The Ramblings of a Crazy Person: My Expression of Self

I have been trying to write these posts in a certain format or style, but today I just don't feel like following suit.  Today I just feel like writing to write and use my writing as a form of expression.  So with no theme, rhyme or reason, here it goes...

It's 11:00PM and I'm awake.  Big surprise huh?  If you knew me, you'd know I don't sleep anyways, but none the less, not at least trying to get a few hours of sleep in the late PM hours generally leaves me tremendously paying for it the following day while trying to run after Miss Bella.  My lack of sleep derives from my inability to shut off my brain.  In fact, I can remember most of my dreams or my thoughts throughout the night, and I'm not sure I ever truly fall into that "deep slumber" that so many people look forward to when their heads hit those fluffy white pillows.  It takes days of this "up all night business" before I will fall asleep peacefully and wake up wondering where the night had gone.  The good news?  It won't be too different for me to be up with a newborn come a week or two.

With my anxiety level amped up, sleepless is my middle name.  I go to sleep at night anxious that I may go into labor (anxious in that I want to BE in labor) and then I wake up around 2ish, severely disappointed because I'm not.  I'm not full term until Saturday, but really... I'm 37 weeks and 5 days... but who's counting?  I'm close enough!  I'm ready to go and I'm tired (literally) of waiting.  Ultimately, what I want is a healthy baby... I am just asking for a healthy baby sooner than later, and definitely not after 40 weeks as I fear my husband may divorce me (totally joking) if I go overdue and he has to put up with me and my emotional recklessness.

But it's not just baby that is keeping me up at night, it's other things.  Earlier on this week, I could no longer stand my dirty floors and with my husband home to watch the Gremlin, I took the opportunity to really scrub them.  We have a mop, but I opted for the more labor intensive route and got on my hands and knees and washed all of the floors in the house (with a hidden motive of possibly putting myself into labor).  But as I scrubbed the unidentifiable black spot out from underneath the couch, I thought deeply about what I was doing really.  I told my husband, "Some of these spots have been on this floor FOREVER, and sometimes a person just needs do it the hard way and put some work into it to truly work the mess up and off of the floor.  There is no way that mop has been getting these floors as clean as I'm getting them now.  Sometimes things in life just need a good spring-like cleaning, and that takes a bit more work."  This thought led to another and eventually I had an epiphany.  I hit this ah-ha moment often, and each time I do, I am motivated and my eyes feel opened for awhile.  A new found vision as to where my life is headed, or rather where I want it to go.  Sometimes I wonder if these moments are God-inspired, as if he is slapping me upside the head, telling me to get my crap together.

Just like my floors need a little hard work once in awhile, I feel like I need to put a little elbow grease into my own life and work up some of the dirt.  Life, at times, feels stagnant, boring, and at times entirely unhappy.  I have no one to blame for these feelings but myself, as I often become lazy in my perseverance to be a good, happy, healthy and vibrant person, the person God wants me to be (which includes many other good qualities not listed here).  I see so many people around me fulfill their life goals and they seem peaceful with where they are in their own personal journeys, and I often wonder how in the world they got there.  Who told them which roads to take and how did they acquire enough energy to get through all of the obstacles, or did they just get lucky and they landed in that spot from the very beginning?  Maybe some people have that luck, but I think it's a select few that do.  I struggle with this, how do I get from point A to point B, and be who God wants me to be.  The fact that I am continually struggling with myself tells me that I am not doing what I should be doing.  Something is missing.

Writing has been a huge relief to me, and I often find that when I don't write, I get more anxious and more unreasonable.  So why do I go for a week and not write?  Well, that's because I'm tired, but that's really no excuse.  I think that I am at a very difficult time in my life with all of the changes and challenges.  Prior to marriage and children, I had an array of friends, each unique and wonderful and they fulfilled some part of my life that needed nurturing (but even then I felt something was missing).  Being moved away from everything that I know, and now with children, one cannot help but feel a bit isolated.  It wasn't until Bella got about a year old that I found it difficult to be "Mom".  It is such a precious and God-given role, but unless you're one of those people that miraculously gets put on the right path from the very beginning, you're probably a mother just like me that gets overwhelmed with the constant screaming, poopy butts and the lack of daylight hours and energy.  I often wonder if somehow someone is playing a prank on me and stealing a few hours between dusk and dawn.  Really, where do the hours go in my day?

I am not asking for sympathy, but I am so frustrated.  How do people do it?  That's what I want to know.  How do people be God-like, and have the energy to pray each morning and every night, and brush, floss and rinse with mouthwash twice a day, just as the doctors say.  (Hey, that rhymed!)  How do mothers have the energy to get up and look beautiful for the husbands each morning, manage to have the house clean by 5:30PM when they arrive home, keep their babies happy, and still have sanity?  Maybe they don't?  Because I know that when I strive for this life, I usually end up burnt out and exhausted within a few days of time.  Or how about the people that lose tons of weight on Biggest Loser?  They show you how to physically transform your body, but come on!  You can lose all the weight in the world, but unless you stop buying Twinkies, you're screwed.  How do you mentally wrap yourself around giving up an addiction that you still need to survive.  I'd rather be addicted to cigarettes I think sometimes, then I could at least separate myself entirely from it.  You can go the rest of your life without touching cancer sticks, but you can't stop eating food.  Darn, it just happens to be that food is necessary to live, which makes my struggle with not eating it all the more difficult.

My epiphany, or my ah-ha moments, are times when I can visualize the person I am meant to be.  I get excited thinking that it's a possibility, that my life could really be like that.  But then, the more I think about it, the more distressed I become.  How does one change the parts of your life that make you miserable and unhealthy, especially when you know no other way.  And where the h-e-double hockey sticks, do you get the motivation for the movement of change?  So if you're out there, and reading this and you have ideas I am honestly open to some insight.  What makes you happy and how do you juggle the struggles of life and come out on the other end not coo-coo?  Each person has a method to their madness, and if they don't they have to be feeling like me. 

The thing I need most is time, time to myself and time with others.  This time is divided up as such (In no particular order):
      A)  Part of my day with just me, time for silence, reflection, prayer.
      B)  Time to get things done and focus on household chores or projects, which can
            include others.    But simply time to get stuff done, otherwise my house would fall apart.
      C)  Time with my husband, intimate time.  Time for us to talk and love each other in whatever
            language we speak (READ THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES, an absolute MUST for couples)
      D)  Time with my Bella Bumpkin, playing and learning with her and loving her.  Family time! 
            And this soon will include Baby Frits the II
      E)  Time with others outside of my immediate family.  Whether that's my siblings, my parents or
           my in-laws, or just friends.  I need someone else included or my husband will get
           overwhelmed with me spewing every detail of my day and life on him.  This is exactly why
           people need others in their lives, it gives them a different perspective and level of support.

I think these are healthy perspectives to have, healthy wants and needs.  I was thinking that I would try to get to bed at night around 9PM and wake up at 5:30AM, two hours before Bella perks awake.  That would give me an hour of reflection/me time, and an hour to do stuff around the house.  In this time I could pray, drink a cup of coffee or tea and reflect about where my day is headed, my goals and what I want to accomplish.  The next hour I can work on cleaning, if I so choose, and maybe get things together for lunch and supper.  By this time, Miss Bella would be awake and my busy and most challenging part of the day begins.  I could work on my physical self and jog with the babies or walk to the park each day, besides I heard that physical activity releases endorphins that make you happy and less depressed (just what I need).  My time with Bella is very lacking currently, as I spend the majority of my time trying to get things done, I really think that if I were to get up earlier and get stuff done before she awakes, then I would be able to fit more time in with her.  I also need to realize that things don't have to be perfect around here.

The part that is challenging is where do you fit in time for the husband and the friends?  Tim needs time to himself too, and often when he comes home from work, he is thrown into watching Bella and entertaining her until bed.  After that, he spends the rest of his night relaxing and unloading from the day.  His days off are becoming consumed with working and I work on the weekends (most of he time).  Date night once a month doesn't really cut it, it would be like waiting for an intimate conversation and time alone every 30 days.  I think we need more time together than once a month, but it's hard to justify paying for a babysitter more than once a month.  And it's hard to meet people in a new town that you feel comfortable with and people that you want to spend time with (or that seem to want to spend time with you).  I think this last paragraph is where most of my "I'm missing something" comes into play. 

Other things that seem to weigh heavy on my mind are the things about myself that I want to improve.  This includes:
     A)  My relationship with my husband, I want to be a loving wife that isn't grumpy all of the time.
     B)  I'd like to be more "put together", not like I just rolled out of bed each day when he gets home.
     C)  I want to be a patient and loving Mommy that spends quality time with her children.  The only
           time I ever want to raise my voice is when it's a severe situation, and I want this to be a rarity. 
          I don't want to have my children see me fight and lose my temper and my sense of self (boy
          this is hard with Bella's constant whining and attitude as of late).
     D) I want to pray each day and every night and devote more of my life towards God's goal for
          me.  Too often I get caught up in what I want and what I think I need.  Good thing I have great
          role models for this struggle.
     E) I want more energy and strive to for the things that are important in my life.  I have no idea
          how to get this one.  I feel so lazy and tired all of time, I don't know how to change that.  I
         think if I felt better, that other things would become easier.  Maybe this is my God-given
         struggle?  I think everyone has one of those...
     F) I want to be healthy and get my weight and eating junk food under control.  Another one of
         those, "how in the world do I do this" type of thing.
     G) I want to be a better person, giving more to others instead of taking.  If I could give back to
         others what has been given to me, I think this would be a great sense of purpose and fulfillment
         in my life.  Less focus on me and more focus on the greater good! ;)

So if you've stayed with me through this huge post, I appreciate your time in reading.  Like I said prior, I'm not looking for sympathy, but I am interested in how others manage their time and work with these types of struggles.  I am looking for input so that I may find a way to work up the dirt in my life that keeps me bogged down.  I want to be a better, happier and God-like person.  I want to live His purpose and to feel His grace when I am finally living the life that I feel He is pushing me towards.  Some people run, others go to church each day, some people pray fervently (in fact I think most happy people do), so what do you do?