How did THIS happen?

No one knows that I have a blog so I'm pretty safe writing whatever here. One one hand that makes me feel incredibly alone, but on the other hand it makes me feel safe. I can say what I want about who I want without any fear of anyone ever finding me.

Right now, I am feeling incredibly alone.

You know raising 6 kids takes a fair amount of energy out of a person - out of a marriage. I've been feelings less than content since number 6 was born. Some days I feel beyond blessed, but many days I feel overworked, underpaid and alone. Hubby is a good guy and I don't want this blog to turn into Soap Opera Central or a big Hubby Bash, but while I know he loves me (or is it really just "stuck w/me"), there isn't any magic happening between us. By the end of the day I need some adult companionship and he's pretty much ready for supper and sleep. Not much time for us, you know? And when there isn't time for "us" or "me", we fall into a rut.

I don't know how to get out of this rut. It's becoming a dark place for me. It scares me to feel feelings that I haven't felt since being a teenager locked inside life w/an alcoholic father. My kids are too good for a mother who can't get her shit together. God in heaven knows I don't want to repeat the cycles of my own parents. While I'm pretty confident that I won't become an alcoholic any time soon, I'm not so sure I won't follow down the path of mental instability like my own mother.

To be perfectly honest, there is much going on in my head these days. So much that I feel tired. Bone weary tired. My mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimers just as her mother (my Nana - God I miss her) was. Will this be my fate too? I jokingly tell my kiddos to take notes because this will be my fate someday, but inside my head I really feel it will be a reality for them.

My father has been dead for just over a year. Ah, yes, the alcoholic father who actually didn't do so bad at being a single parent for most of my childhood. However, his disease eventually caused some serious dementia. He didn't know me the last time I visited and he looked so old for his seventy five or so years. What I realize is that all my safety nets are unraveling or gone. I don't want to be the "safety net" yet. I'm not ready for this job. Not yet. No. You don't understand. I haven't even lived yet.

Which brings me back to my kids - my husband. I've been married for over 18 years. I'm only 37. I've been a mother for over 16 of those years. I never went to college. I never lived on my own. I feel trapped and alone and no one cares. No one likes me (boohoo), because frankly, I don't let them. I don't like myself. I don't want to be around me so why would anyone else.

It just boggles my mind because I can feel myself falling down deeper into the darkness, but I don't know how to get out. I just keep pretending I know what I'm doing and hope that eventually I'll come out into the light again.

Phew! They're gone...

Yes, all over town you can hear the collective sigh of relief coming from strung out, stay at home moms everywhere! We have been liberated by the big yellow bus and the brave souls we call teachers!
While I did do a little happy dance this morning watching 3 out of 5 get on the bus, (the oldest goes to high school...no hangin' at the bus stop with him and besides - it's way too early for me and the littlest boy doesn't start until Friday), it hit me around 1pm or so that the house was unnaturally quiet. What has my job become over the summer besides keeping warring factions from killing each other?
I'm sure within the next couple of weeks, I will fill the quiet time with different chores and projects (like some much needed painting, tiling the back splash in the kitchen and maybe even planting bulbs in the front beds to make up for the ones the puppies have dug up this year), but let it be known that the first couple of weeks of school, while filled with the quiet I've longed for since sometime mid-July, can be hard to cope with as well. For why do we have children if it isn't to delight in them - noisiness and all?