I seem to lack any and all genuine focus these days. Perhaps it's because I feel so pressed for time with the imminent arrival of my oldest son, Matthew - Meg's twin brother. He arrives next Monday and I've done next to nothing to prepare for him. The guest bedroom that used to be Zack's (my youngest son) is now more of a "I don't know what to do with it, so just throw it in there with the rest of the shit and we'll go through it later" room. Well, "later" is here and I find myself not having a clue in hell as to what to do with all that shit!
Truth be told, our entire house looks like the room described above and that has me stressed beyond belief. It's gotten to the point where I don't even know where to begin sorting through all this stuff. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it, and then end up not even tackling it. I know that once I start sorting and clearing and organizing that the momentum will build and it will get done. It's just getting to that point that is difficult.
There are other, emotional and mental issues I'm stressing over which have me running for the medicine cabinet and grabbing the Xanax bottle. I've covered the bathroom mirror with a towel because I hate to look at myself every time I take a Xanax for fear that the woman starring back at me will be unrecognizable and then "tsk tsk tsk" me that I'm relying on pharmaceutical friends rather than the real, flesh and blood kind to get me through this. Sometimes though when my heart starts racing and I can't seem to control the thoughts running through my head, or I wake, drenched in sweat and in tears from yet another nightmare, the Xanax takes me back down to a level that slows everything down and lets me catch my breath. Of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't worry about how much Xanax I'm taking and questioning whether or not I'm developing a dependency on it. Perhaps my bulimia was getting lonely and needed a buddy? No? I know...it's not anything to joke about.
I haven't seen Matthew in two years and I'm extremely apprehensive about his reaction once he sees me. I am a very different woman than the one who dropped him off at the airport at three o'clock in the morning in July of '07. I'm 100lbs heavier (Oh my God, just reading that last sentence feels like a punch in the chest!), the dark circles under my eyes are much more apparent, and I move at a snails pace compared to the mom who hugged him, with tears in her eyes and told him to hurry back. I'm pretty much a shell, albeit a hugely inflated shell, of the mom he left behind. I am dreading having to see the repulsion in his eyes. Matthew doesn't know the details of the "very bad thing" and it's better that way because he doesn't process trauma like that, very well. He knows only the barest of basics and as a family, we've decided that's for the best. I hope in time I can make him understand that I'm trying to claw my way back to the surface and to be patient with me.
Will he like living in Maine? Just something else I worry about, especially with our hit and miss summer which has been more "miss" lately than anything else.
You don't even want to know how badly I'm stressing about our house, money, and generally hating living where we are, but yet I'm the one who insisted on the huge house with a monstrous yard and here we are, and again, I hate it. We seem to be surrounded by "For Sale" signs, some of which are foreclosures and it's bringing our own property value down. I imagine this is an identical scenario that's playing itself out all over the country right now. The thing about our little town? No one goes out of their way for anyone else. No one extends themselves in friendship or neighborliness. Everyone lives in their own cocoon and doesn't want to burst the protective shield they've built up around their lives. In short, it sucks.
We came from the most wonderful little neighborhood and when we first moved into this house and tried meeting our neighbors and talked about hosting a huge BBQ to get to know everyone, no one was interested. To this day I couldn't tell you the names of any of our neighbors, with the exception of the family who lives directly across the street and that's due to the simple fact that Meg rode to school with their eldest daughter for the first part of her senior year.
I'm trying to be happy with what I have and make the best of this home...our first as homeowners. The hubby has bent over backwards making sure I have a kitchen I'm proud of and he's got an endless supply of ideas for other things we can do to make the house feel more like a home. Yet I know, deep down inside, he wants to go back to Cape Elizabeth almost as much as I do. I feel guilty that I'm unable to 'like' living here or feel comfortable amongst people I harbor so much animosity towards. I have too many bad memories of things that have happened to me in this town and every time I leave my front door I'm reminded of those things, or see people who were part of it.
In the end, all the time-related pressure and stress I'm under boils down to me not being happy in my own skin or where I am in life right now. I have a feeling the hurdles in the marathon to "find me" aren't over yet. I just pray that I don't run out of steam, or the willpower to continue the race.
Despite knowing all the challenges this period in my life is presenting me with, I still have much to be grateful for. Healthy, happy children. A husband who loves me and holds me up when I can no longer stand up on my own and provides for his family despite having a wife that could stand to do a little bit better with the family budget, and a home, a home that is comfortable, safe and secure and a place in which the people here gather as a family - to laugh, cheer, support, encourage, cry, yell and scream, and to just be.
I am blessed; so very very blessed and don't think I don't know it! No matter how dark my abyss gets, I can always see through enough of the darkness and not be blind to the blessings in my life.
In light of how much everyone does for me, I thought I'd try to distract myself and de-stress a bit by making a pie...a raspberry/blueberry pie (my first time ever making ANY kind of berry pie!) with berries from a local organic farm the the hubby and Little Imp picked for me. It's not much, and granted, I'm not the greatest baker, but it does something for me, and provided it ends up edible, it puts a smile on my family's faces.
Of course, these three could care less. They came into the kitchen when I started futzing around with the pie...
...and here they remain, trying to get out into the back garden to capture a chipmunk or two, long after the pie is done and sits cooling on the counter...
