Dark Places Where Monsters Dwell

I’ve been kind of in a bad place the last several days. I’m not sure what it is, exactly. I was emailing with a Girlfriend of mine, JDEgirl (http://sortingthebabystuff.typepad.com), and wondering whether there was, quite literally, a bad cloud hanging over the greater Midwest.

I was expressing to Husband (after I went kind of psychotic b**ch on him because he was trying to fix a leak in a faucet in our master bathroom while I was trying to take a bubble bath, and all I wanted was 15 minutes of absolute silence) – that our children are making me feel like I cannot breathe. And like I cannot remember who I am.

I feel like kind of a cold-blooded witch for saying that my children make me feel like I cannot breathe when I know that there are people who read my blog who are desperately trying to bring their children home. Or who are trying to conceive, or trying to heal from some horrifying losses. So, for me to sit here and tell you that I feel like I am being driven bat-shit crazy by my two beautiful children, seems, I don’t know…wrong and selfish and petty, and I apologize for being this way. I don’t mean to be a witch, I guess I was just made that way. This is just brutal honesty, served up with a side of bitter wit.

Maybe it’s because I am NEVER ALONE. Well, I suppose, technically, I am alone for about 15 minutes in the car on the way to my office from the nursery school in the morning, and again from my office to the nursery school at the end of the day. (But, I am usually spending those minutes alternately worrying about everything I have to get done when I get to work, or worrying that I am going to be late getting the daycare center, which closes at 5:30, and I am usually running in the door at 5:29, and I find this very stressful. Also, I swear all of the city’s idiot drivers congregate on the road I need to take from downtown where I work to the University where the nursery school is, and if I had a rocket launcher mounted on the front of my car, I would probably be tempted to divorce myself from a lifetime of pacifism…)

Anyway, I’m never alone, ALONE – like completely alone. And rarely alone with Husband, which is equally frustrating. I swear that every time I try to have a conversation with Husband, one of the kids MUST HAVE OUR ATTENTION RIGHT NOW.

If I was sitting, quietly, on the couch, and both kids were in another room, and I opened my mouth to try to have a meaningful (or even meaningless) conversation with Husband, both children would suddenly demand to be heard. It’s like the muscles that open my mouth are hardwired to their heads and they simply don’t want me to be able to have a grown-up conversation with their father. And so I find myself often not saying things that I would like to say, because I don’t have the energy to get what I have to say out, because I just don’t have it in me to try to talk around, above, over and below the children.

I realize how paranoid that sounds, I do. They’ve just both been incredibly whiny and falling asleep late and waking up early and, frankly, it’s times like these when the dark places in my soul threaten to eat me alive.

I’m spending the weekend with my Girlfriends from college (who are always good at reminding me that I'm still me and I'm still still here somewhere), and Husband and I have tickets to a show tonight, and I’m hopeful that all will seem bright and shiny and new after some time with Husband and some time with Girlfriends…thank god for good Husbands and good Girlfriends…

LM