Something Needs to Change

Have you ever had a vague sense something just isn't right with your life, but you can't quite figure out what? You just know something needs to change. Well, that's where I am right now.

Actually I've had the feeling some changes have been needed in my life for a while now, and I kept telling myself, I'll work on it after the move. I'll puzzle out what's off with everything after we close. That was before I had something of a breakdown this weekend.

No more excuses, change needs to start now. I still don't know exactly what's off, but I do know of a few areas where I'm just not happy. I intend to begin working on these things, and I'll go from there. Somehow, someway, I'm going to get myself worked out over the course of the next fifty-two weeks. I have to for the sake of the girls, my marriage, and my sanity.

Hubby made two statements the other day that stopped me in my tracks.

1. "You know, that's the first time I've heard you laugh in ages."

2. "I've lost my wife to mommy."

The second stung, but I used the girls' nap time yesterday to think on what he'd said.

I've been one to read mommy blogs and parenting boards since I was about halfway through my first pregnancy, so I knew about the importance of not loosing yourself in the responsibilities of parenthood. It's a huge, life changing thing, but you need to make at least a little time for one-on-one with your spouse and quality time by yourself as well. Yet, I think I may have fell into the all parenting all the time trap.

I looked out for something like a spring trap that snaps closed all at once, but I stepped in quicksand. Sad thing is, I didn't realize it until I was up to my eyes in the muck.

I'm a perfectionist with some obsessive tendencies, always have been. There seems to be one thing a lot of folks don't really understand about perfectionists. For many, the urge to strive for perfection stems from a vast underlying sense of self-doubt and inferiority. It's an attempt to make up for what they view as lacking.

What I'm getting at is from the moment Boo was born, I just knew I wasn't much of a mother, and I needed to do better. Did I know everything about parenting? No! Who does? Did I tend to my daughter's needs, physical and emotional? Yes, but you couldn't tell me it was enough.

I always had to do more, so I kept sacrificing a little more and a little more of Amanda to make more room for Mommy.

I haven't picked up my clarinet, other than to move the case out of the way, for over three years now. The only reason I've picked up any of my other instruments was to introduce Boo to them, but I always kept writing. If I lost all else, I still had my dream of writing sci-fi.

Then I said good-bye to writing altogether back in August. There just wasn't enough time in the day it seemed between tending a toddler, a newborn, and keeping up with the household chores. Even if I did manage to find a few minutes, I had difficulty concentrating, so I gave up on my dream of writing anything, even a blog post.

I mourned for a week and slowly lost more and more of myself over the next five months until I finally started to sink into a depression.

Obviously I've already begun to write again. I wrote about the epiphany I had a few weeks back on the other blog. It's helped - tons - but the recovery of Amanda from the waste bin has just started.

I hope you'll follow the journey. I could certainly use the help and encouragement along the way.

* Picture is of me with Boo and Sneak our first morning home from the hospital, well, technically we were at Mom's house at the time.