So I have decided to change my blog, in which I've rarely written in anyhow. My new title is "Simply Me". You'll find out that it'll most likely be about MANY others, besides myself, but I've chosen this title because it's simply what I think, what runs through MY mind. Perhaps sharing some brutal thoughts will encourage, challenge and interest some of you...time will tell!
Unfortunately today most likely won't be the encouraging post, this is a time where I just want to/need to journal some of my thoughts. I could easily choose to journal them privately but I thought that since I'm struggling with MUCH, others might be as well and perhaps realizing that "we're" in the same boat could bring us some (sick sort of) comfort:)
My life is mostly crazy these days. Glenn works 12 hr shifts, often leaving me during the dinner hour when my exhaustion from kids starts to kick in. Afterwards I still am left with clean up, baths, bedtime, bedtime DRAMA, etc, etc....however, he DOES only work 2 or 3 days in a row so every few days I have him home for a few days! Did I mention he works nights?:) He's a cop too and so adds on the worry and fear of losing him some day. It's such a dreadful, morbid thing to think about but some night when I'm REALLY tired and sad, I imagine this with such realistic thoughts, I've almost convinced myself that someday it WILL be my reality, my children's reality. Then I tell the Lord that I CAN handle anything, THROUGH HIS STRENGTH....while also begging Him NOT to take my husband from me prematurely. What is prematurely anyways? I don't know, I guess while our kids are still so small and exhausting....
I think I'm having a bit of a pity party for myself today, so feel free to stop reading this at any time;) Beyond being responsible for my kids, alone, often, there's the dreaded house responsibilities.....UGH! I've never enjoyed cleaning, although I have heard of such people!:) If I'm cleaning someone elses house, alone, uninterrupted and getting paid, well then I don't mind it but MY house? no thanks! However, after I get STARTED, it never ends up being so bad and the end result of much needed-cleanliness is a great reward. Mostly though my house is either clean and messy, or dirty and picked-up...hardly ever clean AND picked-up though. In some ways I'm learning to just live with/deal with/be okay with this because it's just our way of living right now. With small kids there will by toys, and spills, and messes, and crumbs and clutter and stuff....mostly everywhere. Currently an ant community lives on my dining room floor, due to 24/7 source of food, a.k.a. crumbs from the table! And guess what? I'm OKAY with that...as long as they're not venturing TOO far into the kitchen and into food and dishes. About 2 weeks ago I decided rather than dragging the vacuum cleaner out of it's closet 3 times a day I just needed to keep it right near the dining room table, for easy & frequent access. Although the thought of it sitting in the dining room all the time didn't sit well with me either...(extra clutter). So I revamped a picture collage/room divider thingy and added current pictures to it. Now it sits in the corner of the dining room, displays family pictures and kids art work, AND hides my vacuum and steam mop!
Enough about cleaning, now on to laundry. I think laundry is my biggest enemy of life, well fairly big at least! I don't think I have to say much about this stressor because the work LAUNDRY pretty much speaks for itself...am I right?!:) It might be clean but it lives folded in baskets, more than put away in drawers!
Cooking and meals is another area that gives me headaches. I think my kids eat some combination of peanut butter, jelly, butter sandwiches about 5 out of 7 lunches a week. I'm just thankful that peanut butter is a protein! I've been in a meal rut for about the past 6 months. I love the ideas of meal planning, recipes, shopping and cooking from sale flyer's, etc...but I just haven't found anything that sticks. Yes, I've also tried E-Mealz (in case you were thinking of suggesting it).
I guess that last BIG area is finances. Why wouldn't it be? Not that it's out of control (yet) but bills/bookwork/budgets....it's just one more area that weighs on my mind, leading to a great sense of being overwhelmed.
And THIS is the description of ME lately...OVERWHELMED! I've mentioned all of the above because it's these very things that make me feel this way...and it's a feeling TOO familiar, and TOO frequent. Insert GUILT as well!!! Feeling this way makes me feel even MORE guilty, isn't that dumb? it hardly makes sense! As a young girl, my greatest desires in life were to be a wife and a mom! God has SOOOO greatly blessed me with Glenn, Mayah, Alayna, Jakob and Judah....I feel so grateful and thankful that this desire is now reality. So then I can't figure out why I struggle with the responsibilities that my dream/desire involve? Shouldn't I be happy to be doing all that goes with marriage and motherhood? Okay, I realize that not EVERYTHING would earn my happiness (like who would be happy about cleaning up vomit, or even being puked ON?)....but I should at least enjoy my "jobs" somewhat, right? I think so....I wish so.....
Don't get me wrong, there are moments when I totally see and feel the blessings and awesome moments in my life, I do! However, mostly I just feel overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed by it all. And that's my reality right now (at least that's better than a reality without Glenn)!
Maybe I'm bipolar because tomorrow I may feel totally different......
Well Kendra you know that I can relate! In one of your last paragraphs you described your feelings of being overwhelmed combined with guilt for feeling that way. I hear you! I have the same issue. I have everything I always dreamed of having - a loving husband, a houseful of children, the ability to be a stay at home mom. Yet, never in my life have I been as stressed, overwhelmed, irritable, etc. as I am now. I know I am blessed. I do! But, the stage of life we are in now is HARD!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to every part of what you wrote, Kendra. My vaccuum cleaner sits in a corner in our breakfast nook, nestled in a corner where I don't care that it's there. I guess I'd put it in the garage if we had people over that we're not close with. Colleen & her family are the people who come over most often and they've seen us at our worst, so I don't care!
ReplyDeleteI've definitely gone through times where I haven't understood my purpose in life. While I do teach, in the summer I consider myself mostly a stay-at-home mom. (Never fully since I can't ever fully turn off teacher mode.) Sometimes I would wonder, "Is my only purpose in life to raise these kids? Then what? They just raise their own? For what purpose does this cycle exist." I guess I find peace in knowing that God made each of us for his pleasure. We each bring pleasure, and probably heartache, to God just as our children bring pleasure to us. He loves us fiercely & unconditionally just as we love our children fiercely & unconditionally.
I myself deal with depression and have been on medication for it since 2002 I believe. I've had to go through various med changes (didn't need any while pregnant w/ Matt, but needed new ones after him; needed safer ones w/ Kayley, then back to better/stronger after she was born) since then. Even when on medication, sometimes life just gets too much for me to handle. Every August/September is brutal on me when I return to school, which is why I've learned not to turn off teacher mode in the summer. I have to do some thinking/planning during the summer so that it's not such an adjustment.
I guess it was last fall, of 2010, when I went through my absolute lowest point ever. Nothing I did, nothing Mike did, could shake me out of it. Grade-level meetings when our 4th graders were at specials classes brought me almost to tears on a daily basis because of the amount of work that our administration keeps piling on teachers. Anyway, no amount of prayer, reading, etc. could lift me out from under the oppression that I lived beneath. Finally, one random day I was shopping in Kmart. I came across a book called The Butterfly Effect. I stood and read the entire book (picture book length) and sobbed. I realized that everything I do has an effect on other people. I exist to raise Matthew & Kayley and they'll find their purpose in life. I exist to be Mike's wife. I exist to teach 25+ students each and every year. I exist to be Heather's teaching soul mate. I exist to be a friend, acquaintance, sister, daughter, cousin, and neighbor.
So... Considering that I just poured out that novella, I think that Colleen and I's food blog is going to need our own "simply me" section for us to vent about such things. :)
When things get low, as they sometimes do, please know that you have a listening and understanding friend in me.
- vicky