I was thinking about the different options for my blog article this month. I have a bunch of projects to talk about as well as the ongoing skunk issue we’ve had in our home since Arya got sprayed on July 15, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write about them, at least for now. I used to write blogs at least once a week…writing in depth about projects, pregnancy, self worth, empowerment, post partum and design. Now, I feel like I’m in a place where those thoughts cross my mind but I’m consumed by my daily tasks of being a stay at home mom. The job I’ve wanted most all my life.
I speak often about Mental Health and DIY therapy. As we speak, I’m at the dentist typing away on my phone so I can get these thoughts down and you can digest it for me, maybe finding insight to my confusion. My mind is preoccupied with trying to think of a time today where I can paint the bathroom after trying to seal in the skunk smell with primer and now paint it over with the new white. My mind travels back to Vienna and Brian…thinking about leaving them in bed this morning since we brought her in when she couldn’t sleep last night, with Arya at our feet (she finally doesn’t smell of skunk enough where I have to keep her off furniture…I say our “bed” loosely since we had to throw away our mattress from the catastrophic smell and are sleeping on an air mattress on our bed frame. We are also sitting on a day bed in the living room we got from Brian’s mom since the couch was skunked too. I am grateful we are all healthy and supported by our families during this time, but my mind has not been.
I’m trying to keep that thought of this morning and picture it like a photograph in my mind to refer back to when my mind wanders today. When it wanders to other problems, other people, other difficulties. The family I always wanted, right in front of me yet feeling so alone sometimes.
When you’re used to excelling at your job and being independent, having someone depend on you and not producing any income or seeing other people at a job each day…you start to feel like you’re out of place. In a weird state of happiness, but with the feeling of ‘what am I supposed to do when she goes to school one day…or what’s my purpose in life when she becomes independent?”
Thinking too far ahead has always been my cryptonite. But I wonder sometimes who will I be when the moment comes. I’m already a different person than I was three years ago. I can’t even utter those words without feeling confused, because on one hand, that feels so long ago yet it went by in a flash. From the moment I found out I was pregnant to now…a month before her second birthday…has felt like one long day.
I decided to go back into therapy after giving it a break when I was ten months post partum. It was just too much homework doing DBT therapy with a newborn. Feeling alone at home on a computer doing virtual appointments in the dark days of the winter with no car at the time, I was done with talking. But now, I feel like I need to talk again. To unleash whatever burdens and thoughts and compulsions I have and learn how to cope with them for her.
I feel that is my purpose right now…not only to care for Vienna, but to care for myself and learn how to be the best version of me I can be for us. The best version of me for Brian and I while we navigate life together as a team, and for me and Arya to continue our soul partnership as long as she blesses me with a furry companionship I fear living without.
That is my purpose. To live in that picture and not in any others.
Love, Jacqueline
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