Untangling my head

For the past few days I have been a total and utter Grumpa Loompa (bit like an Oompa Loompa but mardier!) It’s very disappointing, shouldn’t I be posting loads of wonderful Easter photos? Where’s my pictures of little children painting brightly colour eggs around my kitchen table? (I don’t have a kitchen table) Of the Easter egg hunt in the garden? (My garden is the least child friendly garden ever – perilously steep steps, six foot drop… not good) Where are the lambs and the fluffy yellow chicks? How did I end up bank holiday Monday sitting in a car on an industrial estate eating a MacDonalds while the rain pounded at the window? Am I just a rubbish mum?

I’ve managed to get out socially a few times over the last few weeks so I ought to be on a high. I’ve had the opportunity to catch up with friends, I even went to a burlesque night one Saturday night, then a cabaret night the next weekend… Isn’t that what I was crying out for? I’ve had some fantastic “me” time, but with it came the guilt that I was “gallivanting” about. Was it too much, two Saturday nights in a row and then an afternoon too? Am I being selfish, thinking I can just carry on having a life like I don’t have a child, palming my kid off on others to pick up my slack. It doesn’t help that the babysitters (my in-laws) on one hand offer to babysit while simultaneously disapproving of us going out (they never went out after having children apparently). Guilt, guilt, guilt. Yet again – bad mum! Am I not dedicated enough? Am I not sacrificing enough? Am I cut out for this?? I don’t have any further social plans for the foreseeable future, this little flurry was an abnormal blip, but still the guilt pursues me.

The other downside of catching up with old friends is that people inevitably ask how you are, and you are given a rare opportunity to discuss what has been happening in your life, to open up about issues that you don’t usually get the chance to even think about. This isn’t a good thing when you’ve been sweeping things under the carpet, and I swept a whole lot under there when I was pregnant, ongoing things I’m helpless to do anything about now so more often than not I bury my head in the sand. Having a nice chat dredged up a lot of unpleasantness and it’s only now, a few days later that the dust is settling again (back under the carpet – not healthy I know, but I’m powerless to do anything or believe me I would)

So all this has set me about and led to some pretty dark days. Do you ever have days where you feel like you’re getting everything wrong? Oh so wrong! That in general you’re just sort of wrong. That’s been my lot this week. I had a meeting with the new director at work, my opportunity to make a good impression and prove I’m an employee worthy of keeping (cuts are looming) Everything came out wrong; I stumbled over my words, in my nervousness I blurted things out I wish I hadn’t, I just didn’t come across at all the way I wanted to, nowhere near. I’m also struggling with panic attacks over my driving lessons – which is ridiculous considering they’re actually going well, but beforehand I’m a wreck and I find myself spending the latter half of the week fighting a growing sense of dread (lessons are on Saturday). I think that too is depleting my energy.

Sometimes I feel like I haven’t got what it takes to be happy, haven’t got the strength or confidence or energy to get the most out of life and I wonder if I ever will have. I just feel small, diminished, awkward... I know life is what you make it and all these wonderful experiences are there for the taking – and I know the biggest obstacles for me are the ones I carry with me; my own lack of self worth, my shyness. But I just can’t seem to get it right, I always seem to fall into the same ruts, I let myself down over and over. But now it means even more because I have my son to think of too and I don’t want to pass my demons onto him.

Thankfully the black cloud seems to have lifted this morning and things don’t feel so bleak. I’m currently in the process of dusting myself off and picking myself back up. A friend once told me a fantastic analogy; Life is like a toilet – you’re constantly getting crapped on. What you have to do is keep flushing the chain and starting again with a clean bowl. And that is what I’m doing today.

Oh and the MacDonalds thing in the car? Well, we were trying to go somewhere interesting, but the rain spoiled our plans. Taters was napping, we needed to eat. MacDonalds was just there… It happens…