Not writing and writing and healing

I haven't written in a while.

This space, while helpful in the beginning of my healing process, turned into another thing that held back my recovery. Not my physical recovery, mind you, but the emotional and psychological one.

Each time I came to this place, I thought I was healing ... until I started writing. I came back here after months of not touching my blog and saw posts that had been started but never finished. Certainly never published.

It's not that I was stuck. Honestly, I had too much going on to be stuck for too long before being pulled out of my thoughts and thrust back into the Mommy Abyss - the tie my shoes, help me wipe, I spilled milk all over the carpet glory that is mothering children.

What was happening was me saying, "This is how I cope." What was really happening was me saying, "This hurts too much. Moving on hurts more than staying here, so I'm just going to stay here counting the days, counting the weeks, waiting for my next round of lab work."

So I stopped.

My position on positives, if you want to call it that

I've been trying to focus on the positive lately.

I'm positive the van will get stuck at least once more trying to get out of the snowy driveway this week.

I'm positive the tax bill due by the beginning of next month should have given me a coronary, especially considering the credit card bill was nearly the same amount.

I'm positive my kids think 3:30 a.m. is the most perfect time to hit/kick/slap their way to the coveted spot in my bed.

I'm positive we blew the grocery budget this week, and I'm positively not going to worry about it since we had money left over last week.

I'm positive wine is usually the answer when I get in a writing slump, because I tend to suck down several glasses and write like a beast - usually pounding out 2,000 or more words in a shortish amount of time as I pour the words from my soul desperately into a Word document that someday will resemble a paperback.

And I'm positive the book I'm penning is almost done. This one I'm almost as sure of as getting stuck in the driveway.

I'm also positive that while I'm trying to "be positive," it's hard, because there's a huge difference between being positive of something and being emotionally/psychologically positive. Most people are aware of that difference. So while I try really hard to be emotionally positive, it's not something I usually wake up thinking will happen today. There are still a lot of days I look out the window and it's not the sun I see, but the dirty snowbank and slushy roads. Instead of being proud of my daughters' inquisitiveness and ability to make a mess while learning, playing, and growing, I can't see beyond the clutter.

I'd totally have that guy's love child

Words. So many words.

 To give you an idea:

That's the book I'm working on. Is it amazing? No. What's taken me nearly six months to do other writers who get to do this full-time and have help with the kids or just have older kids who are a little more self sufficient could probably whip out 46,000 words in a month or two. I'm not going to fault myself for not being further into this story because I love it, I love my characters, I love my writing partner's ability to get me back on track and storyboard with me day or night from California.

'Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday'

Marriage is amazing. My husband and I have been together a little more than 11 years, married for six, and there are a lot of days when we do everything together all in fluid motions. It's like a ballet of housework and yard work and parenting. Or we hardly see one another and I'm stuck dancing alone through the daily grind. Or I punk out entirely and don't go do things on my own because I'm a giant chickenshit and want to phone a friend in the game of Life, and he's the one I call. What do you mean I'm an adult? Psh.

June 21, 2008: Oh hey, we got hitched.

Since we are individuals and, despite my sometimes neurotic tendencies, I like being an individual, there are some things I don't share with my husband, at least not always in their entirety. Not Earth shattering "I'm hiding bodies in the woods" kinds of secrets, but little tricks of the momming trade that help me get through the money/emotionally overwhelmed/too much going on struggle that I deal with constantly.

Like the fact I haven't used laundry detergent in any of the wash loads for three days. I wash a lot of laundry. Instead I've been tearing through the box of baking soda that I also use for cookies and on occasion in the kids' bath. Our clothes smell like cotton and the washer doesn't stink. I think that counts as a win. Unless he reads this, he's not going to have a clue!

Growing pains and change

My free moments have been few and far between lately. Interruptions, events, appointments, deliveries, more interruptions.

Father's Day weekend started with a dance recital and birthday celebration. I'm still trying to grasp the concept that Josie is officially a 4-year-old.

We did the Father's Day run around where we didn't actually do anything special, but it was special because we were together.

Baby's First Haircut ... it still counts even if she's 4, right?

Then it was a week of doctor appointments, getting Josie registered for the Universal Pre-Kindergarten program offered by our school district (again, her being old enough to go to school is a concept I'm not fully grasping), actually celebrating Josie's birthday by taking her for her first hair cut, having the giant mattress delivered and our anniversary.

Our anniversary, which we did nothing special to celebrate other than bust ass to continue getting the house we need to sell ready for showings. After months and months and months of talking about how we needed to list it and all the things we need to do to get it ready, it's ready. Almost. As I sit here taking 15 minutes to pour my thoughts out on the interwebs, the Boy has taken a ladder and gone to paint the door frame on the back of the house and the supports on the front, maybe touch up the paint in the bathroom that I didn't get to and put the light cover back in the front light.

It's officially on the market and open for showing as of June 30.

Surround yourself with the tools that work for you

I had a dream early one recent morning.

I walked into my psychic's home, in tears. I said nothing. She looked at me and tsked at me.

She was unhappy. "You removed the water I surrounded you with? Why?"

I have no idea, and that's my thought about everything surrounding that dream - I have no idea what it means, why she'd say that to me, why she would have surrounded me with water in the first place. I am totally clueless.

Or, I was.

Not your traditional Mother's Day jargon

I really loved my last post.

Like, I loved it so much I read it multiple times after I posted it. And laughed hysterically at parts only I and a select few really understand.

That's not something I do regularly.

In fact, it's something I do so rarely I could probably count the number of entries I've loved that much on one hand.

My husband, though, admitted to me he didn't really "get" it and only skimmed.

Connections, connections, connections

I love my Internet mom friends. I love them to the moon and back because I can post shit like this in one of our online groups:

Sometimes I want to stab my husband for completely irrational reasons, like he hung his dress shirts up facing the wrong way. Feel free to unfriend the crazy girl. o_O

And I'm met with stories so similar that I feel a little bit emotional over the connection I have with these other crazy chicks. *wipes eyes* It was my allergies. *sniff*

When my parents first got the Internet, I would greatly anticipate evenings after my homework was done when I could hear that squealing high pitched sound followed by a solid connection and the persistent blinking computer icon in the computer taskbar showing I was finally connected to the world outside of Lyndonville. It was scary standing there on the precipice of the technological revolution that was dial-up, particularly in a small town. It was scarier still that I was introducing myself to new people every day and was totally addicted to chatrooms and AIM by the time I left for college.

I'm sure all of us in my age group can recall the whole "a/s/l" and "What's your screen name?" phases of our lives. They were ... confusing. But for some, it was allowing us to find people whom we otherwise would never have met. I met some of my best friends online because of a common love for a single musician and was totally blown away when I realized last fall we've been friends for 10 years now and our lives are completely different than when we virtually met - I'm married and have kids, Christian is teaching in Korea, Kris and Xander are slowly going to achieve world domination through graduate studies and PhD programs, and Ryan is like the world's most amazing masseuse (I'm sure, though haven't had the pleasure of one of those massages).

Don't get ahead of me; this isn't going to turn into a piece on Internet safety, though I have enough experience meeting strangers from the web that I could definitely write a well informed article on the matter.

No, really, this one is purely about connecting, on some level, with others in my situation.

We desperately needed ink, really

There are times in Mommyhood that you just have to get away. I wrote all about the struggles of this *raises arms to sides to indicate my whole life* (I know you couldn't see me do that, but I totally did just to prove this point to myself) and how I knew the next time I got overwhelmed I was just going to run away for a while.

And I did. Last night.

It was one of those days where it looked beautiful outside, until I opened the door and it was just a really sunny 20 degree morning. It killed any motivation I had, and that's been the theme of winter since about mid-January. I opted not to go to the gym, and then because of that the TV was on all day, and the kids were obnoxious and whiny because we hadn't left the house. By the time 5 p.m. rolled around I was ready to escape and just needed the Boy to get home.

The "please eat your dinner" fight had happened at that point. The "I need a break" text had been sent. The "I'm just going to fling the fridge open and cry because my toddler life is ruined by your not having anything I want" was in full effect. Here, allow me to show you:

Everyday struggles: Make yourself a priority

I have multiple posts started that remain in draft form. The topics range from society thinking parents should love all sorts of things that I just don't love all the time to how sucky my Friday was to a giant rant about the crap said about the Mets' second baseman Daniel Murphy taking three whole days of paternity leave. O.M.G. Three days!? How dare he!

And that's where those posts are going to die. Right there in the draft folder. Because I was passionate in that moment and now, even though I still care about those topics, I've simply lost steam where they are concerned. I may revisit the love/hate post, but right now it's at a standstill.

Instead, I asked my friend Kristin what she thought about the topics and what one I should go with for the next post, and aside from loving the idea of a post on Murphy's paternity leave she gave me this:

I'd love to see more on the marriage versus mommy perspective, because I feel like that all the time...the mommy versus working girl versus wife struggle is another that sends me over the edge from exhaustion and guilt, too. At the end of the day, I miss being social with friends...we haven't gone out in a long time and I wish I had a hobby I could balance with my life and hang out with people outside of work.

 Sorry to throw our conversation out there for the masses, Love, but sometimes you give me something that is way too good not to share, so I'm going to talk about the struggle.

It's the everyday struggle to not forget yourself - we're mothers/fathers, husbands/wives, coworkers and for a lot of people trying to juggle all of that there's no time to just be. Be yourself, be alone, be content. If there isn't a sport or activity going on, there's laundry and dishes needing your attention, there's another paper to grade or another page to edit or another system study to look over. Me Time is a thing of the past for a lot of us and we've lost ourselves in the hustle and bustle of married life and parenting.

Who were you before all of this?

I was adventurous and independent and fun loving. I would spend way too many hours at the office and then too many beers at the Legion. I was careless and reckless and stubborn. I'm still stubborn. But I'm in need of adventures and so co-dependent it's alarming and I still love to have fun, but instead of drinking my friends under a table, I'm ecstatic to go meet up for a play date at the mall because fun is also watching my kids have fun. I spend too many hours in front of the computer because it seems a majority of my social life lives here and I never have enough beer to dull the ache of missing all those things that have changed. I'm careful to a fault now and reckless is staying up past 10 most nights. I take less risks, unless you count totally blowing this week's grocery budget because I just couldn't leave that top round roast at Wegmans ... it was reduced price for quick sale. Man, I'm a fucking rebel to spend $25 on a cut of meat that will make four or more meals for my family. Just call me James Dean.

 I try really hard not to miss the old me. The me who was skinny and flirty and had no responsibility other than getting a paper out every night. But that's all I did. I worked. My recklessness was writing a story I was scared to death to publish because it would definitely piss someone off. My independence was because I didn't want someone to hold my hand, or hold me back.

I can look back at all of that - the pre-marriage and pre-babies me - and at the very least know I learned something about myself. I'm capable. I can do all that. I can be successful. Success like that now would come at a very steep price. I can't juggle all I used to do with all I do now. I have trouble keeping up with laundry and cleaning and I'm here most days in the thick of the suburban jungle wading through the muck and the mire of parenthood, toddler years, pre-K prep, wifery and ... I lose myself.

Me Time.

How do we find time for us? How, when so many people or things depend on us to do all that stuff too, do we take a few hours to go out to dinner with friends sans children or hit up a movie with our significant other (again, sans kids) or take time to read quietly?

The juggling is the struggling in this life, the life we're living now and when you throw so many balls up in the air at once you're bound to drop a few. Or more than a few. And if you're like me, sometimes you toss them all up in the air at once, step back and let them all fall. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, the pieces can all be glued back together, and you're stronger for it. Anyone who read my depression piece is aware of that. I fall apart and I scream and I cry and I hate and I pick up every last piece and glue me back together ... and remember myself in the process. That's what it is. A process.

Last Friday I needed a break. I needed the Me Time like I needed air and water and wine. I was pissy and moody and just plain tired of how shitty the day had been. I brushed my teeth at 7:30 p.m. along with the kids. I gave them kisses. I walked down the hall to my bedroom, walked in, shut the door and climbed into bed with a book. A real book with pages and the smell of ink and no "low battery" notification popping up in the middle of a chapter. I didn't intentionally make my husband put the kids to bed alone, but that's what happened. I'm a better mom for doing that.

I lost myself between the pages.

I needed to get lost in someone else's story.

This is the struggle in the suburban jungle. The fight to be better than everyone else isn't worth the things we lose in the process because the biggest thing we lose is who we are at the base level. We need others but we need ourselves more because once you lose that, once you forget who you are, there's nothing left to give the ones who want a piece of you and you can't be a social creature if you don't recharge your batteries once in a while.

Is this why so many women are in need of a spa day or anything other than grocery shopping alone? Is this why men want to go watch the game at a bar with their buddies or hit the links and golf a round with a close friend? I'm not even being sarcastic. I've wanted for so long to go do things like get my hair cut all by myself because I remember how I used to feel when I did that before marriage and kids. I haven't gone to get my hair cut professionally since I was pregnant with Josie (or maybe she was an infant? I might have been pregnant with Charlotte. That two years just sort of blended together in my head.). I've pretty much cut my own hair for four years now, and I don't even pamper myself leading up to the hack'n'whack - I take a shower, wash my hair, brush it, flip upside down and cut. I could at least buy myself dinner after a quickie like that, but no, I'm usually running out of the bathroom playing "What was that crashing noise!?" as I go.

My husband is an introvert, big time - in college he usually would go to the dining hall alone to eat; I couldn't leave my room for food unless I had at least one friend with me because eating alone was such a foreign concept to me - so he doesn't see why others have a need for time alone after being home all day doing the housewife/childrearer jobs or why some people want to be with someone but without responsibility (i.e. go out and have fun without worrying, or sit and watch a movie without having to get up to wipe a child's tush). He just doesn't see the problem that we face when we can't separate ourselves from the roles we're stuck in. I'm the mom and the wife, but I can't always just be the wife or just be the mom. I'm the mom and the writer, but while I've sat at the kitchen table writing this I've been interrupted to help someone brush her teeth and get dressed, make multiple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, search for a pacifier and put dinner in the slow cooker. I rarely get the chance to just be a writer. Unless the kids are in a really deep sleep, I'm never just the wife. I don't go out with friends. I'm never just someone's friend because all my other selves are part of that since my friends have kids and it's never just the adults doing something. The kids are always there. ALWAYS.

I adore my children, but there are times I want to remember who I am. That's where the guilt and exhaustion rear their ugly heads the most. When I take time for me, I feel such remorse for not taking that time with my kids because, as everyone likes to remind the parents of young children, they are only little once. Taking time for myself helps to alleviate that exhaustion, but that's the double-edged sword of it all: guilt cuts as deep as the exhaustion. It's the same when we wear our spouse hat. Then put the spouse hat on with the parent hat and the coworker hat and it's a combustible situation because of that guilt/exhaustion/who am I cycle.

Nuclear. Meltdown.

It doesn't matter which self we're trying to be, if we attempt to be one or all of them at once, we feel guilty because we aren't able to juggle it all. And then we're guilty because we've spent so much time being exhausted by trying to be too many people all at once that there is nothing left.

All the same, though, let yourself get exhausted once in a while. Step back and let the balls fall down around you. Pick up your purse, walk out the door and go get your hair done. Make plans with coworkers for a happy hour once a week to blow off steam. Give up bath time and bedtime one night a week to go grab coffee with a friend or sit in a quiet corner of a cafe to work on the novel you've started writing but never have time to work on. Remember who you are, because you're not doing your children, your husband, your wife, your coworkers any good by being too exhausted to give a shit anymore. It only makes you a liability to yourself and those around you.

Make time. Make Me Time. Make yourself a priority once in a while.

The struggle isn't going away, but figuring out how to step back once in a while and worry about yourself is the most important thing some of us can do. Last Friday it was the most important thing for me to do. And in a week I'm going to need a break like that again. It might come before then. It might take longer.

When it comes time, though, I plan to know what to do, even if it is just throwing my running shoes on and leaving the house for an hour (to hide in the car and write part of that novel using my phone as a computer).

#40bagsin40days: I'ma do this so hard

I'm going to do this. Just like two years ago when I was, for all intents and purposes, scary close to a nervous breakdown, this needs to be done.

A mommy friend posted the link to the blog "White House Black Shutters" on Facebook and I read the post and went "Huh. Interesting." I was in between yelling at one kid and pleading with another when I read the entry. Bad behavior ran amuck today. I let them eat the remaining 18 or so packs of fruit snacks from a box we bought Monday and promised to wake Charlie up if she fell asleep in the chair watching TV and then promised I was going to get my ass pre-birthday drunk because, damn it, I deserve all those drinks.

So. Today royally sucked.

And then, mid-tantrum (mine, not theirs), I looked at the living room, glanced at the front room and hit the roof when I looked at the kitchen counters.

 Out came the notebook and pen:

Pen, meet notebook ... and glass and laptop.

And a list was born because, let's face it, my life is never organized enough and when I don't have a list everything is chaotic. My life. My kids. My house. My brain. Hell, even my hair doesn't know what to do when I let go and stop making lists.

Here's the list. It's time for my first ever #40bagsin40days challenge. The clutter will be overcome. I have my list. I won't lose my ambition. I may clean and declutter under the influence once in a while because this is Lent and God himself knows I won't give up my alcohol. I'll give up the mess and the chaos, but leave your holy hands off my wine.

Now that I've started I should forewarn my loved ones. It's happening. Boy, I'm sorry. I said I would hold onto your jeans from college and right after college because you were going to use our gym membership and fit into them again ... but you don't use our membership. You ran up and down the two flights of stairs in our house tonight and were thoroughly winded. We'll work on that. But first, I'm tired of cleaning around that box in the closet. The box I moved here last fall. The box I moved around in the closet at the old house. It's time to let it go.

Really, just ...

College Me, I know how much you LOVE some of those ratty T-shirts you just can't seem to part with. You're going to try for real this time. An honest to goodness try, Past Me. You may even get as far as putting them in a bag this time instead of just piling them up and eventually moving them to a different drawer. But it's OK to let them go. Really. I promise.

Mommy Me ... no we aren't getting rid of the baby clothes yet so you can stop that train right here.

I did start this challenge today and that's the biggest step. That's one thing all the parts of me can be certain of. I made that list and I looked at my house and cried because I'm tired - but more than the exhaustion of trying to keep up, staying up too late to get it all done and the being mentally worn out because of not being able to be Super Mom (we've talked about how much I am NOT her in the past), I'm tired of using those excuses to not fold up the blankets the kids have thrown on the floor again. I'm kind of tired of telling myself I'll get to something later and later coming MONTHS later. That's bullshit and I'm only psychologically bringing myself closer to another round of "Am I crazy or is that really a ghost standing in my living room." (Answer: It's usually a ghost. I'm very much not crazy in the traditional sense.)

Let me give you a glimpse into what I've been looking at for weeks, what's been eating away at the very center of my soul. Some of my friends would believe this is a totally normal condition or state for my home to be in, but in my head it's not. It can't be and I won't let it be.

Here, your glimpse:

No office yet, so this is a dinner table/office/desk/bill-pay area. *barf*

Holy fuck. To a lot of people this isn't bad. But remember it's only one small counter top in the kitchen. I had four other areas that were (to me) just as cluttered. This picture gives me anxiety.

This one, however, makes me calm:

So.Much.Better.

The pile on the left is my husband's pile of random shit he needs to go through and then move the hell off my counter. The pile on the right is actually the first part of a manuscript I'm editing, a stack of CDs I need to put in the car and Tara Sivec's "Watch Over Me," which I just started reading the other night. Tomorrow, that pile will disappear and travel with me to my mom and dad's very organized house where I will once again feel at peace with my shattered soul (because I'm not Super Mom).

I posted all my before and after photos from today on my Facebook page (personal, I don't have one associated with the blog ... but if there's demand for one, I'd do it) and between the first set of photos and the second, my attitude changed right along with the amount of shit cluttering my space. There's something truly uplifting about getting rid of things I don't need. At this point it's just been getting rid of recyclables and trash items that built up and took over my counters. In the next 39 days, I'll be giving bags of clothes (there's already one ready to go) and quite possibly toys to the Rescue Mission. Stuff will be taken to church (yeah, despite my cursing and imbibing I do in fact attend a real church) for the annual rummage sale. I'll be organizing this house like I've been wanting to since we decided to move here.

Honestly, I may even break my new "no credit card unless for gas" rule in order to really get a handle on things like the girls' play area(s) and the crafty/fabric stuff.

Now, since I already made this kitchen look gawd damn amazing, I'm just going to go put my feet up, drink this wine and celebrate the beginning of Lent and ... yay Jesus!

You know you want to say it, too. Go on. Say it. Yay Jesus!

20 minutes in a normal day

Parents everywhere understand that having two youngsters at home and trying to do anything productive really aren't conducive to one another. Either you're paying attention to your kids or you're paying attention to the thing that will make you feel productive. The kids are upstairs doing God knows what right now, so I wanted to share with you a snippet of a day in our house.

If I stopped for just a moment

If I stopped what I was doing and actually listened to my children as they played

I wouldn't hear a child coloring outside the lines;

I would experience a child creating a masterpiece.

If I stopped moving around so much and actually held my child when she got frustrated

I wouldn't be angry at her lack of understanding;

I would learn that my arms are a comfort to her.

If I stopped criticizing how my children mix the Play-Doh colors

I wouldn't see a giant mess;

I would understand that life isn't black and white ... it's purple mixed with green and rolled in teal.

If I stopped being so unhappy because of my responsibilities

I wouldn't raise my voice as often,

I wouldn't scold so easily,

I wouldn't so readily wish I was one of those supposed SuperMoms

And I wouldn't give a fuck if the toys never got put away;

I would simply enjoy the ease of being a child.

Finding the outlet

I've had a lot of trouble with my creativity lately. I shut it away. I've grieved and released the emotions.

But creativity still won't flow. I keep trying to tell myself the only way to work through writer's block is to write through it - work it right out of my system with some crappy posts before genius strikes again. That's what I've done in the past. It's what I should have done this time; maybe that's what I'm doing now. I have no idea, because that's how my writer's block works ... I write and write and write until the words finally make sense and the sun peeks through the clouds.

Instead of doing that for the last two weeks, I've been moody - actually, if I'm being honest with you, I've been a miserable, short tempered bitch.

A toast to you ... and me

Welcome, 2014. I guarantee I have some good things in store for you this year.

Less nervous breakdown, more deep breaths.

Less self hatred, more devotion - to myself, my children, my husband.

Less grieving things I cannot change, more grasping what the future holds.

2014, you better man up because I'm about to rock your world.