The title says it all – it’s a succinct description of my life. A million different things begun and not a one finished. Can you relate? I wish I was the type of person who wasn’t affected by the chaos of it all. I wish I could roll with the punches and go with the flow but I can’t. Like a vampire it sucks the life out of me. It’s a drain.
Like a chameleon, I take on my surroundings. If it’s hope then I’m hopeful. If it’s calm, then so am I. If it’s unfinished chaos the sensory overload is too much for me to bear and I shut down. It’s a feeling of being paralyzed into nothingness. The big picture overwhelms me and I can’t find my way out of the maze. Depression sets in.
I am my own worst enemy. I expect too much of myself and the people around me. It’s not a good way to be and I struggle with it daily, sometimes hourly. The people around me don’t care about the things that are important to me. I do, however, try to pour my heart and soul into the things that matter to them because to me, it’s the ultimate way to say ‘I Love You’. They lack goals and won’t try to understand how devastating it is (on a personal level) for me, to fall short of mine.
I think I’m the kind of person who should live alone. I have yet to find anyone who thinks and feels as I do, share the same values, and places importance on the things that matter to me. The closest I ever came was my sister. She walked to the beat of a different drummer and made no bones about it. She ‘got’ me more than anyone else ever has. She passed away 23 years ago after a devastating illness. I miss her more than even I imagined I would. She could make sense of this for me, if she were here. I don’t mean she would magically have the answer and tell me what the right thing to do is. She would listen intently, ponder thoughtfully, and ask all the right questions which would eventually lead me down the right road. Probably the one less traveled by. That was the essence of who she was.
I wish I knew with any authority the essence of who I am. I sometimes think I do. I know my heart and mind. I know what moves me and matters to me and I know why. It just never comes across to other people. I can’t seem to articulate it so they understand or even understand that they should try for no other reason than it matters to me. I don’t know why certain things are important to my children. I just know when they are and that’s good enough for me. I support them without needing their choices to make sense for me. I strive to be supportive and uplifting. Isn’t that the role of a parent? A child? A sister? A friend?
The unfinished fiascos of my life are tumbling across me like some twisted life sized game of dominos running amok. So many things need to be done and nothing is getting any closer to completion. I have the best of intentions. I wake up with my mind racing a mile a minute. I try to prioritize and accomplish something. Then I get derailed. It’s always something. Invisible forces working against me? Me sabotaging myself? I always default to blaming myself. I can work like a dog to get something finished. I can focus to the exclusion of all else and often do.
What I can’t find a way to do is work like a mule on a project while trying to keep the house clean, keep up with the laundry, cut the grass, work 40 hours a week and watch the people around me (my children) sprawled around the house sleeping where ever they happened to be when they ran out of steam the night before. My den looks like a flophouse. It smells like a locker room. The only thing I do in that room anymore is walk through it to get to the back door to put the dogs out because they’re inconsiderate and refuse to wait patiently until 1:00pm when the kids get up to go outside to the bathroom.
I believe I have somehow failed as a mother when my children don’t know what is expected of them or refuse (I’m not sure which is correct) to shoulder any responsibility for themselves or the home that we share as a family. At 15, 16, and 22 should I have to remind them hourly or even daily that certain things need taking care of? Taking out the trash? When it’s spilling up and out, overflowing on to the floor one would think it’s a no brainer. Not so in my house. You have to yell, beg, threaten, and cajole to get it taken care of. Its an incredible amount of energy wasted on my part that saps me. Sure, I could do it myself, and often do, to spare myself the aggravation but in the end that solution simply enables the behavior and makes me a different kind of failure. A catch-22.
I’ve been asking, nee begging my kids to help me with the yard work. It’s a big yard – ¾ of an acre. Too much for one person to manage along with all the other chores that one has to attend to in the daily grind of life. I love to garden. It’s one of my very favorite things to do. If someone would shoulder some of the other responsibilities I would gladly take care of the outside, for the most part. Although, I believe, as a family we should share responsibilities and work together on all the things that go into making the house our home. If we all worked together on things we’d get done quicker and spend quality time as a family. That’s the way I see things – my kids beg to differ.
It’s the 4th of July and I should be at a picnic with my family. I am not. I’m sitting here writing this because I don’t have the energy to do much else. I’ve been awake since 2:00pm. I took a nap. I’m exhausted at the thought of doing anything else so I’m going to go back to bed and sleep some more. This is not a good thing and not how I usually am. I know where this is headed because I’ve been there before. Depression. I don’t know how to fight it. It’s less painful to give in to it. At least for now. Maybe tomorrow will be different. Hope springs eternal.
Tags: depression, emotion, help, hope, pain, sadness, unhappiness
August 5, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
What I don’t get is why an EMPTY glass or dish is somehow heavier and more difficult to carry to the kitchen sink.
And, I get “I didn’t use that glass” when i ask them to do dishes.
Huh? I’m in work 10 hours a day, I KNOW I didn’t use it.
It’s to the point that I come home, take a shower, and retreat to my bedroom – the only room in the house that is clean and comfortable.
So I can certainly relate to lazy children!
August 6, 2008 at 1:18 pm |
Load those dishes and cups down with food and drink and they magically become weightless. Once they consume the magical food/beverage ogres turn the melamine into lead which requires Herculean effort just to shove them aside. In order to carry them two rooms away [S]uperman must be called upon to act as an advisor/coach/mentor and what with his crime fighting skills in high demand not to mention his publicity schedule there is a backlog of 3 weeks in which time you’ll have a science experiment on your hands or discover a new ultra resistant strain of penicillin growing in your den as it creeps from dish to dish. If your kids are anything like mine they too will be covered with it because they move at the speed of molasses in January in an igloo in the frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle. My kids couldn’t outrun the Kudzu vine of the Deep South if MY life depended on it. Some days it’s just easier to pick up the dish yourself, huh? I SO totally understand the ’sending yourself to your room’ psychology. It’s the only place in the house were my particular brand of insanity reigns supreme. It’s neat, clean, orderly, and doesn’t require tyvek and a respirator. The children stand at the doorway, afraid to enter the alternate universe of neat and clean, and mumble their demands. If I don’t want to deal with them I simply say…..”come closer, I can’t hear you” which sends them running at breakneck speed in the other direction lest the ‘need to be clean’ jumps on them like fleas on the dog or head lice on a class full of 1st graders. Ahhhh….peace, serenity, tranquility.
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