Yesterday Janet Roach showed up on my doorstep with honey muffins. Had I not been on this cleanse, I would have kissed her right there at the doorstep. She said she’d worried about me. For a while now – very worried.
Last week – and last month – I got a message from Sharla Kwarm (RS Pres) pretty much saying the exact same thing. Then today Carrie messaged after we’d spent the day together to ask if I was okay, because she sensed something was off and felt concerned.
Anybody seeing a trend here?
I decided they must be right about some of it. After considering recent interactions, I have to agree, something is different. I am more introverted. I am less engaged. I do find light, casual conversations, the kind I typically have with Tami Wardell and Carrie while we wait to pick up our Kindergarteners, to be quite boring. But, to some extent, is nothing new. I like weight. I like real. “How was your weekend” is fine and all, but lately even that type of conversation just feels more difficult to get myself engaged in. And some people just don’t have questions and thoughts pouring out of them. (And if they did, would we talk about it as we waited for the bell? No. But I wish so.)
…I don’t really feel like a deep, pensive, thoughtful soul… until I spend time with the fellow moms around me. Then I guess I have to admit, maybe I’m not as profound as I wish I were, but I do have more going on than I give myself credit for.
But then, the question arises: What on earth is making me this way? Having others randomly ask after me feels oddly familiar. It’s happened before – I feel pretty certain about that. Not quite sure when. Maybe the last time I was like this was when the Raba Kistner job didn’t come through. Or maybe it was when Scott has his master’s degree and was busy working full-time at Home Depot. If I had to pin it down, I would guess that maybe this is what my typical response to great stress looks like. Maybe this is my brain on stress.
Life is weird right now. I have this perpetual leash, reigning in what I can and can’t do. I am constantly punished for the fact that my body has done some weird shaking thing, usually when I’m asleep. I’ve only had three. It’s not like it’s a day-to-day problem in my life. Yet the ramifications are huge. I feel those every single day.
But I can’t change it, so I never really talk about it. For that matter, I never really think about it more than I have to. Usually it’s just an audible sigh, and my brain thinking, “this is just the way things are right now,” as I suit the children up for a walk to school.
Seizures are a burden that I just always bear, and never really set down. But I also never show it. What would be the point of that?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know if it’s the seizures that have me in this funk. Maybe it’s got way more to do with the worry of when and how Scott will get a decent job after graduating. Or when he’ll for-sure graduate. Or if he’ll get a job in Logan (doubtful, speaking in terms of their rankings) or BYU (still doubtful, given their history, but I still reserve a place for hope.) Maybe it’s when I’ll be able to get pregnant and complete our family and be DONE with the whole fertility bit. (totally stresses me out.) Maybe it’s my ADD symptoms that make the house messy and make me feel like a perpetual disappointment of a wife and mother, despite knowing I’m doing a fine job in (most of) the stuff that really matters.
I don’t know. But after giving it quite a bit of thought since Janet’s visit yesterday, I do have to own it. And I don’t know how to change it – and that scares me even more with winter coming on. I’ve always had a bit of SAD, and I really don’t need anything to escalate the problem.
Loading comments...