The "D" Word

The following post is not for the faint of heart. Just so you know. Leave now if you just don't want to hear any Debbie Downer stuff. Some of you don't want to hear it. You've even told me so, so here's your fair warning.

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So...you may have noticed I haven't been writing much. Not too many photographs, either. Perhaps you're thinking, "Oh, she just must be sooo busy with all the Happy Homemaker crap! Maybe she's canning tomatoes or something?" No such luck. I'd give my vegetable gardening a C- this year. I sucked at it and the weather didn't help any. I had a poor tomato harvest, not even enough to make a single soup.

I've been feeling depr down. Very.

Very.

Down.

Quite frankly I'm tired. I'm so tired, I've gone right through exhaustion into another dimension. Apparently it's call The Crazies. I've always suspected that long term sleep deprivation leads to The Crazies. Hey look! I'm right! Um...yay me? Now when I say long term, you'll have to believe me when I tell you that I haven't slept for 8 hours or longer more than about 3 times in the last three years.

I am not fucking joking.

Recently, Logan has decided that he needs to wake up Every. Single. Solitary. Night. for the last several weeks. Right as we get in bed, whether that's 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock or 1 am, he wakes up just as we've snuggled up in bed. Right after I've found the comfortable spot on the pillow and exhaled deeply after a long day of twin rangling, the first cry goes up.

Why? I don't freakin' know. We've tried feeding him (Maybe it's a growth spurt?!), we've tried rocking him (For two HOURS.), we've tried ignoring him (He can cry longer than we can last and his semi-hysterical crying then wakes up Emma.) and now we're back to re-Ferberizing him (Don't chew me out in the comments about this method. It works on our kids. Also? I am not co-sleeping with twins. There is no bed big enough in this house.). So. Broken sleep. A lot of it for a very long time.

Then, to make matters worse, after spending all day wrangling screaming short people, I'd like some time to myself and possibly with my spouse. This often leads to getting to bed even later. Every night I plan on going to bed at 10 pm, but then wind up One-More-Thing-ing myself until midnight. One more email. One more blog. One more lolcat. I try to eke out a little more "me" time and then, yes, suffer for it in the morning.

Yelling and crying follow.

I know that exercise would help me feel better, but it's lonely as hell exercising by myself. I know that vitamins would help me feel at least slightly more energetic, but I'm too depr down to take them. I get out at least once a day, with the twins, to go pick up Caitlin from school. On good days, I walk the mile uphill (All uphill and that's not an exaggeration.) to go get her. I'm trying to click with the local moms and am having a rough time of it. My Crazy probably seeps out when I'm talking to them and they all move away from me on the bench there. The wild look in my eyes probably gives me away.

Now before you say, "Well, why don't you go Get Some Help, dumbass!", let me tell you this: we are the face of the current healthcare crisis. We are the fucking poster children for it. We don't have HC through an employer and therefore are paying for catastrophic coverage out of pocket, which ain't cheap. Anything I do to get "looked at" and potentially "treated" will either shoot that payment up to unaffordable levels or will put me on some List and then somewhere in my future someone will be all "Pre-existing condition" up in my face. Yay for the health insurance companies and the Free Market system! It's working for ME! Woooooo!

And now you know I am all for socializing our healthcare because this is just stupid. It's a stupid position to be in and I know that I'm not the only person out here that feels down and isn't talking to a professional about it because of the potential repercussion on their coverage.

So.

I mope.

I am a bad mother. A bad wife. A crappy friend. Oh and I talk badly to myself about myself. My inner dialogue is vicious. Surprise! Few people can be as mean to me as I am to me.

Except for once, a few months ago, someone said something so awful to me that our relationship took a heavy blow. I was already down and it was like being kicked repeatedly in the face. So. That was fun.

Um. Yeah.

So the writing isn't happening. The photography isn't happening. The sleeping isn't happening. The weight loss reversed and now I'm right back where I was 2 months ago because the baking is still happening.

I'm so far down, I've got tunnel vision trying to look up. I'm not so far down that I can't get up and get moving and smile, laugh, change another fucking diaper and go grocery shopping (I hate grocery shopping. Why does my eldest need to touch everything in the store?! GERMS! Fuckin' SWINE FLU, child! Cut it out!). I spend most of every day thinking about food: what to cook, when to cook, what will they eat, why aren't they eating, cleaning up after baking and cooking, making breakfast, lunch and dinner and then cleaning up what comes out of short people that aren't potty trained yet (Insert hysterical laughter here.) and cleaning up the mess they leave behind when they do eat.

I'm fucked up.

So, please, whatever you do, if you don't want to know, DON'T ask me how I'm doing, or how I'm feeling or how things are going. Because, you see, the evil part of me will want to unload on you. The desperate part of me needs to unload on you. The cynical part of me knows you don't fucking want to know and are just asking to Be Polite. Don't bother. Maybe you are down and feel like you can't handle one more thing, or someone else's personal crisis. That's totally cool. I get that. You should note, however, that I am very careful how I greet people and only really ask "How are you doing?" if I

• want to know the answer and
• am willing to take the time to hear the answer.

I've also discovered, with help, that when you're down, sharing your pain with someone else really does lighten the burden on both parties.

Now what?

Now I wait. I'm waiting out the dark times. I'm waiting for us to have enough cash for day care. I'm waiting for yet another spring. I'm waiting for the day when I have something good to write about.

In case you're wondering why my garden looks like shit and why my house is never clean, it's because I'm waiting. I'm waiting for a time when I don't suck.

How are you doing? Because I'd really like to know.