excused absence

Do I feel obligated to explain why days and days have gone by without any sort of regular posting on my part? No, no guilt or perceived blogging obligation here. Do I think there are crowds of people peeking in the window, wondering why the lights are out and it's not business as usual? Certainly not, no delusions of grandeur around these parts. Do I think that my blogging absence makes any sort of difference in the big picture? Oh, absolutely not-- the world keeps spinning and you all keep going about your daily lives. For my own purposes only do I write this post, not to solicit reassuring or ego-boosting comments. From the beginning, this blog was to serve the purpose of being the place that I could record the things that were first and foremost in my mind. Happy, sad, frustrated, celebratory- the whole shebang. There's no denying what's occupying my primary thoughts these days, so it's about time to get it out.

I believe that I've mentioned my previous history with depression and anxiety- following JAM's birth, times were tough. I was overwhelmed and exhausted and questioned pretty much every single decision that I made in the course of a day. It was really an overall ugly time. When I look back on it, though, the biggest emotion that seemed to over take me was anger. I had so little patience and everything and everyone just ticked me off. Which isn't very easy to handle when you're taking care of an infant and trying to work full-time (with 4 and 5 year olds!). To my professional credit, I know that I always handled myself appropriately on the job, but to my poor family's misfortune, I didn't have that external motivator once off the job.

So why all this reminiscing of days gone by? Well, it's not easy to say, but I think that my world is coming full circle. While I don't think that I'd qualify my feelings as necessarily depression-like, I do know that I am angry a whole lot lately. I get angry at the children and their regular old childlike behaviors. I get angry at the drivers who can't seem to slow down enough to allow space for us to walk in the crosswalk at the busy intersection we cross every day. I get angry when I see my absurd stalker-in-law's work IP address pop up in my stat tracker as she still obsessively trolls through the archives of my blog every month or so. I'm so dang angry today at the hoops I have to jump through to get our damn phone and internet service correctly installed. I'm angry at the neverending home improvement list that just can't seem to shorten because of time constraints. I'm just angry. A lot.

This clearly doesn't work. By the end of the day, I just feel empty. If I'm not shaking on the inside because of the latest thing that has frustrated me to no end, I'm just blank, it seems. I'm exhausted. I'm out of shape. I'm overwhelmed with to-dos and not enjoying enough of them. I want to cry just typing these words because not only am I admitting this to the public, but I'm admitting them to myself. I'm not the best mommy I can be because I'm just not happy. I'm yelling more than I should be, and it seems that my mood so often dictates the mood of the house, which doesn't help matters.

These are not easy words to let out. Obviously I need a plan. Plans are good. Might as well start with item number one--a call is in order to my old doctor to see what I can do about these issues. It appears to me that my moods run a predictable monthly pattern, definitely increasing in intensity as my own cycle progresses, but this seems to be greater than just a little PMS. It's not even that these issues dictate my life all the time, but this past week or so has been a particularly challenging time (hence the lack of actual blogging... who wants to hear nonstop cranky, pissed-off rants?). This is my official outing of myself-- I've got some issues that need addressing so that my entire family's life will be positively affected. I know that I'm not alone. Just like when depression took over my life years ago, I wasn't the only mom feeling those feelings. But lord knows that we're just not encouraged to talk about them all that much, thus making these admissions all the harder. It's not at crisis levels right now, but at the same time, I don't want it to get to those red flag levels either, so it's time to see what can be worked out.

Hoping not to have just made a complete ass of myself,