Nothing’s Fine, I’m Torn

 

I’ve been feeling some type of way about having kids that I can’t accurately explain. Frustrated? Unfulfilled? Overwhelmed? Regretful? None of these are really it. I can’t go as far as to say I regret my kids. That’s a dark place to go and I just don’t believe that’s it. I love them in a way that’s impossible to put into words and I believe that they’re so much better than me and that the world needs and deserves them. But I also feel like they deserve better than this world and this life. I feel like...if I had fully grasped what depression was and known that I wasn’t ever going to grow out of it, I might have reconsidered my position on having them. It was never really given a word, my depression. Any time I had feelings growing up I was told to stop being weepy, to let things roll off of me. I was called angsty, and I believed that’s what it was. Teen angst that would someday get better. Even now, I regularly convince myself that I don’t actually have full-scale depression because I’ve learned to be so high-functioning. I am not the mother I dreamed I would be when I have depression. Which has been rampant this year. 

I also didn’t think we’d be seeing the fallout of ignoring global warming and systemic racism in my lifetime. Quick aside, I’m glad that there’s a reckoning about race happening and more people are realizing that the system was never designed to benefit BIPOC in this country, but everything also feels really scary and uncertain and a lot of true colors are showing and relationships are crumbling and it’s beyond anything I ever imagined I’d see. Mostly because...I was blind to the fact that there was/is still a very real problem. I thought the increasing level of representation of BIPOC in Disney movies meant the playing field was leveling out and certainly by 2020 everything would be okay. 

But the planet...oh the planet. I thought we had a lot more time and I thought it was still possible to reverse the damage we’ve done if we all just recycle enough and buy more green cleaning products. Now we’re saying that much of the US will likely be unlivable in 50 years? I realize by that time I’ll be close enough to death, if I’m even still alive, and my kids will have had enough time to live pretty full lives and even have kids of their own (if they want to...I never, ever plan to push that). But it’s still terrifying to think of what that will look like and how it will play out. I can’t imagine we’ll all just be rolling merrily along living our normal lives as the planet becomes uninhabitable. 

And then there’s just the day to day...the messes, the sticky floors, the fighting, the butt-wiping, the amount of food they go through, the amount of food they waste, the wearing my new shoes that I’m trying to keep nice out in the dirt, the tearing apart my personal notebooks and unmaking my bed and leaving toys and crumbs in it, the struggle to adhere to routines, the refusal to put away their shoes and jackets and backpacks when they come home, the mad dash to find a matching pair of shoes when we’re trying to leave the house, the way things disappear into some alternate dimension and no matter how much we clean, we can never find them again, the impossible-to-find balance between having a life of my own and being enough for my kids. The mental load. Is this just the pandemic? Is this just seven straight months of being with them, all of them, at all times with no break? Is this because we had a really bad week in the middle of a particularly awful month? 

And the regret. It’s not about the kids, really. It’s about not valuing myself beyond being a vessel for children. It’s about the fact that I never considered a life for myself beyond that. It’s that I didn’t take the time to live, to know myself, to grieve, to love, to travel before rushing into this life of existing only for other people. And for what? To heal the wounds of my own childhood and prove I could do a better job of loving unconditionally than my own mother? I guess...but it probably could have waited. I was in such a hurry to replace the life I thought I lost with my divorce, too. All of my decisions have been motivated by fear, by loss, by a lack of self-worth. I grew up hearing all about my potential and how smart I was from my teachers but I was too afraid to really go out and use it and now I’m Just A Mom™️

Now I’m 10 years into a thing that has never not been hard. And we want things that we should’ve had a long time ago; a nice wedding, to own a home, a car that isn’t on the brink of death. But we’re still struggling just to keep the lights on and the rented roof over our heads. Everything we own is broken, dirty, tired, secondhand. I feel broken, dirty, tired, secondhand. I have nothing left for anyone, least of all myself. Sometimes I think my being gone would be better for everyone and sometimes I’m afraid it would be too damaging and the emotional damage is what I’m trying hardest to avoid. 

I don’t really know what the point of all of this is. I’ve tapped into some dark, ugly place inside me and I’m trying to figure a way out. 

And not for nothing, but a second Trump presidency will be my undoing. My kids will be 8, 9, 11, 13, and 17 at the end of this next term. Trump’s America will be all they’ve ever known. And I realize our problems don’t start and end with him. The President, the government, won’t save us no matter who sits in the Oval Office. I just don’t think we stand a chance of ever getting any better with another four years of madness. 

Hopelessness is a scary place from which to parent. 

Overthinking 101

I don’t know how to fix being a person that overthinks things to the extent that I do. Every interaction with a human has me completely on edge, trying not to say the wrong thing, or say too much. Sometimes I just talk until someone stops me. If I don’t get a timely enough response to a text message, I immediately think “oh, I guess they hate me.” Somehow that’s the easiest scenario for me to accept? 

I don’t know how to fix being a person who cares SO MUCH but is unable to accept that anyone else cares as much without hearing constant reassurance and reasons why anyone would care about me. 

I don’t know how to fix being a person who doesn’t know the difference between establishing healthy boundaries and being too overly sensitive, because I’m always certain I’m doing the former but am consistently accused of the latter. 

Honestly, the only person I don’t constantly worry about my place in their life is Travis, and he doesn’t know even a fraction of what goes on in my brain. 

Part of me thinks technology and social media is what has ruined me, a person who runs entirely on emotions and human facial cues and the cadences of a persons speech. Part of me also thinks I might be on the spectrum and that I’d be relieved to receive that confirmation so at least I’d have an excuse for my complete inability to function as a human being. 

I’m just really lonely but also being alone seems so much easier than feeling this way all of the tine

It’s Complicated...

Thirteen

Ryland turned 13 in June and we spent the weekend celebrating the best we knew how in this COVID-19 state of things. Last year we started the tradition of family bowling for his birthday celebration and he chose to keep it going this year. It was easy enough to social distance in a nearly-empty bowling alley where we discovered that we’re mostly terrible bowlers. I think Isla won both games. This is roughly the third year in a row that I signed them up for the Kids Bowl Free program and I’m hoping we go more than just the one time (like last year). Fingers crossed! 

He was also able to hang out with some friends from school that he hadn’t seen in months. No pictures, since that was all his time. We ended the birthday weekend with a low-key family party, just the seven of us. I made a Stranger Things cake and found some Stranger Things/nondescript 80s party decorations (I wouldn’t normally go heavy on single-use party decorations ordered from Amazon but celebrating birthdays and other special occasions in quarantine is doing things to me), recreated Joyce Byers’s creepy alphabet wall from season one, and played some Stranger Things Bingo. We let him order a new video game and he’s been steadily working his way through Keanu Reeves’s filmography with Travis. His actual birthday fell on a Monday and we spent it swimming with friends and sharing the rest of his cake. 

Having a teenager is strange and wonderful. Some days he’s too cool for everything and other days he still loves Adventure Time and Phinneas and Ferb. He’s a helper and a people-pleaser but he’s also incredibly sarcastic and watches some questionable YouTube content that hurts my brain. I really can’t believe he’s entering his final year of middle school and it’s even more unbelievable thinking about what that year will look like in the midst of everything. I love seeing the people my children are becoming while still struggling to keep them close and let them hold onto their littleness as long as possible. Despite how difficult this “quarantine” life has been, it’s also been a special experience having the kids home so much, especially Ryland who spends every other week at his dad’s. The kids are getting all of this bonus time with each other that they may never get again. I hope we can make the best of the time we have left before this kid is driving and getting his first job. I say it all the time and it sounds like a cliche but time really does move unnaturally fast when you have kids. It positively flies if you have multiple kids. I legitimately don’t know where 13 years of my life went. But I’m not sad about them getting older. It’s a privilege to watch your kids grow into the people they’re supposed to be. Happy Birthday to my beautiful first boy. Welcome to being a teenager. May you be much easier on me than I was on my parents, please and thank you. 

Around here lately...

Isla turned seven last week and we celebrated with a birthday sleepover and have an unofficial open-ended plan to take her to see Frozen II. 

I started a seasonal job at Target that lets me off by 10:30 every day so I'm able to get kids from preschool and have pretty much my whole day ahead of me. But I start between 2 and 4 a.m. and hate going to bed early (so I usually don't), so I'm tired all. The. Time. On the other hand, employee discount. 

I officially hosted thanksgiving, with a turkey and everything. It went surprisingly well but I already have thoughts for next year (at least we remembered black olives this year). 

I randomly started thinking about how Arlo can go to kindergarten round-up in a couple of months, but how can he really when he's still just a baaaaby?? I think this is going to be my hardest one so far. 

I also found a mini photo book from when Wilder was a year or so old and thought about how easy those days seem compared to now. I feel like I am stuck in the hardest phase of life but am also scared for the days when this time is looked back on as the good old days. My kids were so young and quiet and didn't fight with each other or me and weren't sucked in by screens. No dumb video games or YouTubers in those days. Just doubling up ny babies in shopping cart seats and baby swings at the park. I didn't have to work. The school run wasn't the big budget production it is now and only one kid was old enough for school and activities. Life hadn't quite chewed us up and spit us out yet. 

I look at shiny people on Instagram who own boats and go to Disney multiple times a year (and aren't locals) and take big vacations every time their kids have a break from school. And sure, everything isn't what it seems on social media. People only show what they want you to see in those squares. But I can't even fake that kind of having one's life together. I can barely show any of our beat-up, hand-me-down furniture, hot dogs for dinner again life. The one where Arlo still doesn't have an honest-to-goodness winter coat and all of Wilder's pants are floods. The one where our second car still isn't licensed. The one where I could just barely feed my kids any other meals the week of thanksgiving because it ate up so much of our very tight budget (at least we have leftovers for days). Where we have the world's ugliest and/or most uncomfortable couches, but they were free. The one where I still fill my squares using a $40 LG phone with a shattered screen. And our living room t.v. is a tube t.v. that we can't even donate when the time comes because even the needy don't take tube televisions. And I have to cut Travis's hair with my zero years of experience and zero skills when it starts getting shaggy. And we never give each other gifts for any occasuon (partly because he's bad at it and I hate the expectation but also money). And the one where I HAVE. to work but we can't afford childcare so it's a constant struggle to figure out that balance. 

I don't know. Mostly we're happy and sometimes it feels like we're getting there. When I look back at the highlights of the past year, the parts that I want people to see, it looks like we're doing alright. And all I can hope is that that's how we always remember it, especially the kids. 

Day Four: An Update

Since my last draft of a blog post, we've moved back from North Platte, Travis was hired on at UPS, Donald Trump was elected President and became the cherry on top of the absolute shit sundae that was 2016, and I've put in three solid years in the Methodist Health System. It's like time travel to go back and read words I wrote in the first half of 2016, completely unaware of what was to come.

Today was the fourth day in a row that I remembered to take my antidepressant, the one I started two years ago when things got really, really bad. I've never been able to stick with it long enough to see if it actually does help.

Today I took my last $20 and my smallest helper to Aldi for provisions to get us by until tomorrow (Pay Day!). We have been so hilariously poor since moving back to Omaha. Or at least, maybe it will be hilarious to look back on someday. I've been getting us by on about $70ish dollars a week for groceries the past few weeks, which is no easy feat. There are seven of us! Like, get the fuck out.

I've decided to try blogging again because I think it's the right time: blogging has turned into something so bizarre and unrecognizable over the past few years. I believe that people are ready to go back to the basics. And while I'm not doing it for an audience, it's exciting to think about being part of a comeback. Old school blogging, let's do this!

I've also a) had too much on my brain to keep using Instagram captions as my only outlet and b) missed writing and feel like I'm really rusty at it.

I am in my thirties. My dirty thirties, if you're that kind of person, although my twenties were wayyy dirtier. I still do not feel like a successful adult. Does anyone? I have to really get into the right headspace, really work myself up to doing adult things sometimes. It's like going to the gym; I dread it and it's awful but once I finally push myself through it, I feel so much better.

Says the girl who keeps letting gym memberships go dormant. I really need to go to the gym.

I don't know how to properly dice an onion either.

But today I dealt with the insurance hullabaloo of the accident I got into some number of days ago and I felt like so much less of a pile of hot garage for doing so. Also worth noting, I went and got me a (third, possibly fourth) job on my regular Target rounds while the kids were at school. I start tomorrow.

I'm also really bad at conclusions. So...the end? Here's hoping I don't wait another three years to write more k

Don't Call it a Comeback

I tried to organize my thoughts about this upcoming season of life into something as concise as an Instagram caption, but alas, it couldn't be done. Turns out I have a lot to say on the subject, so I've dusted off the old blog to try to make sense of things.

I keep making the mistake of thinking "this is it." I get into bad habits with my depression sometimes, and I let myself believe that a new job or place or thing or even person will fi everything and make me happy. And they usually do, for a time, and then that only familiar darkness starts to creep back in, or else outside circumstances take the new thing away before I'm prepared to be without it, and it becomes that much harder to pick up the pieces afterward.

We moved out here just over a year ago thinking everything was going to change for us. We had been struggling for several months, and feeling a little hopeless. My dad offered what we thought was the forever solution. My dad has enjoyed a successful career with the railroad. It took us out of near-poverty when we were kids, and it is a great job if everything falls into place in just the right way.

Which it did not, unfortunately.

Travis moved out here before we did to start training, staying in cheap (though they added up fast) motels and keeping his eye out for a place for all of us to live. I had to stay behind to let the boys finish school and until we could get our house rented. It was incredibly stressful, doing most of the packing on my own, trying to keep the house clean for showings while we were living in it with small children, keeping them out of the house when the landlady brought people by. When I was released from the hospital after Arlo's birth, I spent my first night at home with him alone, because it was a Sunday and Travis had to head back west. I never wanted to go through that again, but honestly, looking back, it was manageable. Arlo was an easy baby, Ryland was in school, Wilder had preschool two mornings a week, we lived walking distance to my mother's and within an easy driving distance of friends who would bring over dinner or their kids for play dates.

We finally moved out here, and planned to get ourselves out of debt and back on track. He was going to make good money with the railroad, and we were paying about half the amount in rent as we did with our old place. The duplex we live in out here is tiny, but it was just about the only thing available that would even remotely fit our family, and it was just enough space, no more and no less. But also no room to grow, and now that Willa is born and Ryland is out of school for the summer, and Arlo has joined the ranks of the mobile and the vocal, it's just not enough. Our little postage stamp of a yard feels positively claustrophobic now that the wasps are swarming and the mosquitoes are biting and the kids have more outdoor toys and bikes than ever. We usually end up out front where there's more room to move around, and then I get stressed out when Arlo makes a beeline for the alley or won't stop throwing his ball into the street. We don't have a driveway or a garage or even a shed in which to store our outdoor belongings. Our lawnmower is on its last leg. Even if we wanted to stay in North Platte, finding decent rentals is tricky, especially in a town where no one really utilizes the Internet like everywhere else in the free world. Seriously, everything is word-of-mouth or if you're lucky, Facebook. I think they must have just discovered Facebook pretty recently out here.

But back on the subject of huge life changes. We assumed the railroad would be it. We weren't careful about birth control because we weren't totally set against having another baby, and the railroad offers amazing benefits. But right at the same time we found out we were expecting Willa, we also got the news that Travis was another casualty of the railroad's massive layoffs. And we've been just barely keeping our heads above water since. We were both lucky to find pretty good jobs right away, but neither felt like the kind of jobs we wanted to make careers out of. We were also very fortunate that our schedules worked together perfectly. He only worked weekends and I was able to work the majority of my hours on the days he was home, and we just needed a babysitter to fill in on the one weekend a month I was required to pick up. We also had a little side business babysitting for our next door neighbors for several months, and in exchange, they were our once-a-month weekend sitters.

We were trying to tough it out until spring, because there were initially rumors that the railroad would be calling a lot of guys back around March or April. But then we would chat up the occasional local at work or out to dinner and learned that employees with over a decade of seniority had been laid off, and came to the grim realization that it could be years before he was called back, if ever. It was time to go back home. We decided to wait until after my maternity leave, since I had decided to get myself and the kids on my employer's health insurance.

Word of an opportunity reached our ears a couple of weeks ago, and the soonest he could get out there for an interview was last Tuesday afternoon. By the time I came home from work on Thursday afternoon, a glorious four-day weekend before me, he had received the news that they were offering him the position. We're putting in our 30 days notice at our tiny duplex that has been home for the past 13 months. I'll give two weeks notice when I go back into work on Tuesday, because he's heading out to Omaha before the rest of us once again and won't be here to watch the kids while I'm at work. He's staying with his parents while he looks for a place for us. I have a huge list of houses written out to compare their stats and find one with most of what we're looking for; four bedrooms, a garage, and hardwood floors would be ideal. Something roomy with good schools near by if we really want to get greedy. He'll come home to be with us on the weekends, and during the week I'll be, once again, a "single parent" for all intents and purposes. The three days a week he works now feel impossibly long, and we so look forward to him finally walking through the door at the end of those endless days. I don't even know how we're going to survive five days where he doesn't come home to us--well, alright, four days, technically. I guess if I'm being optimistic, it's only one more day than we're used to. And we've managed it before (although five kids feels like a hundred more than four). I'll be packing most of the boxes myself. Once again, we'll promise ourselves that this move will be different, more organized, that it will go more smoothly. That we won't have a sea of miscellaneous shit left haphazardly around the rooms as we're loading up the truck. That we won't have to make a million extra trips back like we did last time because we're such horrible procrastinators. I've been surveying the place, looking for things that we can live without for the next few weeks, trying to decide where to start packing first.

The past two years, particularly the first six months of this year, should have killed my optimism. Strangely though, they haven't. Last year got off to such a horrendous start that I thought for sure we would be rewarded with a great year in 2016. Unfortunately, this year started off worse than the last. Nothing has ever or will ever be as bad as losing my nephew. That is a nightmare we're still struggling to wake up from every single day. And it was a huge deciding factor in our rush to move back and be close to family again. Missing out on most of the first--and only--year of his life will haunt me until the end of time. It has also been extremely difficult being away from Ryland for the better part of an entire school year. On paper, it didn't seem like it would be so bad. Every month there was at least one long weekend for conferences or holidays, plus spring break and winter break, and we made frequent short trips out there throughout the year. But not being a part of his daily life and feeling so out of touch with things like his homework, even not being able to assign him chores around the house, it just felt like I wasn't really his mother. I never want to go through that again. The hardest part of it is that I thought we were doing it for the greater good. I thought we were making a sacrifice to get our family on the right track financially, to give our kids a better future. But we ultimately did it all for nothing, and now we're right back where we started. Or that's how it feels.

But enough of that. I'm elated that we're going back, but I'm cautious. I don't want to let myself think that this is it, that everything is going to be smooth sailing from here on out. I don't want to think that simply by going back, I will be happy forever. I'm pretty sure that I'll be happier than I've been out here, but I'm still me, and I still have my lows sometimes. It does feel, though, like we're getting a fresh start in the second half of this year. The first half was a miserable mess, but the second half might make up for it. And I'm going to let myself be excited about that.