I just wrote the following email to my co-pilot Steph. Even though I am still feeling pretty down, it's amazing how much better I feel just having everything off my chest.
I’m sorry I have been MIA lately. I have just been consumed with busyness. Work has been quite busy. One of my co-workers quit, and everybody has been feeling the effects. Plus, even though she hasn’t made the announcement to the office yet, my supervisor pulled me aside and let me know that she is pregnant. She is planning on taking 12 weeks of maternity leave. I will be covering for her while she is gone, so she has been doing a lot of cross-training with me.
I haven’t been going to church again. I don’t think we’ve gone since Easter. I’m dying. I am desperate for a spirit-filled church. Scratch that. I’m desperate for church period. Even though the Catholic church wasn’t spirit-filled and the messages weren’t great, at least I was hearing the Word every week. I NEED weekly worship and fellowship in my life. Nothing feels right without it. I am going to try a non-denominational church in White Marsh this week called Community Christian Church. I am going to go whether Harry accompanies me or not. I just desperately need to be fed.
My weekends have been crammed with activity. Pink Papaya parties, birthday parties, get-togethers with friends….all while having houseguests for two weekends in a row. Harry and I bought the rocks for the mini rock wall I want to build around my garden, but I haven’t had any time to work on it. Same with reading. Same with spending quiet time with Bianca and Harry. Same with having ANY me-time at all. This coming weekend is much the same. I honestly want to cry. I just want a day to rest.
I have also been doubting my decision to go to massage school at this point in my life. My life is running at full speed right now, and I’m feeling completely drained. I don’t know if I honestly have the energy to add anything else to it. Plus classes will mean even less time with Bianca, and that thought tears me up inside. I don’t see her enough as it is.
Harry has decided to give up coaching soccer. He wants to spend more time with Bianca, so he’s handing the program over to Adam. He also cut back on summer school. He is only working three days a week so that he can have two days a week with Bianca. I am so jealous that my heart literally hurts when I think about it.
I’m also questioning my ability to keep up with Pink Papaya. It takes up so much of my time and energy, and I’m not seeing any fruit from it. I just keep getting disappointed. I had hoped that I would be able to quit my day job and focus on my business, but financially, the possibility is looking quite impossible. I’m only averaging $35 a party, and two parties a month. $70 a month is a far cry from what we need to survive.
Although perhaps we could survive if we didn’t live so extravagantly. I’ve actually begun resenting my home. Why live in such a big, beautiful place? I’m never there to enjoy it anyway. I’d rather move into smaller quarters and stay home and raise my beautiful babies instead of living in a huge house and struggling in a job that only drains me.
I read a beautiful quote: “A mother who radiates self-love and acceptance vaccinates her daughter from low self-esteem.” I hate to think that I am not radiating at all. And I hate to think that Bianca hardly knows me at all. This is a typical day: we get up at 5:30, I spend 10 minutes changing her, and – if I’m lucky – another 10 minutes holding her before it’s time to leave for work. We get home. I feed her a bottle. Then she plays on the floor while I make dinner. Harry and I eat, we clean up, and by that time it’s usually after 7:00. I hold Bianca until 8:00 – when she usually goes to sleep. I am practically missing her entire day. I am missing her entire life. And I am so, so sad about it.
Harry and I want another child. But what’s the point of bringing another life into this world if you’re not even the one molding and influencing them?
Steph, I am honestly so depressed. Once again, I just feel stuck. I really thought that 2010 would be my year of action, but now I’m wondering if taking the action right now is wrong. I wouldn’t mind going to school and studying if I had the majority of my day to spend with Bianca. But thinking that I’m going from seeing her very little now to seeing her even less when school starts, I literally have a hard time catching my breath. I don’t know what to do. When I think of it that way, school doesn’t seem like an opportunity but a barrier.
I want to quit my job. I want to raise our daughter. I want to cook healthy meals for Harry. I want to clean our house. I want to garden. I want to sing and dance and play. I want to go for walks in the warm sun. I want to take naps or read in the middle of the day. I want to go to school in the evening, knowing that my family came first, and now it’s time to better myself. I don’t want to stay in an unfulfilling job where I never see my daughter and all I have time to cook is processed foods.
Whenever someone asked me in the past what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said “a wife and a mother.” I never had any career aspirations. And in a way, I still don’t. All I want to do is be a good wife and mother. That is what is going to make my life feel like it has meaning. As it is, I feel like the world’s worst wife and mother. I am just a shell of a person. I feel like I don’t have any life inside of me.
I’ve considered seeing a counselor, but again, I don’t want to add anything else to my life. I literally don’t have the time.
Harry gets upset with me when I tell him I don’t want to work anymore. He thinks it’s because I’m lazy. But I honestly think I would work harder at home than I do at work. I am passionate about my family. I hate my job. But we’ve come to depend on my salary. And I hate it. I know we shouldn’t dwell on shoulds – but I think we should have stayed in Harry’s house in Rosedale. It wasn’t as big as ours is now, but it was nice, and he could afford it on his own salary. Had we stayed there, I could have stayed home. But I had issues. I never saw it as his house. I saw it as his and Angel’s house. And I just wanted it out of our lives.
I absolutely adore our house. I do. It’s just that lately, it’s feeling like more of a burden and a prison than anything. Because of it, I can’t break free.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking despite all the hectic activity in my life, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I will not be happy with ANY job. That’s why I’m not trying to find another one. I will not be happy working ANYWHERE while Bianca and our future children are little. When it’s time for them to go to school, that is when I am supposed to work. That is when I’m supposed to start my mid-life career as a holistic health practitioner. In the meantime, all I want to do is be a wife and a mother. I have this knowledge, and yet I can’t act upon it.
I feel stuck and I hate it. And it’s sad but true: I literally don’t feel that there is any spirit or joy in me. I catch glimpses of it here and there, but in general, I feel very sad and dark.
I wish I knew how to make money writing from home. Wouldn’t that be ideal? I love to write, and I can do the task from anywhere. That would leave me ample time to take care of the house and family. I just don’t even know where to start looking.
So that's what's been happening with me. It's not pretty, but that's just where I am.
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