74: Worse… or BETTER?

Blogged on Friday, November 16th, 2007 by Rachael. Filed in Emo, Nano, Philosophical.

This month has been absolutely one of the hardest yet this year.

It wasn’t as difficult as the month I was completely without a job. It wasn’t as difficult as the month the car was repossessed, which was also the month I nearly didn’t make rent and the phones were shut off. THAT was a sucky month all around.

I was going to title this post ‘Colossal Failure’, because that is what I have been feeling like. I can’t get all my homework done. I can’t get my Nano words written because I’m so busy trying to fit my homework in. I can’t get to the store and buy a box of wipes because the car is currently broken. I can’t get to one of my jobs because the car is currently broken. I can’t go to write-ins or to the grocery store or to the school to meet with Joey’s teacher for a conference or anywhere else. (Are you catching a recurring theme here?)

However, while I was writing this sad, sorry, self-pity-soaked excuse for a post, an online friend of mine started talking to me. Well, okay, I talked to him first. I wanted to complain to someone, because I feel like my life is one big complain-a-thon right now, and it’s no fun if nobody’s there to hear you complaining, you know? It’s like the tree falling in the forest with nobody there to see it or hear it. All the drama and pathos are for naught if nobody gets to experience them.

The more I talked, the more he told me that maybe I’ve been trying to hard. (You think?!) The more I explained how yes it IS my fault, of course it’s all my fault, because I’m the mommy/person in charge/whatever, the more he told me that he thinks I’m on the right path, but I need to give myself a break. (A break?! As if I deserve one of those!!)

And then I started bawling, and then I started explaining just exactly why he was wrong, and I realized… that he was right. I *am* overwhelmed. I *am* trying to be perfect. I’m doing this to myself - not the situation I’m in, because while many of the choices I’ve made have put me here, it’s still not my FAULT that these things are happening. I’m making myself miserable because I keep taking on the guilt and blame for every single thing that happens around me, and that’s ridiculous because in fact I just remembered that I am not God.

I don’t know if I’m going to finish Nano, but I’m going to stop beating myself up over it. I don’t know if I will still have three jobs on Monday, but I will probably still have two, and that has to be enough. I do know that my kids are important enough to cause me to do my best, but NOT enough to cause me to burn myself up until I am nothing.

I think that (maybe) I am going to be okay (eventually).