Driving

I am finding it to be true that our emotions will always find a way, like water, patient and constant; or like lava, burning its way through to the otherwise mundane.

It might be the time of year - the leaves are mostly fallen from the leaves in my neighborhood. We’ve had a really crappy Fall so far, cold and rainy and/or cloudy; weather that molded my sunflower seeds before they even aged enough to pick from the flowers. I managed to save a few to plant and share, but not enough to eat. It is the time of dying and hibernating, of the big cold and sleeping. Of regret or loss, of letting go.

Pearl is just about to walk, I think. She is learning to hold herself up, balance in between a change of hand positions on the furniture. Cruising is probably just around the corner, and then pulling herself up all the way by herself, and then walking. Not far now.

And her teeth! Agh, it’s been terrible. I have counted 4 for sure on their way, maybe 5, one is all the way through, and I think another is moving up. Poor thing. My boobs are like little soft squishy pillows for the constant nursing at night and frequent nursing during the day. Again, disrupted sleep makes mama cranky. But she is sleeping now, and it’s not even 7:30. Before DST ended. This makes up for the night after night after night of not sleeping until 9:00 or later (11:00 was recent).

Pearl hates the sling while awake at home. Can’t convince her to go in - it’s not fast enough to get her in and out. And I’m fast! Two seconds is not soon enough, it must be NOW only NOW. Or else in my arms. She won’t even nurse in the sling - it’s too distracting. Life is too distracting. She needs a lot of stimulation, but not necessarily a lot of things to do, if that makes sense. It’s not like she can’t focus on something new to learn it; it’s that she’s learned it all and things bore her much, much faster than the first time. And I’m running out of clever ideas for my clever monkey. She is challenging me fast and furious, and I am, frankly, completely exhausted with the effort of house/baby/child/self. Again. Doesn’t this get old?

I’ve thought about my iron levels and am eating accordingly. I’ve thought about my need to be outside but can’t convince my anxious about everything 4 yo that she needs to walk with me. Her anxiety, my anxiety, my lack of sleep, our lack of adequate income, it’s about reached my limits. I am anxious, unable to sleep, my thousand worries haunt me like the past. So unlike me.

So yesterday my intense and lingering anxiety caught up with me. I’ve been heading toward some serious blues, and yesterday I finally had Chris’s ear for a few minutes to let him know that I was nearing a breakdown. And in the 40 minutes I had between the time I put Pearl down for the night and the first time she woke up, we planned strategies for him to be more present in the house to help me feel like I can keep up, and a place I could volunteer that would be fun and interesting. I went to bed still anxious but feeling relieved that it could get better for me soon. And then today... he was sick, and I discovered that the store I want to volunteer in is closing in a few weeks. That was it, I had no more left. I coasted through the day and after he got home keeping it together was tough. I was the lump on the chair grumbling unkindly to my children. Wishing I could just disappear for a while and cry or read or just get the hell out.

So I took $3 of my $20 in zine printing money I’ve hoarded for months and went out to buy a 16 oz hot cocoa to get away for 30 minutes. On the drive home, I felt the tears coming from some unexpected places: grief, loss, frustration, mourning, adoption, mourning the loss of not having more babies, Judy’s death, my own history, my own needs unmet repeatedly, our continued poverty. So I started crying, about love, mostly. About how hard it is to give it without feeling it all the time, without the chance to check in with myself, without conditions. About how easy it is for me to become the one responsible for everything. About my lack of sleep. About all of my losses through the years. About the dead. About my death. About how my life is important, but priceless. About how easily I am manipulated in vulnerable moments by my parents still. About the importance of feeling self-love, and self-respect.

I get tired of not being able to solve my problems of feeling tired and being broke. It is inevitable that I will break, that I will feel powerless to change my life, that I meet myself with compassion and anger. There are no solutions. My tears creep without gushing, I am driving home. My tears meet me there, where my love is, and where my children go.

(edited to remove the stuff too volatile for my blog)