Balance?

I'm having some pretty wild mood swings. Every single day I burst at the seems with grattitude for this family of mine, and feel so in love with Grant, and so proud of all I'm getting done...and feel like I'll go crazy if I don't get more sleep, and like I'm so fat and nasty and heavy, and like I HAVE TO HAVE A BREAK. These two extremes lap over me like waves, with nary a transition between.

I seethe with anger over how much there is to do and how it's like running in a hamster wheel, with no end or conclusion ever in sight. Then Isaac makes me laugh and it's as if someone swept everything off of my mind at once, like brushing things off of a table onto the floor. Or I lay with Jake smiling at me, loving him, holding him, *cherishing* this fleeting time...and as soon as he gets restless or someone interrupts, I start frantically trying to think of anyway I can get out of the house alone to go anywhere at all BY MYSELF.

I've started struggling with old, dead issues - I keep wanting to wander off inside my mind and hang out somewhere else for awhile. I grit my teeth and breathe and pray to not fall into temptation, or to even be tempted. I wonder why I would want to be anywhere but here, here where someone is hugging me or giving me a backrub every few minutes. Here with Grant who let me sleep in, went grocery shopping alone with all the kids while I was out (after handing me the body pillow). Here with my yarn and my plans and my daughter.

Part of me comes spewing up like lava, though, part of me wants to go running outside and just - run. And run and run until I was gasping for air and miles away. Spin in the street with the thunder and rain. You aren't 15 anymore, you can't just knock on doors until someone you know answers and ask for a ride home.

I smother down the spewing part of myself with food. It works in a bloated sort of way.

Is my problem -

-lack of uninterrupted sleep
-lack of free or personal time
-lack of a church home and deeper spiritual life
-my lingering festers of illness
-that my hormones are all out of wack because my cycles are getting back to normal and all my extra pregnancy hair is falling out...

Perhaps I should make a pie graph. Perhaps it is totally normal for me, as a 24 year old woman who turned her back on full college scholarships when I got pregnant unexpectedly, to have a hard time now and then raising 4 young kids. On a tight budget. Without our own place. Or any babysitter. But this is what I'm used to, it's the result of my choices, it's something I've worked up to gradually through a series of steps and really...I do feel I have it better - way better - than my single counterparts.

Hiccups, maybe.

I realized the other day that it's been almost 7 years since I was in high school. Then today I looked over at Grant, and he was sitting in the drivers' seat of the van with sunglasses pushed back on his head. His hairline is back a little further than it used to be, and he was wearing a button down, collared shirt. I couldn't stop staring at him and trying to express whatever it is that I wanted to say. He saw the chiropractor today for this injury that's been bothering his back for a month and a half, and everyone who hears how he got hurt says something chuckling, something incredulous - "What the heck were you doing trying to ride a skateboard?" These are people around the community, Kiwanis club members, people on the board of the Chamber of Commerce, people who are in charge of the marketing for the bank. And I realized that he probably hasn't ridden a skateboard to work in a year or more.

I guess there is still a sliver of me that thinks it's murder to be mature, consistent and reliable. Not even suicide; it's like these are separate selves at stake and I am a traitor.



...Es la hora de dormir, as Annie told me quite awhile ago.

I love water. And, many many messages behind the cut.

Last night was crazy, after I wrote my dramatic entry. Jake just would not sleep, and Isaac wet the bed, and then wanted a diaper, and then wanted some water, and then was so upset about who knows what...Grant gave up and resigned at like 4 am, but it took mah baby a couple hours longer than that to throw in the towel.

He woke me up this morning because there was some special on Discovery about stay at home moms, there was this mama talking about how her and her child and husband all live with her parents because it's the only way they can afford to live on one income, and they're non-vaccinating vegetarian etc etc while her parents just think all of that is weird...I was like, "I didn't realize the internet happened on tv too" *headscratch*

I was also PISSED about being awake, bitter and snippy and generally allowing myself to take myself way more seriously than I normally do. Grant and I feel free to laugh at each other or ourselves for bad moods, normally, but this morning I was acting uber emo and just...couldn't deal. I don't know.

I had fruit salad I'd made the night before to hand out for breakfast, then I made pancakes and sausage awhile later for lunch as he was heading off for out of the house work, and today is the day I had "booked my sister" in advance for child-free recreation, but he had appointments...I was not happy. I was coping but in this "Please just everybody LEAVE ME ALONE" kind of way.

But then mommydama posted some Mother Teresa stuff in her lj that I needed to see, and I read it about a dozen times, and prayed, and left Grant a voicemail about how it's ok with me if he needs to work, I'm sorry I was freaking out, and I saved him some lunch if he gets hungry. I talked to my sister on the phone. I reveled in how independantly Jake plays for HOURS out of everyday, and laughed my head off at Isaac running around in nothing but a see through pink over shirt, with Fifth Disease splotchy and red all over him.

Then Grant came home and gave me a $20, and I went and got Laura. We went through Wendy's for chicken nuggets for her and a baked potato for me, and then swam at the Y. It was...really good. I don't know how to tell you how good. I don't even know why it was so good. But just to be driving around, listening to music and getting some food with another grown up female was SO AWESOME. And changing in the locker room, taking showers, swimming laps and talking...all day ever since I've been stopping to feel refreshed and think back to how great it was. I really needed some time with no strings attached. I can't remember when I last got in and out of the van independant of carseats or diaper bags. She's pregnant and we have so much to talk about. For some reason while I was in the pool my mid to lower abs started working again for the first time in, oh, 2 years? I mean I can suddenly feel them and flex them a little again. This gives me hope that I may be able to eventually hoist up my sagging cut-and-stitched muscles after all. It's so bizarre, it's like I got a new limb. I keep tightening them up. I wonder if I'll get back feeling in the skin above them or not. Part of my body came back to life, who knew.

Sooo...I brought her home with me and made pork chops with onions, garlic parmesean mashed potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner, and still with the Jake being low maintenance and the Isaac being unbearably cute. Then I took her home and ate chocolate, and read Narnia to Ananda and an old issue of Your Big Backyard to Aaron (did you guys know cheetahs chirp like birds?) and now I'm here, with some dishes to do and some laundry to move and maybe, just maybe, some sleep to get. Wouldn't that be something.

( I have a lot of personal messages to give out, and I am completely lacking in computer time. So I'm gonna tell a lot of you things under this cut, because it's the only way it'll ever happen )