Back to good

To say that I am at the end of my rope with absolutely everything lately might be the understatement of the century.

I’ve officially reached the point where I cannot maintain focus on one activity for longer than about 20 minutes.  After that point, I don’t remember what I was doing. Or I find myself staring blankly at whatever I’m working on.

I’m overextended, and by my own doing.  I take on too much. I try to be everything to everyone and I’m the one who pays the price. 

I just keep telling myself that in about a month, this will all be over.  In a month, competitions will be done. Practices will be done. My after-school obligations will be done. (Mostly. There’s that whole basketball cheer thing…)  My 10 year reunion will be over. People will have a good time.  Maybe those who haven’t been involved in planning this will thank me (and my co-planners) for my (our) efforts.

I’m stressed, and this stress is catching up to me.

I’m constantly questioning myself and whether I’m doing the right things or making the right decisions.  I wonder why things aren’t coming together with projects at work. Why my girls still aren’t getting it. Why Joshua won’t eat anything for me. (Yes, that battle. Again.)  Why we’re suddenly having yelling matches when we get in the car, when we get home, when we get in the tub, when we…you get the idea.

I’m tired. So, so tired.  So tired I could fall asleep right now, but I feel compelled to tell y’all how tired I am. (And I promise I’m going to sleep after I finish this. I’m not going to get sucked into Twitter or Facebook or Tivo. Super-pinky-promise.)

All of this is seriously catching up with me.

I feel incredibly sad most of the time. I just don’t want to smile much lately. 

I have a constant headache.

I have trouble getting my eyes to focus and stay focused.

I want to throw up when I eat.

I cannot keep going like this.

Tonight? 

Tonight Joshua whined the whole time he was eating dinner. He was probably past the point of being hungry. Because of Guard, he had to come back to practice with me for the last half hour or so. This meant that we didn’t make it home until nearly 7:00, twelve hours after we left home this morning, an hour past when he usually eats dinner.

He was beyond the point of being over everything having to do with anything.

I put our dinner in the oven to keep it warm (and turned the oven temp on too high thereby over-cooking our steak) and we rushed to put him to bed.

And that’s where I sort of lost it.

He’s gotten into this thing lately where he screams when we comb his hair. SCREAMS. And cries. And screams.  And in addition to hating having his hair combed, he also hates having saline rinse put up his nose. But he’s all stuffed up and unable to breathe at night, which makes him unable to sleep at night, so the saline up the nose is a must. But then he screams harder and harder and eventually, tears are steadily streaming down his face and I am reduced down in my soul to a giant puddle of Mama Fail.

His screaming makes me want to cover my ears and put my face in a pillow and let out something primal and fierce and sad and broken. 

Tonight I had to walk away.

I grabbed the sides of my head and I had to walk out of the room and down the hall and I walked into our bedroom and there was the screaming, echoing through the house, and on the monitor. And I almost lost it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the heels of my hands into my temples until I could feel the pressure in my neck and almost vomited. And then I swallowed back the threat of puking and went back to finish up the night time routine and give him his sippy of milk.

I needed to breathe him in and kiss his forehead to try and calm myself down. 

And when he finished his milk and did “the usual” where he rolls over onto his belly and tucks his face into my neck and pulls the blanket up tight around his face, in that moment, I was okay. I was normal again. I was the mom I want to be.

But now?

Now that he’s been asleep for a bit and I’m here, thinking about this, reliving that moment and how I felt?

Now I just feel awful. 

Now I feel like a failure. 

Like I took a leap so far back I’m starting over from square one.

And I. Hate. That. 

I hate feeling like any progress I’ve made, all of my good days, have been for naught.  That they’ve all just evaporated into thin air. Like they never even existed in the first place and I was just deluding myself into thinking I had this under control.  Like I was kicking PPD ass and now it has just shown me who’s boss.

I just want to get back to good.