Unfocused

Lately, I have been living in quite a fog. To say that there have been highs and lows - would be an understatement. I've fallen prey to just about every trick in the book that has been thrown at me, and I am tired of letting it get the best of me.

No matter what it is: family, health, weight, children, friends, animals, temperature, geography... it has gotten to me at one point or another during the last few months.

I certainly am my own worst critic and even enemy at times. I often find myself wondering where things have gone wrong. Things sort of derailed shortly after the boys were born, and I don't feel like I've truly ever gotten control on life with kids.

Who knows what life would have been if we hadn't needed to move to Memphis. Would we have gotten back into a groove, and settled back in with our church family? Would things have settled back down, and my friendships gone back to flourishing in the way that they once were? Would we have the family help and support that we desperately need?

There isn't really any way to tell -- and ultimately the reality is that we are in Memphis today, and are trying to find the right balance to get through each day. It is difficult for me - most days I feel like I've failed at everything because I'm so stressed out... and I'm sure that it's not a fair assessment because in my mind things aren't perfect unless my kids are quiet & happy, my house is clean, dinner is ready when John gets home, and we are relaxed and happy.

The true picture of the day is that I've yelled far too many times, the house is a wreck, dinner isn't ready until almost 8 PM (the boys eat at 5PM), and I can barely speak by the time the kids are in bed for the night. Which means that I'm in bed myself trying to recover by 9... and that's only because I force myself to stay out of bed until 9.

I feel a lot of the time like a couple of critical elements are missing from my life - friends & family. I miss my people like crazy -- and miss having a best friend to hang out with and share in the craziness of having these nutty kids with. I've got three ladies that I shared so much life with back home, and I miss them more than I could ever explain. They know me almost better than I know myself, and I just haven't found anyone here that fits that bill. I have met some wonderful ladies, but I still just feel like an outsider most days.

I may be reading too much into it, but something just doesn't feel right -- and I certainly don't know how to fix it or to make myself loosen up enough to reevaluate my lot in life. Same thing goes with the husband too - a lot of days I feel disconnected because we don't really have a good babysitting option. My friends here all have their own kids and families, and I'm just not comfortable with leaving the boys with someone I don't know yet -- mainly because people are crazy and abuse kids... and while mine can't talk - I'm not cool with leaving them with someone I don't know extremely well.

I feel like we'd be much more apt to have a date night if we had our family close by -- because I certainly could trust our parents, our sisters, our friends, or our older nieces to watch the boys if we needed them to.

Being sick lately certainly doesn't help with all of these feelings -- because the longer I am sick -- the more bored and disconnected I feel from the world around me. Thank God for social media -- because I'd be postal by now with as little connection with the world as I've had lately.

I guess the holidays make these feelings come to the surface even more because it's just a tough time to juggle all the things you wish you could be doing... like shopping with friends, meeting our niece on the day she is born, and so many other things.

I wish I could just snap out of it, and hopefully I can do that with a little bit of holiday retail therapy while the boys are in school tomorrow. I'm hitting Hobby Lobby to try to cheer myself up with a few items to spruce up the house. Hopefully it works to bring a smile to my face.