Uncle

I never imagined that you could be this sad, without reason. A big important reason, like the loss of a loved one, or the sickness of a child.  I am crying at the drop of a hat. And I just can't understand it. I can't explain it, I can't justify it. But I can't stop it either.

I am so tired.

Tired of feeling this way, tired of having to work so hard. Every moment that I am not sleeping just requires too much effort.

I had such plans for this year. I was going to come home refreshed from a holiday, and I didn't. Coming home, being home, has been awful. I was going to come home to a clean house, because I'd tried to be so organised before we left, but I look around at this mess and disorganization around me, and there's just too much to do. I was going to eat better, and exercise more, and that's going great (Hear the sarcasm there?) I was going to be a better wife, and mother. If only I could bring myself to care about anything. My boy is almost one, and I thought this depression would have lifted by now. Things were supposed to be better, but they're not. And I just don't understand why.

I am tired of having sick children. While we were on holidays, the kids had croup, ear infections, chest infections, and now we have come home, and the first day Shane was back at work saw me sitting in the bathtub with a sick Charlie, and with little-boy-banana-flavoured-vomit trickling down my bra.

Uncle! I'm saying it. Uncle!!!

I'm sick of all my contradictions. I just want to be left alone, but I don't want to be lonely. I want to go out, but I don't want to leave the safety of my house. I want to exercise but I just can't seem to get there. I want to eat well, but it just feels like it is too much work. I almost wish I had never had Charlie, because that seems to have been the catalyst for all of this. But I never ever want to be without him.

I feel like a complete and utter failure. At everything.

But I am choosing to try to focus on the good.
My children are always clean, and are bathed at least once a day.
My children may get sick a lot, but they are building up their little immune systems.
They wear clean clothes every day.
My family never goes hungry, and a lot of the time, we do eat well. (In fact a lot of the time, we just eat too well!)
My husband loves me.
My children are loved, extravagantly. By so many people.
They are growing up in a home with God at the centre.
They have a mother who is doing her best, and they may watch Mummy tantrum and yell and scream and cry and lose it. But they watch her pick herself back up off the floor, they hear her say sorry, and they watch her get on with it.

I'm sorry for whining, and moaning and continuing to spew out all this negativity. But it's all I've got. I don't know how to turn the tide and change. Won't somebody tell me how?

The only thing I know for sure, is that He loves me. He has not forsaken me. He is and always will be holy and good and righteous.