GOTTADOITALLRIGHTNOW

When you are a writer at heart who hasn’t been able to write in a while, it is hard to start again. There is simply so much you want to say. So many feelings you want people to have when they see your words and process them through their brain. But, you don’t want to write a novel that no one reads. You don’t want to topic jump and have a confusing, too long mess of paragraphs that convey nothing of sentiment.

So, I hadn’t written has become I haven’t written becomes I don’t write. And then I realized it was an important part of me. I just couldn’t decide if I wanted to write about how much love we felt when we moved. Or what I learned from Jason not having a job for 6 months. About the guilt I have felt for moving my kids away from their friends and the only home they have ever known. About Jason working abroad for 3 months. What about a post about how resilient my kids are and how they have inspired me day after day to look at the world as a beautiful place that has so much to offer? I could write about how looking for a new house and had created a lot of feelings about what “home” means to me. How about my body struggles and feelings of self-consciousness that come with being in new settings frequently. Feeling on the outside no matter where I am. Confusion. Fear. Hope. Optimism…

I have so many things to say about all these things. So, here I sit. Adaline is in P.E. at the local Y since we switched to homeschooling when we moved. I have a coffee and no company today. My computer has battery and I hear Eminem playing from the group fit room. He’s telling me that “success is my only muthaf*ckin’ option” so I better write something… I have no excuse not to. And Eminem said so…

I’ll recap to start. We have been in Knoxville three months now. We visited Tallahassee last week and all cried half the drive back. Tallahassee certainly still felt like home, but we are reminding ourselves we only visited the things we love, and the wound of moving was still pretty fresh. In retrospect, a visit this soon was probably poor planning on my part. We can add that to the list of mistakes I have made as a mom! What else? Oh, Jason is finally home after being gone three months. He is working from the comfort of the couch and basketball shorts until August, then we will decide what is next on that front. Adaline is thriving in the homeschool community here. We have offered on two houses to have them not happen for different reasons. We have had snow, sunburns, and the kids first plane ride.

Perhaps the biggest reason I am able to write again is because I have the mental capacity to do so without breaking down, starting and stopping, then obsessively proofing for weeks. Why? Well, I take a lovely little 10 mg pill every morning that makes the world a little less overwhelming for me. For years, I thought everyone’s mind asked rhetorical questions about every possible hypothetical situation out there. I assumed that people weren’t “prepared for the worst, expecting the best, and pleasantly pleased with the middle” situations that occur everyday. I have always been a reliable person who is able to get things done. The reason for that is my anxiety doesn’t allow me much wiggle room. My brain is compartmentalized to a fault. I have crippling anxiety. Let me give you an example…

On Sunday nights, I like to sit down and plan out my week. Not a big deal – a lot of people do this. But planning for a person with anxiety becomes a situation to “prepare” for every possible scenario for every event you are planning for that week. Even ones that are far fetched. Then, because I am a human with three small humans relying on me for everything, I get overwhelmed at how much there is to do in order for the week to go smoothly. Sunday night quickly becomes a setting of “if I don’t get the laundry done rightthisverysecond, we can’t go to the park on Thursday, and if the kids don’t get to go the the park, then the kids won’t be able to play sports in college because we didn’t go to the park enough.”

Trust me. I know this sounds incredibly ridiculous. See, a lot of people assume anxiety and depression are the same. They aren’t. My anxiety led me to be angry towards, resentful of, and isolate myself from the people I love the most. I am not a sad person who can’t get out of bed. I am a rage cleaning, militantly organized monster – whose kids were afraid to ask for a snack outside of the wrong cabinet. The rational side of my brain knows that these thoughts are absurd; that our lives will continue if we are a couple minutes late or if the house is messy because the kids are playing happily. But that’s the beast of anxiety – you can’t rationalize it.

Have you ever met a person who likes to complain? And every time you offer a simple or reasonable solution to the problem, they have another reason why your solution just won’t work for them? Yeah, that’s anxiety, but with yourself. Here. I drew you a picture. Notice, I have angry eyebrows and not tears…

My anxiety makes me think if things are done a certain way at a certain time, my world, and the world of my family, will fall over the edge of a huge cliff. And I was tired of everything in my wonderful life feeling like it was balancing on the edge of a cliff and I was the only one there to keep it from toppling.

I think the hardest part about all this was simply coming to the understanding that not everyone thinks this way. I have honestly lived my entire life assuming everyone walks around feeling rushed constantly and scared of possible consequences of countless hypothetical situations that they may not be prepared for. In this way, I have held people to an unrealistic and impossible standard. Soon, once I have corrected some of the rage monster damage I have done with my kids, I will address the guilt I feel for assumuing my brain was the standard and not the exception.

There is no pride to be had in living the way I was. To suffer silently as my life passed me by. To cry as I cleaned the house on a beautiful Saturday while my family enjoyed being together outside. To be alone with a perfect family and loving friends. It just wasn’t right.

Side note: please don’t think Jason doesn’t help. My anxiety is rooted in OCD which does not allow me to allow him to do much. Seriously. My mind insists in me doing everything a certain way…

I am not sure if I will have this forever. If this is a part of parenting small kids. A result of the crazy expectations society has of parents, and more specifically, mothers. If my hormones are changing or I have had too much coffee in the last 2 years. But I am sure that I feel better than I have in years, and I feel capable of tackling the daily challenges of life one day at a time now. I can read my children a story without having to clean the house first. We can go to the park before the menu is planned. I can help my kids, my husband, and myself without feeling like there is something more important I should be preparing for. I can sleep at night without my mind tricking me into thinking I am wasting valuable time. I allow myself to slow down when needed. To laugh when I want to. And to stop when I am done. To smile when I deserve it.

I am living my life now. Not just organizing it.