A Bit Of A Funk

For some reason I have one line from a song playing on repeat in my head "stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it". How depressing, not only that, it's not even a song that I particularly care for in the first place. Truth is, I am in a funk and I can't seem to lift my spirits. For the past few weeks I feel like this dark cloud is hanging over my head. I could surmise it is due to working odd hours and having my sleep schedule disrupted or spending almost a week sick with fever, body aches, stuffiness. Honestly, I have fallen prey to bad moods in the past, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

They got really bad after Cam was born and I was overcome with emotion. Adjusting to life with a newborn, dealing with his health issues, feeling like a failure after a difficult pregnancy and emergency csection. I felt like I missed out on so much, his birth, the thwarted attempts to breastfeed, not to mention a year and a half hooked up to a breast pump. After the first 18months passed and Cam had flourished and survived two surgeries with flying colors, I began to relax. The world changed seemingly overnight from stark shades of black and white to a swirling meld of colors as endless possibilities opened up around us. I spent 18 months anguishing, quite certain in my doom and gloom mood that my son would be lost in all of the doctors, interventions, tubes, wires, and scars that marked his journey in life. I was fearful, uncertain, unsure of how to proceed, where to go next.

The colorful, intense happiness that surrounded me did not last long. Less than three months after his second heart surgery, I found myself pregnant again and scared to death. Within 10 weeks that fear intensified as I found out the one baby I was expecting was actually two. On December 30, 2000 I found out I was expecting my first child. Exactly three years later on December 30, 2003 I gave birth to our twin girls. Three kids in three years, when I thought I never wanted any. I felt sideswiped, overwhelmed, lost in a mass of crying babies, diapers, feedings, sleepless nights. It took another year and a half before I could take a deep breath and look around at the new world my life had become. It was at that point I began to implode.

I never really took the time to decompress or examine my feelings after all we had been through with Cam before I was pregnant again and gave birth to multiples. I lost all sense of myself, who I was as a woman, my fears, hopes, goals, dreams. Readjusting my views on almost everything was a delicate process, one I did not handle well. It would take another two years of introspection, brutal honesty, therapy, and a near divorce before I had some sort of handle on my life and balance was restored again.

I was not a fun or nice person to be around during those two years, I carry regrets and guilt from that time period of my life. Even three years later, I can not look back without feeling the pain of my own words and actions. I did not realize at the time, that you don't have to tear yourself down to build yourself back up again. That destroying the one person who loves and supports you will not make you stronger, instead it will cause you to question who this stranger that appears before you in the mirror truly is. My marriage did not fall apart, I systematically attempted to take it apart one piece at a time. The one saving grace was that my husband held it all together in the best manner he could, all while telling me that no matter what happened next he still loved me. I still question my motives, it seems to me I lost sight for a while of what was important, my marriage, my family, my life. If I had thrown them all away on a quest to find myself, where would I be now?

Recently, a good friend sent me an email about how my kids are amazing, how she doesn't know how I balance school/work/kids, that I should bottle my secret and sell it. I laughed, because in all honesty there are cracks in every aspect of my life even today. My girls are late for preschool a lot, because I have been sleeping, doing homework, running errands on an off day, or coming straight from work to bring them to school. My house in all honesty would be a mess 24-7 if it wasn't for the simple fact that my husband cleans more than I do. If I don't write things down on my to do list, they don't get done and even if they are on the list, often times there simply isn't enough time in the day or I still forget. I do the best I can and many days, like today and every day the past week, I actively fight the desire to get into my bed and pull those covers over my head. I know how lucky I am, that my life though far from charmed is blessed and full. My son is happy and for the moment healthy, he charms me with his words and smile, when he is not busy questioning everything I say. My girls are sunshine, laughter, full of youthful giddiness and candor and lots of attitude.

Me, well today I am here, trying my best to be present. No one ever told me motherhood would be this hard, or this rewarding. Ever moment, day in and day out brings its own new set of challenges, I just hope I am up for whatever comes next. While the desire to wallow may be there, the time is not. Now, if I could just get this dark mood to pass. Right now, the only thing I am certain of is that my bed still looks really tempting.