On the Giving Up....

It has been a long six months since my last post.  My life has been the typical roller coaster that life brings, with the added kinks that battling depression brings to it.  Going back on my medication has helped.  It brought my anxiety under control very quickly.  It has helped with the depression.  I feel like it hasn't helped as much as it did before I went off it.  But...that choice was made and I can't go back and make it differently now.

So many things have happened in the last six months.  We took an amazing family vacation to the Caribbean, and were blessed to be able to share that with friends.  It was a great week.  We were totally unplugged and totally in the moment together.  It was hard to come back to reality after that.  Being away from everything felt so good, it was so freeing.  I wish I could feel so carefree every day.

We went on our vacation the last week of April, and then May and June passed by in the blink of an eye.  My kids are growing so super fast!  My Anne lost her first tooth, finished First Grade, TURNED SEVEN, and had her very first dance recital. This picture was from right before she went on stage.  She was SO nervous to be in front of all of those people.  When she was done I asked her how it was.  She told me she loved it.  "Who wouldn't like being up on the stage like that Mom?" she said to me. Well, I wouldn't!  I love the pluck this girl has.  She faces her fears with courage and grace and always finishes smiling. 

She has her own ups and downs though and we are working on that.  She feels emotions so deeply and often acts on what she feels before she thinks things through.  It is hard at the age of seven to recognize that point in yourself when you lose control of your behavior to your emotions.  I struggle with that sometimes myself.  She is destined for greatness though, my girl is, she is always full of surprises.  She got an award at the end of the school year for Kindness, and honestly no grade she could receive would could make me prouder than that.  Kind and Brave is what we are going for and she is well on her way.

Then there is my little guy, my Matthew.  In the past two months he has finished preschool, had his kindergarten orientation, fallen totally in love with Star Wars, and scratched his cornea in a scary accident.  Thankfully that healed quickly within a couple of days, but that is not an experience he or I will easily forget.  It was so hard to say good-bye to our pre-school.  Anne went there for two years and then Matthew started after she finished and did two years as well.  It was a part of our daily lives for four years and just like that it was over, and my baby is ready for kindergarten.  Wow!  This picture is of him walking out of the pre-school for the last time.  I cried.

All of this kids growing too fast and too many things changing has been very overwhelming for me.  I feel like I am losing my babies.  I know I still have lots of time with them, but I also know that time will fly by!  My snuggly, baby boy is going to Kindergarten and our afternoon snuggles before school pick up time have come to an end.  I already miss him and school doesn't start for two more months!

What is most overwhelming is the change in my Mom status.  I have been at home on full press kid duty for seven years, with both kids in school full time, this role will change significantly.  I know they will still need me and they will still be my priority.  I will be there to take them to activities, make sure they do their homework, make their lunches, and be there for any illness or injury.  I just don't know how to handle my time anymore.  If I think too much about what I want to, or should do with my time after school starts I have to stop thinking about it, because I don't know how to proceed.

This is the part where I have given up.   This depression and other life events have brought me through so many ups and downs and stops and starts I feel like I have given up on progressing forward.  Now don't get me wrong, I have generally and slowly moved forward over the last five years.  Things are very different now than they were in the beginning.  I just feel like real change is something that is not going to happen.  My view of how I should spend my days and how I actually do spend my days are very, very different.  I am not a perfectionist or an idealist.  I don't imagine some utopian lifestyle that is impossible to attain.  I just can't set and accomplish goals for myself for the simplest of things.  I can't make it to the gym on a regular basis.  I stopped going last fall when Anne got really sick with strep for a week and I pretty much never went back.  I never actually enjoyed going....it was much more soothing for me to spend my alone time getting things done and prepping for the holidays.   The longer I stayed away the easier it became to not return.  Now when I think about it I kick myself for wasting the money, because I haven't cancelled my membership, because I have to actually go to the gym to make any changes in my membership.  That is a more extreme example.  I have also failed miserably even at the smallest of goals I have set for myself, such as reading for a little while each day or getting in my devotional time every day.  I just feel like I keep failing over and over again so I just stopped trying.  It is easier for my life to stay in my comfortable little ruts, doing the same stuff every day.  I actually feel better when I have busier days and I do different things, but those quickly become overwhelming and I feel like I need a "rest" day and then before I know it, back in the comfortable ruts. 

I have given up on the fight to some extent.  When the depression comes on and it gets bad, I don't really have the will to fight it any more.  Thankfully the bad days do pass eventually.  Sometimes it is one day, but it has lasted up to a full week.  I can manage to a point, but I also have a breaking point where I fall apart completely.  I was that way for a couple of days in June and then it passed.  I am back to my status quo now, one day at a time.  Sometimes I get myself out there, some days I spend most of the time on my couch.  I am constantly fighting fatigue and my allergies and sometimes headaches too.   So I just wonder, will my life every actually change?  Will I get stronger?  Will I be able to reach some of my smaller goals, and someday maybe some of the bigger ones?  What am I actually going to do with myself come September?  Will I get myself more involved with things or will I just dig those ruts deeper?  Is there some hope for me?  A better way to fight it all?  I know there is very little to nothing anyone else can do for me at this point, I just wonder what I am actually capable of doing for myself.  I know there are things I do right every day, and my kids are doing well and growing in kindness and love, if I fail at everything else, maybe I can accomplish the one thing that matters most.  I just know that I need to do more and I fear that I can't.  Right now that is just where I am, and I don't know if there is much I can do about it.  Sometimes just putting it out there helps, in writing, floating in the universe...I don't know.  I know that I can push past it, I can fight it, I do win sometimes, but then it always sneaks back in and I lose again.  That is what makes it the hardest, at this point in the game I feel like the depression is never going to go away, it will always be a part of me.  Accepting that fact has made me feel like it has won.  Why should I keep fighting it back if it is never actually going to leave?  It's not like this is some movie or fairy tale with a happy ending.  This is real life and there is no miracle cure for this disease.  The stuff that helps doesn't make it go away, so what level of fighting is actually worthwhile?  What will actually be enough for me to move forward enough to make small changes here and there?  Is there an answer to that, or do I just give in and live life the way it is?