Just because

It's fair time, and I love fair time (as mentioned here and here) and I just wanted to post a "now and then" picture. Just because.

Whelmed

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" (Name that movie...)


I can honestly say I am overwhelmed. I wish I were Super-Mom. I wish I had it all together. I wish I had a healthy dinner prepared every day, a perfectly-staged house and well-behaved child. But I don't. I am a single-working mom. We often eat McDonald's, I am always running late and my house is a construction-zone. I live in what I call "survival mode."


I work nine hours a day, plus a total of an hour drive time daily. I pick up Piper from day care, get home, cook and eat dinner, clean up, maybe do a load of laundry, bath time, brush our teeth and then bedtime. Sometimes it is 9 p.m. before I sit down for the first time since getting home from work. And it's catching up with me - emotionally and physically.

Being Type-A, having an unorganized house is torture. I'm exhausted. I clean and pick up, and as soon as I turn around, it's messy again. I have stacks of mail and school work scattered through my house. Unfinished projects in every room. And it drives me bonkers.

Individual

I recently made a big purchase - A house. It's been two months of chaos and stress, but I did it. I bought a house. On my own.

I was sent an amendment to my original contract to correct my name and classifying me as an individual.

Yes, I should be proud, excited, overjoyed about this major life purchase for me and my daughter. But, seeing the word individual staring back at me broke my spirit a little bit.

Why are we so often defined by our relationship status? And, does it make me less capable to own a house since I'm not married anymore? Anyone who knew me and my ex when we were married can testify that I am more than capable of taking care of a home by myself - as an individual.

Eh...

So, I thought I was doing well, but the few days since my last post have been spent in a weird mood. Yes, I have reached the one year mark of the end of my marriage, but it is also the one-year anniversary since the death of my marriage.

And the death of my marriage was slow and painful. It was six months of fighting, praying and holding onto any smidgen of hope I could find. And then the plug was pulled...and the marriage flat-lined.

I blame my emotional roller coaster on a trifecta of emotions - turning a year older, one year since the end of my marriage, and that monthly visit from a certain annoying aunt.