Friday

Let It Shine....

Yesterday I didn't blog. I apologize to the fictitious people out there that anxiously await my blog every afternoon. You were surely disappointed yesterday and I'm sorry. It will not happen again, unless it is for a very good reason.

I'm happy to report that I just found spellchecker on the blog entry window. Yay.

Yesterday I didn't blog because I physically couldn't. Not only did I have absolutely nothing to say about anything, but I was so..... sloth.... yesterday that it took every ounce of reasonable energy I had to even function normally at work. It's not even about just functioning, it's about acting like I'm perfectly fine and happy. It's truly exhausting. Thankfully, I'm not on auto pilot every single day, just a few here and there. I'm afraid to think that perhaps those kind of days are becoming more frequent.

I went home yesterday and put JJ in his jammies and put him to bed. He didn't fall asleep immediately, probably because Jerry and I were trying to have a conversation while I was putting him to bed and he was super tired. When he finally did fall asleep, I had already been crying for a few minutes. It was like a crack in a fish tank - it just kept leaking until the glass finally burst and I was crying for over an hour. Jerry held me as if he was holding my pieces together, which helped tremendously. I suddenly and strongly felt, again, that I was a horrible mother and wife. I felt that I would never live up to JJ's expectations for me as his mom. I can't always be there to comfort him when he cries and it kills me. I worry that he is going to get sick or get hurt somehow. I'm terrified of him slipping in the bathtub. I worry about everything. I feel so inadequate.

I'm not discounting all of the encouraging words that I've been hearing from several caring people. I'm not at all saying that none of that matters to me. It's the exact opposite - I think about all those words when I'm paralyzed at my kitchen sink, washing dishes, and suddenly can't process how to get a mug into the dishwasher. All of those words make me realize that I can keep going.... that I have to keep going.

Over the past week, I've noticed a new strange thing about me, to top everything else off. Have you ever touched an electric fence? I did when I was a kid, and although I wasn't hurt, I felt the electricity stream through my body as it exited through my foot. The sensation that I felt was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was, literally, and electric feeling throughout my body.

What I'm feeling now, in waves, is similar to that feeling. I attributed it to exorbitant amounts of coffee consumption and cut down to only one cup a day (it's excruciating.) While I'm feeling "electric," I've been very jumpy and even the smallest thing startles me. Thankfully the feeling has never lasted more than a few hours and the cut back in coffee is helping. Still, I can't help but sit back and think to myself... WTF??

Needless to say, I was fairly sure that the sun wouldn't come up this morning. But there it was, right on schedule, shining in the front room window as brightly as sunly possible. JJ woke in a good mood even though he didn't sleep very well last night and I was even more surprised that I woke up in a decently normal mood, too. JJ and I chatted and had a few giggles over getting dressed and eating and it was nice. I love the way we have our own super secret, wordless language that only he and I understand. It makes me feel like he thinks Mommy and Daddy are the coolest people ever, and if JJ thinks that, it must be true.

Right?

2 comments:

Kate said...

Kristen - all I can say, is "boy, have I been there, and it will pass."

When Clyde was a baby I sometimes felt like my life would suck forever. It felt like we'd never have any fun ever again. I was never able to believe anyone who told me that things would get easier with time because it was so freaking hard at the time. It does get easier with time, so just hang on. Despite how terrible and hard things were for me in Clyde's first year, I feel that Lexie's is going by too fast (I really feel that way this time instead of just saying it the way I did with Clyde, because that's what you're supposed to say about babies). Now that I've been through that really hard time and come out the other side, I can appreciate Lexie's first year so much more than I did Clyde's. I was so anxious for him to grow and not need a bottle anymore, then to walk, then to talk, etc. so that things would be easier for us. I never felt like I wanted him to stay a baby, but with Lexie, I do feel that way.

I hope this helps! Just keep using your auto-pilot, or as I call it on those days, "fake it 'til you make it." :) One day, I promise you will be able to enjoy things again.

Evelyn Louise said...

As soon as I lay down in bed - EVERY NIGHT - I start thinking of all the horrible things that could happen to Ella. Seriously. Every night.

I'm not going to put them in "print" here because I don't want to give anyone else nightmares they don't already have. I just want you to know that that feeling of not being able to stop the bad is real and normal and okay.

I used to watch that t.v. movie called "The Girl on the Milk Carton" (or something like that) every time it came no. No more. I can't handle it.

All I can do is lay in bed and pray myself to sleep asking God to keep Ella safe and to let Jeff, Ella & me live together as a family forever. *I think Amanda's death set off that second part of the prayer.

Love you, sis!

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