I can’t believe it has been a month since I was able to write. So much has happened and I need a rest!
On the outside we are doing okay. We have a great support system of friends, we’ve kind of just barely kept in touch with family and everyone is working.
On the inside we are holding on by a thread. My husband is struggling with work and what comes next, does he keep doing what he is doing or make a change? It is especially hard because we are sinking financially. We owe everyone! The house, the car, the church, the school, utilities, etc. This is an expensive time of year when everything starts up with the school year.
Plus we have some family birthdays and a couple of friends who are having baby showers and God Child’s Baptism and niece who turns 1 next week! It just compiles because there are school pictures and pictures for soccer and snacks and…it’s hard to keep up!
We scheduled a little trip to a friends lake house in a few weeks and through it won’t cost us to stay there, we shouldn’t go. I’m feeling stressed about how much it will cost in gas to go and thinking about other things that money could be spent on.
I’m not making the problem any smaller by going over my minutes on the cell phone; 250 minutes! Then to add insult to injury, I was in a car accident. I rear-ended a friend of ours as we were taking our kids out after a 1/2 day of school. No one was hurt and her car didn’t have any damage. My husband told me NOT to call the insurance company but I thought he said I needed to call the insurance company. This turned into a big stress because my car did have damage and the insurance company wanted to do an estimate which cause strain on an already crazy schedule; not to mention the potential cost of fixing the car and increased insurance rates.
It’s times like these when I feel ill-equipped to be a human; more specifically a ‘grown-up’ with any responsibilities. I tend to spin a web in my head about how stupid I am and how I can’t do anything right. I don’t understand the consequences of calling the insurance company or not. When do you call the police to report an accident? What do I tell the insurance company? It’s all insane, can’t I just tell the truth?
So now, I’m rarely home at night because of work, so it’s no wonder I feel out of control. I’m managing days and my husband is managing nights so we are coming and going without connecting. This is the worst! Plus, the cleaning and laundry have piled up because no one has the time or energy to deal with it after running around for work, school, soccer so it becomes one more thing I am not doing right. Though I think the part of this season right now that I’m most beating myself up about is that since I’ve been gone every night this week, I’ve not been home to put my girls to bed.
Most days we are home briefly after school, long enough to grab a snack, change clothes and hopefully get a start on homework before we take off running somewhere. In these moments, I am failing too because it’s the time of day when I see the girls the most but I tend to be yelling and demanding instead of helpful. Then when I’m not screaming at them to clean up their snack mess or get stuff ready for the next activity, I’m on the phone returning calls and working.
I don’t like it, the girls don’t like it and my husband doesn’t like it either. I know he is doing his best right now too and is feeling the weight of me being gone at night. I still can’t help but feel he is doing everything I can’t do right now and I feel I should be doing. It makes me feel like I’m doing everything wrong! I’m out of control!