I love blogging. I love being able to keep up with my friends and what cute things everyone is up to. I usually post about once a month to give everyone a chance to keep up with me. I don’t usually post too many of my feelings however. For whatever reason, I’m feeling the need to express some thoughts I have been having lately. I know that I am a pretty open person and am not shy about what is going on when I’m talking with my friends. Posting this for the world to see, however, is a little different but here goes. I am fighting a battle of opposites in my life. I am both satisfied with my life and unsatisfied, I think I am a good mom and I think I am a horrible mom. Is that possible? Everyone is always telling me how amazing and strong I am but truly, I am not. For those of you who know me, you know I am not a crier. Other than getting frustrated with the stupidity of others :-) I generally have a pretty even temperament. So, how shocking is it that I cry all the time now! Even typing this I feel like I need to have a good cry. It’s so confusing! I wouldn’t say I’m depressed necessarily, maybe just kind of stuck in a rut? I don’t know. I kind of feel like my life is passing me by. When I was in high school I had all sorts of grand plans before I settled down, I wanted to get my pilots license, I wanted to travel, I wanted to join this cool theater/singing group that I can’t remember the name of now and bust most importantly I wanted to live in the Seattle, WA area and become a Marine Biologist. I always thought that I would get married but I never dwelled on whether I would have kids or not. Needless to say, my life is nothing of the sort. While going to UVSC I worked at a care facility for handicapped kids called Tiny Tots. While working there I discovered I had an interest in the medical field. I was a ‘do-er’ so I signed up for an EMT class. I also found through a graphics art class that I had taken that I was also interested in that field. So, by the time I completed my Associate’s Degree I thought I should take some time off from school to figure out the direction I wanted to go. During this hiatus from school my lovely bff, Stephanie, introduced me to a friend of hers from work (don’t worry, I have absolved her of all responsibility.) Obviously I am talking about Sean. I was 20 years old and thought I had met the person I was supposed to spend my life with and stopped living my life. I started to live the ‘married’ life that I thought all good Mormon girls are supposed to live. I’m not going to get into all of the details of what happened on here. My point is that my post married for nine years, three kids, financially struggling semblance of a life is nothing like my fun-filled, friend-filled, dating-filled pre-married life. I’m the broken down car on the side of the road while all the shiny working cars are getting to where they want to be. But as I’ve been trying to figure out these feelings I think I’ve narrowed down the specifics and I want to get them written down so I can make sure I have addressed everything I am feeling and then figure out what to do about it all. Wish me luck!
1) Being broke sucks. Thankfully, I have a stable, okay-paying job but by NO means do I have a lot of money. Because of that I have to be really good with money. I know how to budget, pay my bills on time and how to stretch a dollar. But, to be honest, I’m tired of it! I want to be able to go buy a pair of shoes and buy the ones I WANT! Not the ones that are on sale and aren’t quite as cute as the ones I want but I’ll get them anyway because they are so much cheaper. Not all the time because I am pretty frugal by nature. But, every once in a while it would be so nice to splurge. Also I want to travel, a lot! I want to take my kids to do fun activities. I want to be able to go on trips with my friends every once in while. I want a new car! Mine literally is falling apart. It has 190K miles on it. I just finished moving from my house in Mapleton to a townhouse in SF. It took me a while to be ready to give up the big, nice house but it finally got to the point that I needed out so I could live again.
2) I need to lose weight. I think this plays a lot into my feelings of discontent. I still think of myself as the cute skinny girl and I hate the reality check I’m faced with every time I look in the mirror. My excuse is that I don’t have enough time. That is BS. I do have enough time. The real problem is that I am exhausted all the time. I am constantly thinking about when I can finally go to sleep. I hate being tired so I make sure I get around 8 hours of sleep each night because if I don’t, the next day I can tell. I need to quit complaining, get my life in order, suck it up and wake up early enough to get on the treadmill. Most adults don’t get enough sleep. I need to get off my pity party and start moving.
3) I am not a good mom. I mean it. I am way too short-tempered with my girls. They are kids for goodness sake! I expect them to act like adults and get mad when they don’t. I want my kids to understand the value of hard work and discipline but also relaxation and fun. I want them to be able to feel like they can come talk to me about anything. Right now, some one else is filling that role and it makes me angry. I need to work much harder on this.
4) I need to get out of the house more. I love being at home and I love my hobbies, reading, playing piano, crafting in all of the many projects I have worked on, cooking etc. But, I don’t feel like I’m ‘living’ anymore. Not that I want to go wild and crazy but I want to experience life again. I have a great support system because of my wonderful friends. I am blessed to know so many people with different personalities, struggles, triumphs, strengths and weaknesses. I have so many good examples to follow. But, I hardly ever get to DO anything with them. Every once in a while is not enough for me to be satisfied. There is work Melissa, mom Melissa, church Melissa, divorced Melissa etc. All of these “personas” are part of me. I need the social Melissa to have a little bit of a bigger role.
5) I need to follow the gospel. Don’t get me wrong. I have a strong testimony of the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What I need to do is better follow the actual practices and have more faith in trusting the Lord. If I had a better sense of this in my younger years I wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes I’ve made in my life. Although, I guess I never would have realized this if I hadn’t gone the trials I’ve had right?
Well, these are most of the things that are bothering me right now. And yes, writing them down as helped a great deal. I guess the important thing now is what I’m going to do about them. That will take some time to figure out but I feel like I’ve taken the first step to get back to me.
Oh, don’t be surprised if I end up deleting this.....I am embarrassed even putting it up. I just needed to vent.
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