stress.

I've been incredibly busy lately, which explains the lack of posting for the last 10 days. I guess in a way it's good that I've been busy... it keeps me preoccupied. But honestly, the busier I am, the more emotional I become. It's like a constant reminder that I am doing this pretty much alone. Yes, I have my family here and I get a break every other weekend when the kids go see their dad. But I don't know how to explain it. There's no relief around dinner time when husbands usually come home from work. There's only 2 hands to take care of the kids instead of 4. There's only 1 set of eyes to keep tabs on both kids instead of 2. Day in and day out, it's just me. And I'm exhausted. I'm so exhausted I cry. A lot. I'm crying right now, for the love. My apartment is a mess, and even though I don't usually care too much about cleaning all the time, it still makes me feel like people are looking at me and thinking "Why the heck isn't she on top of this? What a slacker!" ... the same crap I dealt with when I was married. "you're lazy. there's no other excuse for it. no one else has a house that looks like this." Prime example of why :

Sunday was my mom's family reunion. After I realized that we wouldn't be going over to mom's house after church as usual, I reluctantly decided I'd cook something and we'd go. Mom was begging me to go anyway. So I get everything from the store that I need to make a couple things and Sunday morning I get up and start cooking. I made a homemade strawberry cake and Paula Deen's chicken spaghetti casserole. While I was busy in the kitchen slaving over everything (cause you know when it comes to food, I don't do half-a$$), my kids were causing drama in the living room. I'm watching them this whole time, but I've got egg shells dropping in the cake batter, flour to be sifted, noodles to be cooked, dishes to be washed, and I can't break away long enough to make them sit down and be nice. So they start having this "race" with my blinds hanging over my back door. I'm constantly telling the boy to stop. He LOVES to pull on the slats. Well, the girl and the boy BOTH starting pulling on the dang blinds and next thing I know I hear this crash. Yep. They pulled the whole freakin thing off the clips. Down onto my floor. I was supposed to leave at 11:30. By the time I got the food done, got them dressed, got myself ready and got the food packed up, it was noon. On the way out the door, I had my hands full and the boy managed to escape from me with a cup in his hand. (I don't like to let him out the door with anything in his hand. Here's why.) As I'm trying to get the door shut, and get the kids down the stairs, the boy runs over to the front part of the apartment building and throws his cup over the ledge. I was sure it was going to bust. I start walking over to go get him and make him get down the stairs and the girl was distracted fussing at the boy because he wasn't listening, that she slipped and fell down the stairs. Thankfully it was just 2 or 3 stairs, but she scraped up her back and was crying hysterically. I watched her fall, so I know it hurt. So I'm reaching for her and trying to make sure she's okay and comfort her, and the boy takes that perfect opportunity to take my neighbor's shoes that they leave outside their door and throws THEM over the ledge too. By this point I was pissed to the point I wanted to pull out my hair strands one by one and lock them in their rooms. I walk over to the boy and smack his hand, so I've got both kids crying and me fuming mad. We get down the stairs, pick up the cup, I get the cake and the kids in the car, then I have to pick up the dang shoes, carry them back up the stairs and get the casserole that just came out of the oven back down stairs. I was already sweating, we were late and I am always outnumbered.

It's stuff like that that is a constant reminder that I don't get a break anymore. Half the time the kids are gone to see their dad, I spend in the car driving to and from the meeting place. I stay up late just to get some time to myself, and get some work done... but by then, it's so late, I feel like a living zombie the next morning.

I'm trying to make my two businesses work. I want to be successful. But how can I schedule anything when I can't pay for a babysitter so that I'm not spending my entire appointments chasing after my kids and begging them to stop yelling??

I lose my insurance as soon as the divorce is final. I won't be able to afford my medicine anymore. Which means I have to wean from it. I have mixed emotions about that. I don't want to be dependant on it for the rest of my life, but I am terrified of the person I'll be once I'm not on it anymore. I can't handle comments from family or friends telling me what a stressed out, mean, crazy person I am when I don't take it. Cause you know it happens. I'm so stressed. I can't handle all this pressure. I can't do this by myself. I'm so incredibly lonely. I need a break so bad. One that's longer than a few hours or a day and a half. I don't get to ENJOY my kids anymore. I'm always the mean mom because there's not enough of me to go around to everything that I have to do. Even the basic things get pushed back because there's never enough time to do them. Don't ask me what I do all day... That's like asking why Michael Jackson was a weirdo - there's no good, real answer. I just know there's never enough hours in a day.

I feel rejected.
I look at the scale and never see the numbers come down.
I look at my bank account and wonder how long I have before I reach crisis mode? And how long will I have to be worried about it?
And what hurts the most ... are all the people I know who are in happy marriages, who have loving spouses, who are married to their best friends... there's this panic that sets in after you get divorced. You made this huge change, because things were unbearable for another minute. You give up the security. Even though things sucked, there was always the security keeping you there as long as it did. You knew you fit in. You had the ideal picture. You know that movie with Will Smith... "The Persuit of Happyness" (look it up. I didn't spell it wrong on accident.) ... I hated that movie. Bad things kept happening to him. There was never relief, there was never a good spell. One bad thing after another, after another, after another. I know my life hasn't gotten to the point that his was, but that's how it feels. Where's the relief? When will it change? I admire that he faked it every day to his little boy. He never let him see defeat. I can't do that. I'm not gloom and doom with my kids, but I find very few things left to enjoy because of my position. It's too hard to fake it. I think of him and being married and I want to throw up.

Obviously, I find myself in a dark hole right now. I have days where I feel hopeful. But right now they are coming few and far between. It's been almost 2 months now since I moved away. The divorce is final the end of June. Even then I won't really be free.

The single mom.