I have just been coming at life from a pretty dark outlook, been moody and just completely unmotivated to do anything at all. It totally sucks. But, i don’t want to blame this solely on something chemical that is happening, although that might be contributing a little. The fact is that I have done a pretty poor job of taking care of myself, especially since my son was born.
I really didn’t have anything that I could call my own, very little mental stimulation and nothing I was working toward. I had made the decision when Ian was born that I was going to take the year and really just concentrate on being a good mom and enjoying that. For the most part this was absolutely the right thing for me to do at the time as I needed to slow down and focus and stew in my own existence for a while. What I failed to think about was me. I found out that without the mental stimulation and individual activities, I just lost myself.
I had always heard about stay-at-home moms “losing themselves” to the life of being the one thing they most desired to be. I never believed that it could happen to me as I have such a strong and driven personality. Oh boy, was I wrong. It is so easy to just slowly slide down into the hole and then all you can see is a pinprick of light.
Although this hole was much much more shallow than the holes of my youth, the view was similar and the “bottom” looked much the same. Earlier this week, I just lost it. Again, mild compared to the bottoms of my past. This used to be a cycle for me. At the bottom of my deepest hole, I lost my best friend, my boyfriend, my job and my apartment in a matter of 48 hours. I ended up in a corner crying for several days. But, although the climb to the top was much more strenuous back then, I never lost sight of that pinprick of light. This was crucial to my ability to recover from these cyclical events in my life. I actually haven’t had very many since I met my husband 14 years ago, but I just went through one this week.
It’s funny because I felt it coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it and I didn’t bother to tell anyone about what was going on. I guess I was just in denial that I could possibly sliding down into the hole, when i thought that I had grown past that.
As I said, this was mild, but I spent much of two days crying, hit another car in a parking lot with my van, picked a doozy of a fight with my husband and threw and pretty severe hissy fit.
The good news is that once I was done, i was shot into action. I have signed up for a PHP/MySQL certification course at O’reilly School of Technology. This is not exactly what I would have dreamed of taking, although the skills will be very important and essential to my future freelancing business. I really wanted to take some design courses, but the only really good ones that I found cost about $8000 for the certificate and that was a little much right now.
My husband made a really good suggestion in that I try to do something reasonably priced (the cert program I chose is $1200) that would challenge me and build my skillset and also give me a chance to see if online learning at home is something I can be successful at. Then if I enjoy it and want to continue, then we can look into the more expensive design degree. Karli is so smart, and always knows how to point me in the right direction.
I am also looking into some yoga classes so that I can get out of the house and have some alone and relaxation time. I also need to start going to the gym. Karli would probably let me go to the gym every day if I wanted and I never do. It’s so ridiculous.
I’ve taken some good steps to relieving some of the pressure and I am proud of that. There is a lot of work to do still. I managed to get three loads of laundry done yesterday and the floors swept and mopped the day before. In my state lately, not even these simplest things were getting done. I really don’t even know how my family was dealing with my. I apologize.
There are several other factors that have contributed to my situation that are starting to resolve themselves. My husband has been going through a terrible ordeal with his job for the last eight months and that is finally coming to an end. Our life has been on hold for almost a year and has just started to budge a little and I am really looking forward to moving forward.
I can’t tell you how much better i feel, just getting through the last couple of days. I feel a little joy and have enjoyed my kids in the last couple of days more than I have in months.
It’s actually pretty funny, My friend T and I go to a psychic once a year for our birthdays and last year he said that my husband would have something really scary happen with his job, but that it would turn out really well and that this year would be about introspection and rebuilding for me. It’s funny how right they can be sometimes. He also said we would be moving to someplace warm, most likely LA. So, everything with a grain of salt I guess.
So my advice to other stay-at-home moms out there is find something to do for yourself. Just for you, that has nothing to do with your kids or your husband. Get out of the house and find some way to stimulated yourself in the ways that you will find most helpful to you. Remember that you are an individual and deserve to treat yourself well.
. A couple of years back she bought me the The Best Of Cooking Light
cook book and it is absolutely one of my favorites. I cook out of it more than any other cook book I own. The recipes are yummy and healthy and easy to tweak (that’s a big one for me).
Anyway, I was very excited when my first issue of Cooking Light arrived in Late December. As I started to look through it, I realized that this was not just a cooking magazine but a living better magazine. Right across the top of the cover it says “Eat Smart Be Fit Live Well”.
Well, this is a big part of this whole journey for me so I decided the each month’s magazine could be an inspiration for the health part of my quest. Let the fitness articles bring new workouts and exercises, the recipes bring new and healthier foods and the living articles bring inspiration for new projects and goals.
They also have a website expanding on some of the things in the magazine. This should be interesting to check out as well.
I am excited about this and looking forward to learning and sharing new things.
I am talking about taking small steps toward the life that I choose. I find that when I look at the big picture as a whole, I get really overwhelmed. There is so much that I want to do and change that it just wades me down and paralyzes me. Theres stuff with the house, my health, the kids, the cleaning, what I am going to do about this and that and that and that.
So, I am trying to keep things in perspective and take life one step at a time. This is a process and not something that needs to happen overnight.
For example, this week I cleaned out two of the cabinets in my bathroom. This may seem a small thing, but for the last several months I would walk into the bathroom and say to myself “this is aweful, i need to clean out this old stuff” but then never do it.
I also washed all the hardwood floors this week. Now, I sweep and wet swiffer on a regular basis but the floors hadn’t been given a deep clean since before Ian was born.
I went to the gym twice this week as well.
Although these are small things, they are something and that is an improvement in and of itself. So my goal is to just do some things. Get up off my butt and do something I wouldn’t normally do every day.
As I write this, i realize I am sounding like a lazy apathetic person. This is not the case. I play an active roll in my life and in the lives of my kids. I am a good mom, I just feel like I am just getting by and wading through my life rather than flourishing and growing and being truly happy with who I am and where my place in the world is. I want more and am going out to get it.