Throughout the entire year, I am busy, working, volunteering, church, kids, etc, etc. The thought had not occurred to me until recently that I keep myself this busy so that I do not have to deal with the things that haunt me every day. If I am invested in everyone else's lives, then I do not have to tune in to my own life. After a decade of this, I may be to the end of my physical, mental, and emotional barrel.
After ten years, I have never dealt with the affects and effects of my divorce. I have packed those wounds with sawdust and let them scab over, while festering and rotting inside. I have covered them with a deep layer of fat armor. If the shell seems intact, then who is to question anything. The problem now is that I cannot seem to keep my head above water. I feel like I am suffocating and letting myself fall, almost to the point of no return. Then, I pop back up, terrified, but powerless to change things from what they are now. This scares the hell out of me because I feel that I cannot change, and that someday soon, it will be too late.
I question if anyone besides my kids would even notice if I were no longer here. I am not planning on killing myself, I just have dreams of going to sleep and never waking up. If I didn't wake up, how long would it be before anyone found me? When the busyness of life disappears and I am left to myself, alone, it is more daunting than I can almost bear. It is no wonder that I have not given myself a free minute for so many years. As my children get to the point of making their way in the world, I have come to a stark realization that I will soon have to find my own way within a new skin, that of a mother of grown children. I feel ill equipped.
I don't feel old enough to have grown children. Mentally, I am still that 18 year old who is deciding what to do with her life, where to go, what dreams to live out, how to find happiness. My life never really began because I left others overun my life, my dreams. I allowed them in to take what they wanted, leaving my heart and life a desolate wasteland. They took my very soul and left me nothing in return. I have been nothing but an animated carcass of a human being, going through the motions, never finding joy and peace, those things that I know God wants for me. For the longest, I lived, hoping that routine could replace love. Sadly, I am finding that not to be true.
I have so much anger, despair, doubt, fear, loathing, disappointment and grief for time lost. As much as it pains me to say, I look at my children with resentment because of the sacrifice of time and a life to raise them that feels lost. I love these kids from the bottom of my heart, and the shame rises up in me like vomit, but I cannot help but to admit that I feel this way. I have had a special needs child who takes everything from me until I am almost nothing. It puts a knot in my throat that never leaves because I feel this way. The root of my despair lies with my ex-husband who still cannot hold a job or be responsible for any part of raising these kids.
A 40 year-old man should be able to have accountability in this world for those whom he helped bring into the world. Why oh why do I always have to be the responsible one? If I weren't the responsible one, what would that look like? Nonetheless, I am here because these kids were brought here by me, chosen by God to be my kids. I count it a blessing that I have been bestowed this honor. I just cannot find the balance for the in-between parts that I seek to help me full contentment and fulfillment. I feel more unworthy than I can ever express in words.
I have raised my children to hopefully have a love for God and a standard for what is acceptable in their own lives. Even if I have trouble feeling it in mine. I have clawed my way to hopefully not be in the category of poverty anymore, because the stigma that comes from that label is not one that I want for my kids.
So why can I not overcome this?
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