Blogging has become one of the joys of my life. It allows me to chat with friends far and near and share things about our lives and families with each other. It has also allowed me the opportunity to keep a journal more easily - something I have always struggled with. This is fair warning to anyone who happens to peruse my posts - Christy, this means you - that this post is my journal entry for today and it will NOT be pretty. Read at your own risk.
Satan is a crafty wretch. He can use guilt as one of his biggest tools to bring us down. He finds great pleasure in finding anyway he can to bring us down. He esp delights, I am sure, when he can nail you right in the middle of church when you are supposed to be feeling uplifted and peaceful. That being said and recognized, it doesnt make it any easier to do something about it - esp when the skies are gray-black, and it is freezing and rainy outside, and my husband has to physically walk in and turn my lightbox on and put meds on my fingers because I am so far gone today I cant do it for myself.....
Everything about today, and the last week, has SCREAMED at me that I am a failure. Getting to church was an ordeal in itself today, and leaving church screamed "dont let the door hit you on the way out, and BTW dont even think about walking through the door again unless you can keep your children under control and quiet as statues"
Guilt has overwhelmed me all week about all the things I am not doing, not been able to do, not looking like I will do anytime soon. These are the things that I am struggling with -
1) Not having time or energy to even make a cake for my daughter's birthday. A good friend made a special cake for her at my request so Ce would at least have a homemade cake
2) I have no energy, time or desire to even think about participating in the family weightloss thing - thereby putting all the extra pressure on preston to do more to try to win back $ we put into the "pot"
3) Sleep pretty much being non-existent, and when I am sleeping I am having horrible nightmares. This is leaving me even more drained to try to take care of home or kiddos
4) Feeling like every time that Preston & the kids walk out the door that they take a piece of me with them, leaving me feeling more anxious, stressed and worn out. By the time the pieces are put back together at night I am beyond mental or emotional strength to put the "puzzle" back together. I know this doesnt make any sense to anyone but me
5) Constantly craving sugar - and not being able to fight the rule of "dont treat the blues with a treat"
6) In caring for my family and home that I dont have the time/energy to attend all the school/community meetings that keep me "in the loop" that effect my family. There is a new universal park being constructed that really needs parent input-and there were no parents attending those meetings except for me. We also found out our district is seriously considering dropping all of the arts/music programs in our district and firing all of those teachers plus some.
Had I been attending school board meetings I would have been aware - again I was usually the only parent attending those meetings as well. The new school parent committe keeps contacting me and all I can tell them is "not right now". All of these things are SO important - and I am already spread so thin, or engulfed in "darkness" that I cannot get to them.
7) I am also worried about how things are going for Preston at work. He has had a project come back that needs some pretty major fixes and he has been spending all of his time working on them and finding more and more wrong. He hasnt even started on the work he went to colorado to pick up, and it may have been passed onto someone else now after all he did. He usually doesnt get bent out of shape about anything, but this project really has him worried - which in turn worries me. There is nothing I can do to help him at all, and that hurts too.
8) I feel like I am an ugly hag. I am not going to even talk about my weight. My eyes have huge dark circles under them because of not sleeping. I look like a walking zombie most of the time. I think that my hair has actually stopped growing -and it breaks off and falls out every time I brush it. No matter what I do with it, it never looks ok. I feel like I never want to go out in public, esp with preston or the kids, because I am afraid that I am a total embarassment to them because of the way I look. It makes me even less likely to even attempt to go out, esp on my bad days (which today has been)
There are so many other things I could write about, but I would be writing forever....
OK, so this started out with all the turmoil in my soul. I had to take a break to attend an extra meeting to represent Activities Committee. In that meeting the main talk was of planning and setting goals for the ward for the coming year. In the end I think the main goal was to help the ward focus on the "small and simple things" to strengthen our families - it seems to be a running theme already and it is only the end of January. We talked about maybe setting 3 goals that we can perfect over the next year - small, simple things, things that can be measured and tracked.
We also talked about keeping our eyes on the positive things, all the things that we are doing well, all the good that is happening.
I am sad that the gal I subbed for is sick, but I guess I was supposed to attend this meeting today to help me put things back into perspective....
I can become completely overwhelmed and pounded by all the things I am not, and cannot do right now. The weather doesnt help those feelings. I can try to remember to do small and simple things - no matter how small or simple - it is still moving in the right direction. Today the "nots" have really got me down, but tomorrow is a new day.
I can try to remember the blessing Preston recently gave me that told me to take things one day, one hour, even one minute at a time to help me get through each day. Today, I am only tracking minutes, maybe later or by tomorrow I might be able to track hours.
I can try to remember that even if all I do is change diapers and wash my hands 100 times in one day that I have cared for my 2 smallest children to keep them safe and comfortable. If I only do 1 load of laundry, the rest will wait. If I can keep all my kiddos in sacrament meeting together, and not have to take someone out or spend the whole of sacrament meeting with someone on time out, that is a great accomplishment, no matter what anyone else says or thinks.
I am doing my best to raise my small children. Others are done with that, and are good at doling out advice, or have forgotten what it is like when they get upset over little one's noise. I can try to do the best that I can and need to try hard not to let anyone else's opinions or comments make me feel guilty or horrible. That is hard for me to do - esp on my extra bad days - and those are the days I will need to try to take 1 minute at a time to get through those moments. Other people's comments can and do hurt, even unintentinally, but I need to do my best to not let Satan use them to hurt me. That is hard, I have lived almost my whole life being made to feel guilty about everything and anything, I have been pressured by others to do or be what they want. I have only recently in the last few years learned to stand up for myself and my family. I need to try to remember all the positive things I have done to reach that goal - I have done it in the past and I can do it now, or least I can keep trying to.
Remembering the positive and the good that can be accomplished, even a minute at a time, is moving in the right direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment