Category: Rage Against The Pile

God Bless Step Five

Last week I turned a corner; I flipped a bit; did a one-eighty – whatever your preferred analogy is for experiencing a rude awakening. I continue to feel the peace of God in the midst of total awareness of my depravity. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and depressed by the guilt of my sin, I am feeling motivated by the conviction of my sin.

God bless step five.

In an unexpected way, God has given me a super duper dose of empathy for my children. He has shown me clearly how small my words can make them feel, and how devastating my controlling attitude is to them. This week I have felt a tremendous amount of patience for my children – especially Ruthie. The small things that normally send me over the edge I now have compassion for. Things like, Ruthie waking me up at two in the morning by crawling into bed.

It started last week when I didn’t turn on my laptop until the kids went down for a nap. The morning was so peaceful and focused that I continued to follow that routine all week. Sometimes I needed to open my Outlook for a glance at my calendar, but I would make a point of shutting it down after I had a grasp on the day.

Having this time on Tuesday afternoon to write has really put me at peace with the rest of the week. I no longer hover over my laptop the very moment Ruthie finds herself engaged in something besides me. I just leave it alone until the kids are in bed, and even sometimes until Tuesday afternoon.

And in seemingly unrelated news, I have completely dived in to a weekly routine. Yesterday while the kids napped I came up with a weekly schedule of Getting Things Done, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s like the sun came up after 40 days of rain – I feel revived, refreshed, and motivated by the order around me.

I am on a mission to spend my days working and my nights relaxing. I am feeling tuned in to my children rather than distracted by them, and I find that I bust my ass to Get Things Done when I ignore my computer. This makes for less frequent posting, but for hopefully a more peaceful home.

What I love most about my new routine is that it doesn’t account for every minute of my day. It basically covers laundry and cleaning the house so I still have time for play dates and spontaneous trips to the park. I don’t feel suffocated. It’s perfect.

Disappointment

I was hoping to be sitting at my local coffee and wine bar, sipping on a pinot and writing to my heart’s content. I have looked forward to this afternoon all week, and even now I notice that last Tuesday afternoon from the wine bar was the last time I posted.

I have decided that, with Ruthie in preschool two mornings a week I have plenty of time to run errands with just Thomas, and was planning to dedicate my Tuesday afternoons to writing. I am thrilled with this arrangement as it relieves some of the anxiousness I feel when I can’t find time to write. “Tuesday is coming!” I think to myself. “I can hold off until Tuesday.”

Until Tuesday afternoon arrives, and rather than showing up at my door the babysitter is calling me on the phone. She can’t make it today. School commitments prevail. She apologizes, and we reschedule for tomorrow.

My heart sinks, and suddenly I feel trapped. I can’t leave because the kids are sleeping, and what’s worse – I’m out of wine. This was supposed to be MY time, and now I’m being robbed of it. My mind immediately goes sour and I struggle to avoid crying or screaming into the phone at the sweet teenager I adore.

But it gave me pause to notice how much I allow circumstances to dictate my attitude. I was in a great mood today – productive, cheerful, patient. I enjoyed the time I spent with Ruthie as she doodled on my tablet pc, and then as we snuggled before a nap. But as soon as my hopes of escaping were dashed, my heart went bitter.

Someone recently pointed out that, based on my blog posts, it appears I am unhappy in my role as a mother about 80% of the time. I didn’t really have a rebuttal to that, because I think maybe it’s true. But my unhappiness has little to do with my children. Rather, it is a symptom of a much deeper cancer of discontentment within my heart, a cancer that I feel is spreading throughout my body. I fear that I am so indulged in my discontentment that I will not find my way out until I have missed all the joy of parenting small children.

This is a cancer of the heart that I believe only Christ can heal. For me, discontentment and rage are closely linked, because both are triggered by my desires not immediately being satisfied. I am selfish and impatient.

The normal person in my position might say, “Darn. That’s a bummer. I was looking forward to getting out, but at least I get to go tomorrow.” But I attach way too much importance to my own desires, and do not trust God that he is able to meet my needs. God loves me, and he values my time, my sanity, and my talents. He wants me to be healthy and have time to myself. He is not some trickster god like Anansi, who pulls out the rug from under me.

It is faith, hope, and trust in God that I crave – that I NEED in order to be delivered from this cancer of rage and discontentment. I pray for the restoration of my heart, that I might default to Joy again.

From the dark basement of my home, this is Jen signing off.

Times of Refreshing

I’ve had a very. bad. week.

The Ya Ya Sisterhood movie comes to mind – the part where Sidda is young and her mom disappears for days on end, blacked out, and wakes up in a hotel room on the coast. This is how I felt yesterday. I felt like abandoning my children just to get away and have to have some time to myself.

My desperation and rage was so intensified I actually called a friend to tell her, just so someone would know. That’s what you learn in recovery – that you are not alone.

This is my afternoon off. I have a babysitter come once a week in the afternoon so I can run errands in peace. But I’ve had such a bad week I decided to indulge in a little free time with my creativity. I am sitting in the coffee shop across the street from my house, with free wifi, sipping wine, and eating goat cheese with honey and walnuts. I feel decadent. Relaxed. At peace.

It disturbs me a little that I am most at peace away from my family. There is an unbalance there. It has me leaning more toward a structured week, one with specific events built in to specific days, though flexible. My kids are not of an age or personality to just play while I clean the kitchen – they must be engaged and refereed. The bad days come when I expect I can do more than I really can. The bad days happen when I pretend my children are not there.

I talked to Bryan today. He is at a conference in Florida. He told me he had eleven hours of sleep last night, and was currently at Universal Studios. I wanted to kick his teeth in, but he was not standing in front of me. I want to be happy for him for getting a day of vacation from his busy work schedule. But I fought with my daughter for an hour and a half last night to go to bed, and she still came into my room at five this morning. I envy Bryan that he is away so much he actually misses this family. I envy that. I look for every opportunity possible to be AWAY from my family. I would feel better if I missed them.

We have a renter now. We’ve always rented one of our five bedrooms to someone, but took a break over the summer for a remodel project. Posha moved in this last week and I think that will help a lot. She is smart, and funny, and understands the recovery process. She can drink wine and watch t.v. with me when I’ve had a bad day. She can stay with the kids in an emergency while I Get Out.

I think one of the things I wrestle with the most is reconciling how Good I’ve got it with how fucked up I am. We can afford to go out a lot, eat fancy dinners, hire a babysitter, see a concert, whatever. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have an anger problem, and a depression problem, and that I am easily overwhelmed. I have become what I have always feared I’d become: high maintenance.

I take solace in the concept of phases. My girlfriend currently has one child in all-day kindergarten, and another in all-morning preschool. This means she has three hours EVERY MORNING all to herself, and the rest of the day with just one child. This gives me hope, because I am not far from that life.

I am not far from having all morning to myself to write or otherwise Get Things Done.

Which leads me to the other thing I wrestle with: the fact that I am a stay-at-home mom with a husband that funds my lifestyle. Because of him, I can sit in my thinking chair every morning, enjoying my cup of coffee. Because of him, I am not also juggling a full time job. Because of him, I don’t have that much to worry about, financially.

So my complaining must be taken in context, I suppose. I am careful to distinguish the struggle of a rageful mom from the struggle of a discontent housewife. In many ways I am fortunate. But in many ways I am special – I can not do things that other moms do. I know this, because I know lots of moms and I see what they do and I am envious. I have limitations.

It is at this point that I realize I am Drunk Blogging and there may not be an end to my lamenting. So I will spare you now and bid you goodbye.

What Jack Shephard and God have taught me about anger.

“Ineffective as it is to shout, scream, and curse, it is a means of reclaiming the illusion of power in the face of feeling impotent.” (The Cry of the Soul).

When it comes to non-fiction, I’m a chronic multi-reader. I juggle between several different books, and I often take long breaks from a book before picking it back up again. I think it’s because I’m a slow reader, and I take a lot of time to process the information. I can’t move through a book too quickly or I won’t retain what I’ve learned.

I’m back to reading The Cry of the Soul again. I love this book for it’s clarity in defining the difference between righteous anger and unrighteous anger. I’ve always known the verse in Ephesians that says, “In your anger do not sin,” but I could not wrap my head around such a concept. I could be angry without sinning? It just didn’t seem possible to me.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been feeling as if God is pulling off the scab of a wound. In my recovery I have made it to Step 6: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. While great changes have occurred in my life through recovery, I have also sensed my own passivity in the process. In many way I have been going through the motions – though faithfully and sincerely.

However, this week I have felt God awakening me to the utter desolation of my anger, the crushing blows it lands upon my children, and the deterioration of my soul from the guilt. Yet in this exposure to my darkness I have not felt condemned, but rather rescued. For what kind of recovery can I continue to participate in if I remain in denial of the effects of my sin? How can I truly be ready to put this behind me if I am not completely sickened by my behavior? Passive recovery allows for too much ambivalence – if I’m not so bad, then what harm could one more ‘episode’ cause?

Even after so many years on this journey with my God, I am still amazed by how he walks with me in a way that makes me feel as if we’re going steady and there is no one else in the world who can turn his eye from me. His patience with me has been everlasting. He has not forced or persuaded, begged or pleaded. He has simply been quietly loving me as I walk through the pain of my own self discovery.

And now God has taken the opportunity of Step 6 to reveal exactly which character defects he would like to remove. He has torn back the scab that covered the ugliness of my anger. It is now a gaping wound I cannot ignore. He has opened my eyes to my sin and lovingly asked, Are you ready?

Last night as I watched the season 3 premier of LOST, I was personally moved by the inner struggle of Jack as he found himself trapped in a room with a glass wall. The quickened breathing, the raised voice, the pursed lips, the wide eyes, the defiance against all reason – all tell tale signs of a man trying to maintain the illusion of control, even in the midst of captivity.

Watching those scenes helped me understand what Bryan sees when I am maniacal, because in the moment I do not understand that my behavior is irrational. In the moment all I know is that I must, at all cost, win to survive.

But now, I find that I am ready to submit. I am ready to put my back against the wall. I am ready for God to clean the wound.

An Untitled Essay on Writing and Wickedness

I’m tired.

Exhausted, actually. Mentally, and physically tired.

I have seven essays drafted on writing, things that I am processing as I push through the TALKING about writing so I may actually get to the business of DOING the writing. But my brain is so mushified that all I can bring myself to do at this moment is stare at the wall and cry.

Writing is healing, and when I don’t have time to write I die a little inside.

I don’t know how to find the time to fit this into my life. I read blogs of other writers who have one day a week devoted to writing, or several afternoons a week. Of this I am jealous, as I have to squeeze my writing in during an episode or two of Dora the Explorer on most days.

I used to write in the evenings when the house is quiet, but lately I’ve been so behind on basic household chores I’ve found myself vacuuming, or folding laundry, or picking up clutter. And by the time I finish doing this I am too tired to think of anything to write that requires me to dig deep.

I’ve been contemplating routine again. I’ve said this before, but I phase in and out of the scheduled life. In the past, meal planning and scheduled shopping and cleaning days were empowering, but there came a point when even my basic hygienic duties were being neglected so I began doing just The Next Thing.

Today I was talking with a friend who also struggles with depression. She has come to the conviction that time can not stand still every time she is in a season of depression. She must find a way to push through and keep her household running. I understand this, but I do not understand how to execute.

In some ways I believe routine would remove the need to think so much. I would simply go to the grocery store on Monday, clean the house on Wednesday, etc. But in some ways I also find routine stressful. Time slots fill in quickly with Shoulds and Musts and I begin to see a dense forest rather than a peaceful meadow. Eventually I end up spending an entire day in my pajamas because I just can’t bear the thought of DOING something anymore.

But routine might open up the space to write. Wide open meadow-like space rather than disjointed and multitasking moments that make my brain feel like a fragmented hard drive. Perhaps that’s it: I need to defrag my life.

Bryan and I fight the most over this issue of planning. He prefers a schedule, written where we can both refer to it. I also value routine, but writing it down or printing it out creates in me an anxiety that darkens the soul. I fear the failure of more things that are undone, of lists unchecked, of schedules abandoned.

Tasks are measurable. One could look at my schedule, look at my living room, and see that I did not clean as it dictated on my list. But how do you measure the energy and brain power it takes to teach and train a strong willed child? To referee scuffles between siblings? To shepherd, rather than dictate? An entire scheduled day can be derailed by such things.

This week I have been feeling as if God is tearing back the scab of a wound, leaving it raw and vulnerable. My selfishness, my need to control, my unkindness toward Ruthie – it is nothing short of hideous to me. I am sickened by my behavior and the brooding in my heart. Yet, even in my repulsion, it seems I lash out even more.

I am fighting myself. I am fighting God. I know I will walk away with a limp.

(I’m not sure how I got from the beginning of this essay to the end. Clearly, a good free-write exercise can really clear my mind and flush out what’s hiding under the surface of my stress.)

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 35 years old, and that is TOTALLY okay with me. At times my body feels old and decrepit, and I’m chubbier than I want to be, but I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, and a friend, and there’s nothing more, really, that I need on this Earth. All the rest of it is gravy, as they say, though I prefer to think of it as chocolate sauce because gravy is, well, not chocolate.

This has been an introspective year for me, what with the anger problem getting flushed out and the blogging taking off. I’ve spent a lot of time deconstructing Me and telling You all about it. But the good news is, I’m running out of things to say on that front because I’m getting my shit together.

[Can I hear an amen?]

So now you get to hear more about my writing projects, though I promise to continue peppering my posts with cute antics of my children, and descriptions of my toddler-like tantrums (I’m not perfect yet), and reports of What I Did Last Week. Because what would a blog be like without such narcissistic subject matter?

Thank you, dear readers, for your love and support of this blog. Thank you for coming back to read me. Thank you for your kind words about my writing. Thank you for supporting this writer as she comes of age on the internet.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Things That Bring Stillness

I’ve been attending a yoga class at the gym once or twice a week for the last month, and today is the first time that I felt strength and confidence through the process. I’m getting the hang of it. My shoulders are feeling stronger to hold my weight, my calves are limbering up as I stretch, and I’m able to hold more of the difficult poses.

Today I was getting so into it, that as I breathed and stretched, I actually felt the urge to cry. This is not unusual for me. I often feel like crying after a good massage or a chiropractic appointment – I think it’s my body’s response to a release of tension.

I think in light of the emotional stress my own anger problems cause me, yoga has actually been a more beneficial exercise for me than a regular aerobic workout. It slows me down, causes me to be patient and content, and brings me into focus. Yoga is not a competition, or a task to complete, or even something I can do while reading the gossip magazines. I can’t multitask yoga. I have to be still in body and mind.

I’m not losing any weight, but lately none of that seems to matter, because yoga doesn’t seem to be as much about the end goal as it is about the discipline of just doing it.

Seriously, take Me Seriously. I’m Serious!

IMG_3076

Yesterday I saw my therapist and he TOTALLY validated me in my struggle with Ruthie. She is, officially, a Strong Willed Child (heretofore to be referred to as the SWC). She is the one people write books about, he says. She is the one I will often feel like giving away, he says. She is the one who requires strict boundaries, he says to the Queen of Grey Areas.

But before I consider giving her away, he suggested I try to work though my own issues to see if that alleviates her behavioral issues. Damn that man is smart, and worth every penny.

But in all this therapy I think I may have cracked the secret code to my toddler-like fits of screaming and throwing things: I have a fear of not being taken seriously. I’ve realized that I take it personally when Ruthie continually disobeys me because I see it as her not taking me seriously.

Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest child in my family. Or maybe it’s because I’m the “oops” child who came eleven years after my brother. Or maybe it’s because I was assigned to a TV tray at Thanksgiving dinner while the rest of the family squeezed around the dining table. Or maybe it’s because Gordy once crafted a hand carved bird house for all my married siblings’ front porches while I, the single sister who rented an apartment, received no such special carving.

Maybe I’m just a big sissy and need to get a grip. Who really knows?

The point is, I’m the grown-up and Ruthie is the child and now is not the time to be re-living past insecurities. Ain’t it a BITCH what parenting brings out in us?

Crash and Burn

Drinking

Well it’s been a really shitty morning, but as I’ve had part of the afternoon to myself to reflect back on what happened I feel pretty convicted that my stinky attitude was at the core of its shittiness.

It kills me that my relationship with Ruthie is so bi-polar. At one moment I am totally in love with her, and even enjoy snuggling with her in bed on the nights Bryan is gone. Then suddenly I’m screaming at her in ways that I know will shame her and cut her down, all the while feeling the contradicting emotions of guilt and power and grief. I know what it is I am doing, yet, when I allow myself to get that far into it I cannot seem to stop.

This morning I was highly distracted by the computer. Bryan and I were IM’ing a conversation, and Ruthie hadn’t had any snuggle time with me yet. She was supposed to be sitting at the table eating her breakfast, but in my distraction she got into the bathroom, pulled out her stool, and was playing in the sink. I checked on her once and she seemed to be fine, so I went back to my computer.

An hour later when I decided it was a good time to take a break and go to the park, I went to the bathroom to put on my contacts and… no case. My contacts were gone. I realized she must have been playing with them when I was distracted, but I searched all over the bathroom, in the trash, the hamper, the magazine rack, EVERYWHERE, and I couldn’t find the case.

That’s when I blew up at her.

I was so angry that I was throwing stuff around as I searched other rooms for the case. The crazy thing is, I knew within ten minutes of looking that it was gone for good, yet I kept thrashing about the house because dammit if I’m going to let something like this be out of my control!

It was definitely a car stereo moment.

I finally gathered my senses enough to call somebody for help. I called three people, but nobody answered the phone. I left messages. I called them back again, and this time one gal answered.

“I need help,” I sobbed. “Can you come over?”

While I waited for her, another friend called me back and said she’d be right over.

I felt stupid. I felt weak. I felt incompetent. I felt like a failure for not being able to manage my own life. I struggled with asking for help, but in my recovery I knew it was the right thing to do.

One friend swooped in and calmed my screaming children. She helped me look one more time for the contacts case. She fed the kids lunch while I called my eye doctor to order an emergency pair of contacts.

The other friend took Ruthie home with her to play with her kids, and will keep her until dinner time.

The eye doctor couldn’t get my new contacts to me by the time my flight leaves tomorrow, but he has a pair of soft lenses I can borrow for free until my new rigid gas permeable ones come in tomorrow.

I am wearing them now.

The problem was solved quite simply and easily, except for my excessive temper. In retrospect, I am very ashamed of my actions, and I think this is one of the first times I have felt true remorse for my anger.

I spoke disrespectfully to my daughter, I disrupted the morning of two friends, I interrupted Bryan’s morning with my all-caps IM swearing about the incident – and I did it all because of my own selfishness and adolescent you-borrowed-my-jeans-without-asking mentality.

In retrospect, I know I had reason to be frustrated, but I took it too far. I ignored my triggers and allowed myself to blow up. I made it personal. I make everything personal. I never seem to remember in the moment that Ruthie is three, and she’s smart, and curious, and as Bryan said, she was probably sitting in front of the mirror pretending to be me. I forget that, and instead of celebrating her curiosity, I shit all over it and punish her for it by making it all about me.

I don’t know how to end this because I’m still processing, and still feeling crappy about it. I don’t have a tidy way to wrap it up. So I’ll just end it and hope a better post comes soon.

Exposed

Last night I experienced the really icky feeling of getting busted in the act.

You see, I can be really honest with my friends about what I do, I can relay a story to Bryan from the day, I can even blab about my issues on the internet – but I am still in control of the information flow. You hear what I want you to hear, and see what I want you to see. Even in all my dysfunction, I can come out of a blog post looking as good or as bad as I deem appropriate for the sake of storytelling.

But last night my ugliness was exposed in real time as the kids and I had our evening chat with Bryan over Skype with the web cam. It wasn’t anything huge, really. I simply became impatient with Ruthie over something, and cut the activity off abruptly.

Later, over an IM conversation, Bryan mentioned how sad it made him to see me shut her down so quickly.

I felt like the air had been let out of me.

My first instinct was to be defensive, make excuses, shift the blame, be the victim, accuse him of having NO IDEA what I have to deal with on a daily basis. But instead I stopped. And I wrestled with his words. And I let them sink in.

Honestly, I think God grabbed a hold of my tongue. Or my fingers, rather, since we were typing. When it comes to fight or flight responses, I’m definitely a fighter, and I really wanted to argue with him about what an asshole he was. But like I said, I had the air let out of me, and I could do nothing but ponder his words.

Then I just felt broken and I started crying. I thought about all the shit I’d given Bryan over the last year when all he’s been trying to do is help me. And even though the way he tries to help me is sometimes not very helpful to me, at least he cares enough to try and help, and now he’s even hearing me better when I try to explain why his help isn’t always helpful, and I give him lots of really good sex when his help IS really helpful so he is sure to remember that stuff for the next time (it’s all about association, right?).

I think the clincher came when I really felt validated by him.

After he stated the obvious, I shot back with a really bitchy, “don’t you think I know that?” sort of response. To which he responded, and I quote: “I think you know it, but that you are still learning to know it.”

And that was all I needed to hear for my heart to melt and receive what he had to say.

I don’t like it when he sees me at my ugliest, especially when it involves the kids. I don’t always treat him well when he tries to intervene or calm me down. But last night he was so tender – I guess you could say he spoke my language. Or the planets were aligned. Or the gods were smiling on me. Or whatever.

But despite my ugliness, he still made me feel beautiful.

The PB&J Debacle

IMG_2991

Ruthie made her own peanut butter and jelly sandwich today, which was really fun to watch until it all went down hill very quickly. She was very proud, and I was very encouraging, until there was half an inch of peanut butter involved and she was about to slap on half a cup of jam.

IMG_2990

I tried to be very Love and Logic about it by saying, “Are you sure you want that much peanut butter?” and “Can I help you scrape some of that off?” and so forth, to which she answered Yes and No respectively.

I figured as much.

I’m only on page 52 of Love and Logic, so I wasn’t sure what to do next in this latest quest for the right formula of parenting. So what did I do? I resorted to my old ways of taking control of the situation, though I did it calmly. She simply CAN’T have half a jar of jam on her sandwich, right?

IMG_2993

She didn’t see it that way, and threw a fit, earning herself a time-out after making her own peanut butter sandwich like a big girl.

Doesn’t that suck?

Doesn’t that just make you want to shed a tear?

It all worked out in the end, and she enjoyed eating the sandwich (minus about half the peanut butter, which I scraped off during her time out). But again I will say it: this parenting thing is EXHAUSTING.

I Declare Today as “Childish Behavior Tuesday.”

If this seems dumb to you as you read it, imagine how dumb I feel admitting it.

I was tired and cranky this evening. I always pack the days too full when Bryan is gone, which I did today by cramming in a bunch of afternoon errands that I should have just left alone, especially since they involved trying on clothes. Which? Never goes well.

While eating dinner Ruthie kept scraping her fork against my plate, making a screeching fingernail-on-chalkboard kind of sound.

I asked her to stop, which she did.

Then she scraped again, quieter, while looking at me to see how I would respond.

I asked her to stop. Again. Which she did.

Then she TAPPED my plate with her fork while, again, looking for my reaction.

My new phrase for her is, “What you are doing is mean spirited,” because she can be a little shit to me and all her friends with her antagonizing. So I said this to her, adding that I didn’t like the sound she was making, and I had already asked her to stop.

She then proceeded to stick her leg out and tap her foot on my knee, WHILE LOOKING FOR A FUCKING REACTION.

Which I, of course, gave her. In full color and form.

It was not my finest hour, but DAMN IT, she was pissing me off with the testing.

I’m realizing it’s not so much the disobeying that I get frustrated by, because HELLO! She’s three. I’m pretty sure she’s going to disobey. I become completely unglued when she antagonizes: when I tell her to not touch something and she brings her little hand within a centimeter of the thing she’s not supposed to touch and watches to see what I’ll do, when she touches the space ALL AROUND the thing she’s not supposed to touch and watches to see what I’ll do, when she slides her FOOT close to the thing she’s not supposed to touch and watches to see what I’ll do…

Are you getting the picture?

Why does that bug me so much?

Because A) I have a rage problem, which is essentially an issue of being a control-freak, and her being out of my control makes my chest tight and my jaw clench (my issue), and B) she is TECHNICALLY obeying me by not touching, but in her heart she’s giving me the big fuck you! finger, and that scares the shit out of me.

I don’t want my cute, smart, funny, sweet, blondie growing up with a big fuck you! finger tattooed on her heart. I want her heart to be soft, and teachable, and receptive of discipline.

Has my own dysfunction made her mean spirited?

Am I blowing a normal thing out of proportion?

Granted, I acted like a child myself the way I handled her tonight. I played right into her hand. I admit it. But I feel so worn down by this issue at large, and when you add to that a tiring day I honestly didn’t have the energy to be mature about it.

But it definitely has me stressed out.

Baby Steps

I know I keep bringing this up, but I can’t say it enough: I’M FEELING GREAT!

As I look back on the last year of blog posts and remember this, and this, and this, and how angry and depressed and incapacitated I was, I thank God for bringing me through it.

We have come full circle, leaving the gate open for Ruthie again so she can get to the potty when she needs to. As before, she often visits our room in the middle of the night, or wakes up at 5:30a.m. for the day. But this has not caused the same response in me as it did a year ago, and I’m not even using the t.v. to get me through the day like I did back then.

I also pulled out my household binder for the first time in almost a year to access my packing list for camping. Flipping through it I found old project lists, seasonal maintenance lists, my garden journal, and my basic to-do lists – and I was actually inspired and energized by the idea of organization!

Bryan still makes passing comments about my dislike for organization – largely because of the chaos of the last year. I admit, I’m a great starter, but not a fabulous finisher. However, given the circumstances of the last year I will say in my own defense that I used most of my energy just to get the basic day to day shit done without completely raging on my children, leaving very few brain cells for accomplishing anything remotely grand.

Raging saps my energy.

NOT raging seems to sap even more of my energy.

But I am learning new habits and new coping methods. And I’m learning to avoid the rage triggers before my blood begins to boil. NOT raging is becoming the new norm for me, leaving energy for me to get back to the business of Getting Things Done and loving on my children.

I’ve been cleaning my house a couple times a week. My garden is weeded. (Mostly). I’m keeping up with the laundry. And I’ve been cooking real meals again. This morning I actually got up early to plan my week: when to run errands, what to cook, etc. I can’t remember the last time I thought about what to make for dinner before 4pm of that day.

I think what I’ve learned most during this recovery process is that life returns to normal in baby steps. I’ve had to let go of the idea that I could draw a line in the sand, set a deadline, or otherwise mark a launch date for getting my life back.

It started with vacuuming a couple times a week. When that felt easy I started picking up every night before I went to bed. And when that felt easy I tackled the piles of clutter around the house. And when those were all cleared away I saw how beautiful my house was and now I’m motivated to keep it clean so much more!

And now, once again, I’m ready to tackle the Project Lists.

Baby steps.

Progress

This was an interesting week: I think I’ve experienced every emotion that is humanly possible, and I think I did it all with great zeal and exaggeration.

Having transitioned from Zoloft to herbal supplements – which includes Omega 3, hydroxytriptophan, and a multi-vitamin rich in the B’s – I now have 13 pills I take throughout the day, emphasizing the point that going organic is not the easy way out. Ever. I think this is more pills than my grandmother took.

Thirteen pills is a lot for a girl who, up until more recently than she’d care to admit, refused to swallow even an Advil alone for fear she would begin choking and nobody would be present to Heimlich it out. As a result, my pill-swallowing regimen has not been consistent, which has caused me to feel very polarized in my emotions.

However, as I spent the day with my family yesterday, feeling myself becoming irritated with everything, feeling anxious, feeling tense, feeling exaggerated impatience, I found myself for the first time taking those thoughts captive, and not allowing them to well up and surface. I found myself acknowledging the crazy cycle, and making the decision to move past it rather than entertain it.

It was tough – I pursed my lips a lot. I pinched the space between my eyes. My brow furrowed. I swallowed back the tightness in my chest. I constantly felt I needed to be somewhere besides where I was. Bryan asked me several times if I was okay. But I held fast to my sanity, and trusted in God to smooth the rough spots. I am learning new ways to process my emotions, and I finally feel as if the tools I’ve been given are useful in my hands, though not perfected.

Despite the failures of the week – the raging, the emotional eating, the crazy space my head was in – I am understanding more and more that THIS IS MY RACE. As in, “…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). It is the path I have been given, and I’d better quit wasting time trying to jump tracks (a fine use of mixed metaphors).

In church this morning, Pastor Mike defined Faith as trusting God to give us what we need the most – Himself. And Hebrews 12:2 says we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith. As I submit to this, more and more I feel myself changing and making better choices.

But it is exhausting.

Yesterday was not a relaxing day for me because I was waging a war in my mind. Everything I felt, everything I thought, I put it through a rigorous checklist of sanity: is this real? Is this rational? Is this irrational? Is this under my control or out of my control? Can I do anything to change the situation? Could I have done anything differently? Was that comment meant to hurt me? Will he still love me if _____ ? Is this the way I really feel or am I feeling according to perceived expectations? Is it okay for me to feel this way?

I could go on and on, but you already think I’m crazy.

The point is, my weak mind requires that I think with endurance. It is when I become a lazy thinker that I fall into so many of my traps. Yesterday I flexed my muscles and thought with endurance.

May Christ continue to give me strength.

Things That Keep Me Awake.

It’s after 1am and I can’t sleep. I have too many pictures swirling in my mind. Too many worries.

Aspartame in my diet soda. Hormones in my milk. The way my daughter’s face looks when she’s crying. The last sentence of a medical update letter my friend wrote: “We are nearing the beginning.”

I feel an overwhelming desperation for time to stop.

Tomorrow someone might get cancer. Or lose her temper. Or get betrayed by someone she depends on. Or go into labor.

Trains on a track that are not slowing down.

My kids have a Thomas the Train book called, “Stop! Train, Stop!” in which Thomas decides he’s going to plow through the whole route without stopping once. The cows don’t get to moo, the boy doesn’t get to wave, and the people can’t get on or off. He just whizzes by, leaving their hair to churn in his wake.

This is what keeps me awake tonight.

Knowing that I am powerless to control ________ .