Head above water

I started working part-time last week after over a dozen years of stay-at-home-momming and sporadic self-employment. I hadn't planned on it. It was one of those things I just accepted into my life spur of the moment. One of those "If you get a chance, take it. If it changes you're life, let it." type of things.  So I took it. I love the job. Nothing about the job itself overwhelms me. My coworkers are awesome. Our patients are amazing. The environment is fantastic. But the shift has shaken things up for our little fam, and we haven't found our balance yet. I... haven't found my balance yet. Aaron is fine. The kids are fine. I am exhausted. Stressed. Inadequate.

Maybe it's the season. Maybe my Seasonal Affective Disorder is rocking my socks. Maybe I feel inadequate and out of balance every Holiday Season. Maybe I need to make the time to run in the mountains more than once a desperate time per week. Maybe I haven't had a committed yoga practice in far, far too long. Maybe my life hasn't been on anything resembling an even keel since July.

I hate schedules. Hate them. Everyone is stressed.  And all the stressy people are misunderstanding my loathing of schedules for loathing of them whenever they want to get together. In a season that is scheduled to the minute with everyone wanting to be together, and everyone needing to get their everythings done, I just might explode and splatter bits of me all over the Christmas Decor (I'd probably feel guilty about that too).

So I wake up overwhelmed and feeling guilty- for not enjoying the season, for my messy house, for not having gifts ready for pretty much anyone, for the beef stew that I put in the crockpot at 10 am only to come home from work at 8 to find my family starving because the crockpot had malfunctioned. Then I cry. Then I get to work and do what I can. Then I cry because it's never enough. Vent to Aaron. Fly apart a little bit. Pull it back together. Breathe. Decide what thing is going to get written off the list and forgotten. Then get to work again. Then I fall into bed exhausted and stressed about the next day.  I might grump when I have to pick up the slack. But I'm always going to be there to pick it up.

Some days the gratitude gets trampled by a heard of stress buffalo. It's still there, just flat, hard to make out, and covered in manure.

This crappy, inadequate, overwhelmed, passionate, gloriously imperfect, honest, loving me. This is the only me this world has got. So they are just going to have to deal with my best. It's going to have to be enough.