.

Since the cops weren't at the front door and I had officially turned into a blubbering mess thinking I was no longer on the verge of a breakdown, but actually having one, I called my mother. In the end, she told me to call the psychic and then next morning I threw myself into months of spiritual therapy with a woman who puts God above all else, but has been given a gift to help others and see things they cannot see.

Sometime in my life, I was thrown off course and the more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. The more I tried to help others, the more I pushed my own needs aside. Every time someone wanted to throw something away, I swore I could find a different use for it and added it to my collection of "crap." I've held onto clothes that were my Nana's, furniture that belonged to my grandparent's, costume jewelry and gift tags. For years.

For months, my spiritual adviser made me go through boxes and throw things away, recycle them, give them to charity. I took cleansing baths, boiled water with cinnamon in it, burned incense and listened to wind, whales and the sound of thunderstorms. I meditated and learned to breathe again, and that took a lot of effort. Somehow, all of these things, and anything she did behind the scenes when we weren't meeting, helped me.

This being overwhelmed obviously isn't something new. I'm used to, but it's been several months since I've dealt with a near complete shutdown of emotions other than anger and frustration. My husband doesn't understand how material things can be the root cause of this. I think it takes a lot of time for others to grasp that I start hoarding items or take on too many tasks because I'm swallowing emotions and have no release for them.

In the last few weeks I've been searching for a release because it's too cold and too early in the season to try to get the rototiller in the garden. I started my compost pail and have started practicing oil pulling. I'm back to going to the gym and feeling better in that respect. Yesterday I put together a jar of orange peels and vinegar for homemade non-toxic cleaner.

While all these things I've started doing do make me feel better, like I'm doing at least a portion of my part as a steward of this planet to rehabilitate it, it's not enough. So, before I find myself putting my psychic back on speed dial, decluttering v1.2 begins today.

Good thing the church rummage sale is coming up and I can start dropping things off for the sale around the middle of the month. I hope people want stuffed animals and old movies — do people still use VCR's? — and anything else I deem "unneeded" in this house because I'm sure my donation this year is going to be close to double what it was last year.

I've already started collecting toys the kids hardly show interest in and I expect the box to fill quickly.