Mommin' It Up!

February 9, 2010

Giving Pride the Finger

I do not believe it is a coincidence that the subject of pride has come up for discussion several times for me lately, with several different people, in several different environments. It’s not coincidence, because it’s something I need to think about, and work on. It is something I am sure, that God has been speaking to me about.

I believe that pride is the number one thing that keeps us from forming true relationships with each other. And by “us”, I mean women, although I think it applies to all genders, races, and creeds. Pride is the shiny veneer over a scratched dining table, the thickly-applied concealer over a blemish, the cleverly-placed accessory that covers an ugly scar.

And it’s the Berlin Wall that forms between what could be beautiful relationships. Its size is a wonder, its strength, its mass seemingly impenetrable. It is closely and vigilantly guarded.

It needs to come down.

As I mentioned before, at BlissDom I told Lotus how much her blogging about her depression had meant to me. Her courage to admit her struggles, her realness, her acknowledgment that sometimes she is not okay, gave me the strength to write about my own battle.

How much could we help each other, if we would only ask for help for ourselves? Maybe you call a friend and just ask her to listen as you vent about your frustrations as a mom. And she learns that it is okay to have those frustrations. To admit them. To know she is not alone. Maybe you confess that you have doubts about faith, marital problems, feelings of worthlessness, fears, financial problems, worries that you are screwing up your kids. Maybe you just say, “I need you to take the kids for a couple hours.” Maybe you do this, you give someone the opportunity to help you, to listen to you, to love you as you truly are, and not for how you have been presenting yourself, and you change a life. Maybe two lives. Maybe you blog about it and you change dozens.

Maybe you win yourself one true, intimate friendship. Maybe you become the answer to someone’s prayer.

Maybe you take a sledgehammer to the Berlin Wall. Make a hole big enough for someone else to escape through, to find freedom.

Maybe you find it yourself. Only one way to find out.

November 24, 2009

Marbles and Rubber Cement

It’s been the whole of this year, 2009, that I’ve been battling anxiety and depression, a battle that truly took me by surprise and to me at least, seemed to come out of nowhere. I’ve written countless posts about feeling bad, getting meds, getting new meds, feeling better, all the ups and downs that go with that sort of thing.

And for awhile, I’ve been doing great. What struggles I had were barely worth mentioning, until a couple of weeks ago. Then, for some reason, the wicked afternoons started to return. They’re a different incarnation of themselves, characterized by restlessness and a dark mood rather than weepiness – but they’re unwelcome just the same.

I wake up fine, cheerful, albeit a bit groggy, every morning, ready to start my day. Sophie and I have fun together. And then after I put her down for her nap, and before Joshua gets home at 3:15, I can feel the heaviness start to settle over me. I don’t want to do ANYTHING, yet I am restless. I don’t want to sit still, I don’t want to read a book, I don’t want to do the dishes (shocker), I don’t want to play with the kids. It’s very unsettling and generally by the time Bobby gets home from work I am climbing the walls!

So. I have a doctor’s appointment next week. I can’t help but think something chemical is being kooky in my body.

In my mind, I have been referring to anytime before 2009 as “before I lost my marbles”. Before I lost my marbles, I used to pay our bills, for instance. Recently I’ve had to give that back over to my husband. It used to not bother me at all but now it causes me lots of anxiety. That is one marble I haven’t minded letting go of.

But most of the rest of my marbles, I’ve gathered back together and glued comprehensively with rubber cement. I want to keep them, at least the ones that make me who I am. Maybe at times I’ll have to stretch the rubber cement, free a marble, and re-cement it somewhere that it fits a little more comfortably. I, like the rubber cement, am flexible, and I hope, I hope, I can be as strong.

September 25, 2009September 25, 2009

Long September

Remember that Counting Crows song, “Long December”? It’s kind of a mournful song about a month that went wrong. Well imagine me growing some Adam Duritz dreadlocks and singing that song about this particular month. September 2009 has been a rough one. It started out great, with my birthday on the 5th, but then hit Labor Day and steadily went downhill.

There is no major tragedy, no life-altering crisis, nothing to set off an alarm about. Just a series of personal and physical events that have left Bobby and me emotionally and physically exhausted. And now, we are both sick – some kind of bug that my doctor gave me an antibiotic for – just to give me something – but that yet is making us both feel terrible.

Sophie was sick at the end of last week and the beginning of this week, so I haven’t seen my friends in a week – no playdates, no coffee dates, no adult conversation! I miss them.

And to top things off, our TiVo appears to be broken this morning! How am I supposed to survive without TiVo?? I mean I might really die if I have to watch shows when they are actually on AND watch commercials. Currently I am letting Sophie watch a DVD on our laptop because the TiVo is also our DVD players, and she got me up an hour early (6:10 Sophie!? Really!!!??) and I am sick and desperate times call for exactly this sort of desperate measure.

So. Woe is me. Waaaah. Waaah. Five days left in this month. Let’s hope they fly by!