Proof I'm still a bit batty

I've been feeling a tad overwhelmed lately. Too much to do, all of it important, all of it needing to happen today. And the fatigue has come back with a vengeance. I wake up in the morning and actually feel pain when I force myself out of bed. I'm back on coffee just to get my body into some kind of shape before I tackle the day (but not so much caffeine that I turn into bitch-mom. It's a fine line).

"I feel like such a wimp," I whined one day to my husband. "Other people can do this, why can't I?"

He nodded sympathetically, but went on working on his computer.

"I know I'm doing a lot, but I'm so frickin tired all the time. Seriously, how do people raise kids and work?"

"You've got a little more on your plate than most people," my husband said, still working on his computer.

"Yeah, we do. But I know people who's kids are more disabled than ours and they can manage to hold down a job. I'm just a wimp."

He just kept working on his computer.

I waited for some kind of response, for him to say, "You're not a wimp, honey."

Nothing.

"Your silence makes me feel that you think I'm a wimp."

He glanced at me quickly, gave me a quick smile, then went back to working on his computer.

My mind went into panic mode. Oh my God, my husband thinks I'm a wimp! He's afraid to say anything because he doesn't want me to feel worse, but he's too honest to say he doesn't think I'm a wimp if he thinks I am one, so he's just pretending that I never said anything and then maybe I'll go away. I'm a wimp. I really am! Here's the proof! He won't even look at me...

I got up from the table and walked away, feeling like the bottom of my world had dropped 100 feet and the walls were too slippery to grab a hold of. The feeling stayed with me for two days, a crushing depression that grew as that evil voice in my head chanted loudly "You're a wimp. You're a wimp. You're a wimp..." It got meaner after a while. "You're a loser, a wimp, a weakling, a nothing. You can't do anything. You are the most worthless human being on the planet."

Do you know how much money I've spent on therapy in the last 20 years to get this voice to shut-up? I don't even know where it came from! No one ever said that to me. My parents never sat me down on the couch when I was 5 and declared, "You are nothing." So why do I have the meanest, cruelest, evil inner voice in the world?

After 36 hours, I'd had enough. "Shut up!" I told that voice. "I'm not listening." And I didn't. It took an enormous amount of energy to redirect my thoughts away from that cackling mantra of failure. I forced myself to think of what I had achieved (Grad school, motherhood and a publishing company... Hello!). When that inner voice got extra sadistic and shouted, "And your fat too," I told myself I am beautiful and stronger than I've ever been in my life (which is true. thanks to Kettle Bell, I can now lift my 90 pound daughter over rain puddles without hurting my back, something I couldn't do 2 years ago). Very slowly, that voice lost some of it's power and returned to that nagging whisper that is easier to ignore.

Therapy didn't get rid of that voice, it taught me how to manage it.

I still have a feeling that I am lacking, though. No matter what I do, that feeling just won't go away. I guess this is why I do so much. Time to stop.

Maybe with a little more practice, I'll be able to just live and not have to prove to myself that I deserve to live.

And maybe I'll learn not to try and talk to my husband about something important when he's working on a computer. He probably didn't even hear a word I said. 

Yep, I am still a tad batty. Maybe we all are.

Grad School and Mommy Guilt

It amazes me how much I can do. I'm a mother in graduate school who owns a small business. Those three things compete for my time and energy. Right now school has to take top billing because it's the end of the semester and I have finals and papers due. For this, I feel guilty. My daughter should be the top priority, and of course she is, but my time is spent writing research papers and studying for tests, not taking her for walks or playing games.

I hate that, and it makes me wonder if I've made the right choice going back to school.In the long run, it will be very, very good for my family. But right now, I am putting two years of my life, of her life, into classwork. I am focusing on the outcome and my future earnings potential. What about today?

It will be worse this summer when I go to summer school. I am taking two classes in a short, five week, semester, which I know is insanity, but if I have to go down to the bay area for several days, I might as well take two classes and get it over with. I'll be gone all week, only home on the weekends, and even then I'll more than likely need to lock myself in my room to read textbooks.

And now to make it more interesting, I'v lost my childcare. We had an amazing respite worker, a young woman full of energy and creativity that Queen Teen bonded with and started to call "friend." She moved, so now we're without child care and Queen Teen lost her friend. She's sad and I'm stressed. Will I find anyone before summer semester starts? And how will Rick and Queen Teen get along when I'm gone all week?

My business is the lowest priority, which is unfortunate, especially since I launched a book and now have zero time to market it. I throw receipts into a folder, respond to emails and phone calls half-heartedly, and haven't updated my inventory since January. Pretty ironic when I just wrote a book about how important it is to manage your publishing company like a business. Yeah, yeah... I'll do that later.

My own writing? Forget it. If I'm not reading a text book I'm spending time with my girl. Something had to go and it couldn't be sleep.

Queen Teen just rolls with it. On Tuesdays I put her on the bus and wave goodbye because I won't see her until the next day. At first she was sad, now she just waves back and tells me "see you tomorrow." When she gets off the bus Wednesday afternoon she smiles so big her whole body shakes. It only takes a day for me to miss her. I dread this summer.

Why do mothers beat themselves up for being away from their children?

Here I am, "wasting time" blogging. I'd better get off the net and finish my paper. Sorry I've been so out of touch, everyone. I'll read your posts asap. I really do love reading what you write.