12 Years

Twelve years ago today, DH and I married. I'm lucky to have him as my husband, and love him very much. He's given me a great life, a beautiful home, two beautiful daughters, and a dog. We have traveled together to many places and he is a great traveling companion.

Happy Anniversary my Dear One!

So, what are we doing for our anniversary? We did most of it last night. We went on a date! Alone!! Got the babysitter and the whole nine yards. Ate dinner at Walt's Wharf, and for once I did not fill myself up so much I couldn't breathe, but dinner was delicious! Then a nice drive along the beach until the sun set, and back to real life.

Picked up some ointment for Dad, paid the babysitter and took her home.

We somewhat discussed how disconnected we feel frequently these days, since we are both so surrounded by the details of daily life, me with trying to manage a home, and not doing very well, trying to do the best for the girls, and not always succeeding (after all, you know, I am a "spineless mother"--see previous entry), not exactly happy about being "on-call" 24 hours/day, 7 days/week for four people, and not getting very many of my projects accomplished.

Then there is DH and his own stressors--money, his work, having to work nearly 14 hours a day if you count the travel time, and barely being here on the weekends. He'd like to relax when he does finally get home, but his home has been so chaotic lately (well, for the past 2 years, really), it's nearly impossible to do that.

It's a challenge to reconnect, especially with two darling distractions constantly demanding our attention, and a four-hour date is not enough, but nearly felt like too much.

I don't seem able to keep up with everything. If I work on a project, the rest of the house falls apart. If I do the house rituals, the projects don't get done and the clutter just keeps building up into deeper piles. Maybe one day I'll get it. I hope I do. I think my dh is being driven crazy by all the "stuff" in our lives.

This is where my depression comes in to bite me. Years of "you're not good enough" messages in my head and trying to prove the opposite tend to not go away without a fight. When I get this overwhelmed I start drowning in that pattern of "I-can't-do-all-of-it-today, so-I-won't-do-any-of-it."

However, with that said, I did finish another stage of the playroom today. I worked on it for about 3 hours, and sorted all the craft-artwork-activity stuff into plastic containers which will fit into the 3rd shelving unit I will put together.

Between that, going back and forth between pediatrician and school district for BD2 so she can indeed attend school tomorrow, having my printer run out of ink completely when the urgently needed document was faxed, finding an alternative fax number (thanks, DH!), going to the favorite local department store (the one with the red circle and a red dot in the middle) to buy said ink, finding lots of other things, and getting BD1 from school friend's house because we had to return to the store to find BD2's shoe left in the shopping cart, I feel as if I've actually done something today. Add all that to then phoning the mechanic to find out when I can take my car in (again) for tires and an alignment this time, planning for our trip this weekend, advocating for my father and the lack of help he got last night when he nearly fell attempting to return dishes to the kitchen (long story), getting BD2 to take a nap (done by the ride home from the "lost shoe" store), while I assemble the 3rd shelving unit and empty the car from the original shopping trip, I should feel accomplished indeed.

However, I look at my home and my sewing is still out, having done none of that today, yesterday's newspaper is still on the front sofa, mostly unread, the three boxes of paperwork left to me to deal with by my parents is still on the front room floor, and I'm not sure if I can see the dining room table top or not, it's got so much school paperwork on it. I feel undone even though I've been thoroughly busy all day.

Ok, maybe not this past twenty minutes as I've typed this, but most of the day I've been very busy. Now it's mostly time to get ready for tomorrow, but there is still so much to do today. My mind cannot embrace this part of my life nor enjoy it.

There is so much more to this brain dump, but I'll save you from all that.

-me