I'm broken. I think it's my soul. But I'm not sure. Nothing seems to be functioning correctly. It's been a pretty monumental spring, if we are building monuments to Shocking Revelations and Major Aging Landmarks. Halle graduated from high school. With honors even. And if that doesn't make you feel ancient, I turned 37. Maybe it's just that 37 is the year that broke that dang camel's back on top of a rough couple of years, but either way, something in me broke down and won't get fixed. My mom has always told me that I just needed to learn how to be content. Now I hear it from my husband a lot. I'm just Really Bad at that. Along with most other Adult Things.
Things have been rocky at home in a houseful of girls and one Very Expressive Male. That's what you'd expect from teenagers in general, so it's no shock. And even though, truth be told, I have Really Good Kids, and I mean that. For all of their faults and flaws they're amazing little women. All four of them. But even amazing little women squabble and bicker - especially when it's modeled for them. But at some point, you just have to blow the whistle and call a truce. I made a new rule for the house. It resulted in the prompt relocation of every member of my family. Josh claims to be "at work for only two out of every seven" days, but so far from my count he's got his numbers backwards. I think he should be glad I feel that way, because obviously I miss him. And sometimes, FYI, absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder. Just sadder. And sadder. And I'm not the kind of girl who ever planned on being content in a long distance anything. But I'm adaptable. Right? He's happy, so that's important. The kids, on the other hand, basically just ran away to their dad's house where they don't have this rule, apparently. It's way more fun to just duke it out in the living room floor when you get ticked off.
I think it's a good rule though, because it's all about kindness. And even though it meant all of the dogs had to go live outside because none of them are kind to my already disgusting floors, and beyond disgusting furniture, I'm hell-bent on upholding it at all cost. Josh is a little bit confused because he misunderstood "be kind" as meaning "don't disagree with him about anything", which clearly it doesn't since he is so often wrong, but we're sorting it out. Or I am helping him sort it out. Kindly.
My computer broke. Last week sometime. Long enough ago that now when Halle comes downstairs from her Halle cave (where the kindness rule still applies but no one ever goes because it is THAT SCARY) to ask if she can borrow my computer to watch anime shows and Skype Melanie, I burst into tears at the memory of a working computer. Where I could sit and write. Or stalk people on Facebook. Or get great ideas to never try on Pinterest. Or fill out my online portfolio for Casting360 so I can be an extra in a zombie movie they're making in Spokane. I'm crippled. Handicapped. On top of a broken soul, an old body, and no voluntary kindness, I have no computer.
Also, as a side note, my hammock collapsed. So I can't even have a pity party in my hammock.
Today I woke up, promptly despised the day, renamed it from Monday to Eeeyore (because it's boring and lonely), with the help of a brother, and volunteered to help distract my sister from her list of Imperative Things To Accomplish. Guilt for this undertaking set in around 1130 AM, so I went back home in my pajamas, cleaned up three puddles of pee that the unkind dogs left, did laundry, shoveled poop out of the yard until I threw up (literally, which is amazing since I hadn't eaten since my friend's wedding yesterday afternoon), painted a chair, sold some Scentsy crap, made a date to look at a trailer, canceled the unwelcome trailer date when josh found out, mopped floors, repotted struggling aloe Vera plants, ran on my elliptical until I threw up again and got angry at the very idea of exercising (those memes on Pinterest about never regretting a workout are total BS, BTW), watered the lawn, took a shower and made a pot of pinto beans. All without a computer. But it was hard. Think of all of that work I could have avoided if only I had a computer.
Now I'm at the river. I rode my bike down. It's beautiful and peaceful and just comfortably warm. But I still feel broken. And sad. I have more plants to plant at home. And by now more dog puddles. Although I'm seriously considering converting my house into a sacred shrine to dog hair and pee stains. Sometimes you just have to bend with the wind. I guess I'll go home and eat beans. It will give me something to throw up when I go shovel the rest of the dog poop in the yard.
I have so many big things inside of me that I want to say. Important things. To my girls. But they're all choked up inside of my broken soul and can't find their way out. Some of my "friends" say I'm just too much drama. Someone told me I am not sane, which is the same as crazy, but sounds slightly nicer. I think I'm too much passion. And with no outlet it's choking me to death. I worked hard for so many years to not be domesticated. To be out there doing cool things. Fighting fires and building trails and saving lives. But here I am. Potting plants and cleaning up after Too Many Dogs. Always the reluctant mother. Always discontent. I want to go join the military. Become an astronaut. Do something scary. Not plant flowers. But that's my job. Planting flowers. Keeping them alive. Cooking beans. It's not a bad job. I just feel like I've given up. I feel broken.
The most important things I would say to Halle, who is now "technically" an adult, and all the other people dragging their grown up feet like me, are these:
My self worth isn't measured by what others do to me. It is measured by what I do to them.
I can't make anyone else be a good person. I can only try to act like one myself.
Bad behavior to me doesn't excuse bad behavior from me.
Be real, or don't be at all.
Forget to hold grudges.
Choose your response.
Everything is out of your control except your attitude and behavior.
Life only gets easier if you let it.
Oh yeah and one more:
Just take your damn Prozac.
