Changes but going no where.

I started the new year with a goal of taking my life back. 2 years of grad school had me putting so much on hold. Like throwing up an emergency flare and JUST.GETTING.THROUGH. But it has now been 9 months (7 at the new year) so it is time to get.over.it! However jumping right from grad school to full-time work, while maintaining the parenting of 2, just didn't leave much space.

So faced with the prospect of 5/10/20/30 years of my life in front of me totally out of control just getting through each day hitting the minimum to make it to bed that night I had two choices, change it or say good bye to my self/soul/spirit...

In case it was not clear I chose to make changes :)
So the New Years Goal was to take back my life from the world. To stop putting living the life I dreamed on hold, and start living my life now.

Two months in... I still feel like I am faced with 5/10/20/30 years of my spirit/soul/heart crushed by just getting through the day.

It is not that I have not made changes. I have. Those changes are good. We put the brakes on some of the craziness of our schedules. We are focusing more on home. Focusing more on being intentionally in everything, including really putting our actions into what we say we value (when we can). I get up at bloody 5:30 (I don't like getting up before 9!) so I can leave at 4 to pick up kids so we have time together in the evenings that are not filled with screaming at each other. But now I am done, exhausted, and frequently asleep (if that is what laying in bed unable to move is called) by 8:30... so the housework, the workouts, the creative time for myself that I at least tell myself I have has evaporated. Sure we have more time as a family in the evening (a whole hour!) and there is less yelling and more cuddling, which is AMAZING, but other things have given. Not just me giving up my preferred schedule but getting the dishes cleaned, clothes cleaned, the house tidied or making an impact in the other big area.... getting our house ready to sell.

So it is like I am walking around a circle. Sure I make a change, and yes that is better, but now I am farther away from some other area/goal. And when I sit with that feeling and face it? It still feels like I am staring down at 5/10/20/30/my whole life of this. And this, is me failing at my goals, just barely keeping my head above each wave, and the me that I once was boxed up nicely if a box of mementos. All of the "me's" that once were are stacked nicely in a little box in the back of the closet 'safe' to reflect on whenever, but not lived in. And the me that rolls out of bed each day, makes coffee, drives into work, sits at a desk, picks up kids, eats diner, does bedtime, and sleeps... it's a hollow shell. My spirit does not fill this shell, that spirit has been nicely boxed up as a thing of the past, and there is no spirit filling that shell. So some days when I get up and look inside and connect and really see what is there, I see that hollow shell of me and for the next 5/10/20/30 years of my life that is all there is the space for.

Marc says that sounds like depression. I say if that is depression, then I am broken again and dude I can't see myself as broken on top of all of that.

So 2 months in, making changes, but the big picture has not changed. But tomorrow I will get up at 5:30 still. I might even give up my one day to be home all day to start working out... because working out makes things better right? Even if to do so is to give up what I feel like I need? my me time in my house?

So mostly I just try and not see it.

A little space to breath?

There use to be space in the house free of caos. Little places at least where the eye could rest, place which served as backdrops to my photos.

Matthewbera's room (really the guest room, or the perfect little nursery), clean because no one used it.

A wall in our bedroom.

The top of the stairs.

I would also ensure to cultivate a single surface, clear except for the artistically arranged items.

Now everywhere I look is a visual cacophony. Noise screeching at me, demanding me to look here, no here, no here, NO HERE!

Some of it is 4 people in one house, we just have stuff, and furniture, and toys, and tables and chairs and beds. Some of it is smaller daily life. The pile of laundry in the office will get folded (if the baby sleeps this evening) while I watch tv, then they go upstairs. So there is a constant flow of daily things, clothes, dishes, toys, books all slowly making their way where they go. Then there are the "midrange" items. Christmas stockings I plan to embroider names on sitting in the office. Books to give away, baby toys which will migrate to toddler toys, then big kid toys, and eventually in years out of the house. Pictures on every wall, and more waiting to be hung or waiting for more space.

And I am just feeling a little bit smothered. Suffocated. Claustrophobic. Unable to focus.

The laundry will get folded eventually, these dishes washed and put away, books moved, clothes given away, toys picked back up (and pulled back out, and picked back up) and at this point I know I should be focusing on 1 thing.

29 days until classes end. Breath.

But when I am sitting in the middle of all of it, those 29 days seem too far away... how can I even find my way to my desk, my laptop, the door in all this?

failing all over again

Failing.

Falling.

Flailing.

Time ticks by. The deadline after the deadline approaches but I am immobilized by the that word and feeling. Failing. And also exhausted, drained, depleted, demoralized, pointless, impossible.

None of those words motivate, encourage, propel forward. But they dance around in my head and bounce back and forth between my ears and heart.

Matthewbera says "Momma I miss you" "Momma I need you" "I need Momma" "Momma get up with me" "NO I WANT MOMMA, I NEED MOMMA" after 4 or 5 or more days of acquiescing I lay in bed and try to sleep through it, because I can tell sleep will help me chase away the words of failure, impossible.

I frequently get questions of how do you do it all, Grad school and parenting and freelance work. The answer is inevitably badly. I do each and everyone badly, not up to my standards. I practice failing and keeping going daily, then getting up and failing in new ways to my new lowered standards.

But this time I am really not sure how to put the next foot infront of the other. I have become immobilized by my feelings of failing.

I can't work on my school work, I can't work on my work, but now is the time.

Babybera sits on the floor squealing for me. The work waits to get done. In a few hours I will need to be 'present' with Matthewbera and I can't be present when I am stressed/overwhelmed/anxious. So he needs me, my time, my attention, my presence. None of which I seem able to give.

Just slog through, school will end in April. But those 6 months are a LONG time in the life of a 3 year old and a 5 month old. 6 months when their brains are developing, patterns are being set for a lifetime.... 6 months where then feel like shit, they miss me, I feel like shit, I feel like failure. We scream and cry and fail each other. Rinse and repeat.

And just slogging through with school.... the work barely gets done. Gets done late. Gets done shitty. Readings sit unread. I aim for the lowest grade I will still get credit for... and what do I learn, what skills do I pick up, what knowledge that will further me.... that I NEED to do the job I am doing all of this for?

Even if I focus on the end, the goal... there are skills and knowledge I need to pick up on the way. Otherwise 6 stressful months (plus all the ones before), 6 traumatic months for my children, the student loans that could buy a luxury car are for what?

I don't know what first step to even take. One foot infront of the other.... but where?

Flailing.

Falling.

Failing.