But we returned from vacation, and "Scary Mommy" had declined more pieces, and they hadn't paid me for the one that did get published, and I could think of nothing but complaining to write on my blog, not to mention the pressure to "be a blogger" and all the design that accompanies it. I thought that maybe it would be a source of income, but as I read more about it, I felt this tremendous pressure to be something I was not. First, I didn't want to whore out my project. My blog was never meant to be this depiction of a perfect life and how your life could be perfect, too. It was meant to be a log of how I take life one day at a time and force myself into finding happiness when the big things get way too big. Suddenly the blog was one of the way too big things.
A.N.T.'s started infiltrating my life. Automatic Negative Thoughts. I don't really like to write. It's not for me. Blogging is more for professional writers/graphic designers. That's not really my thing. I experienced a little bit of a lag and immediately talked myself out of writing and blogging altogether. And what made it easier was my children returning to school. We began therapy again for my oldest son with selective mutism. Since school started, the boys' school has had one evacuation and two lockdowns as a result of threats. The school has not been handling the situation as well as they could. It was the perfect excuse to say my focus can't be with writing/blogging at this time.
Only, I have been finding myself getting unhappier by the day to the point where I'd say I'm clinically depressed. My body aches. I've gained weight. I sleep during the day, have insomnia at night. I'm obsessing about money and all the things we can't afford (like private school or moving) and who is there for me and who isn't. And my cat is sick. My fifteen year old cat suddenly starting drinking obsessively. He's had two UTI's and is losing weight. The vet has offered no preventable or manageable solutions other than antibiotics when the infections occur nor have they said he's dying, but they are very content to bill me hundreds of dollars at each visit and send me home to clean cat urine out of rugs or comforters. It's exhausting and just sad.
But suddenly two weeks ago I got mad at myself over something. "Scary Mommy" hadn't paid me and I just let them not pay me. I never followed through with it. I actually used it as a "sign" that I wasn't meant to be a writer. How stupid was that?!?! I wrote a piece that people loved and I deserved to be paid. I emailed them and the issue was immediately resolved. Just a glitch in processing a new writer. The cat remained sick, the school remained broken, my son continues to have SM, but there was a little glimmer a couple of weeks ago.
That glimmer spurred me to write another article. I don't know if it's been accepted yet, but I wrote it and sent it. It was a step. And it means enough to me to keep putting it out there until it is published. It was written to bring awareness to selective mutism, so that's not something I'm willing to give up on. While writing it, I started missing my blog, my blog from last year where I was writing about scrapbooking and books and finding fun projects to do around the house, anything to distract me from life.
Even though I was missing my blog, I had yet to sit down at the computer and write. Last Wednesday was the most recent lockdown at my boys' school. The oldest was too scared to eat his lunch. The middle was denied bathroom access, wet his pants, and was left to sit in it for the remainder of the day. The school had yet to address what was really happening. On top of this, the school continued to trudge through ridiculous amounts of meaningless homework...I won't go into details, but I feel like I'm homeschooling my kid with all the work and modifications I'm making to the work that the teacher doesn't have time for, apparently. I went to the board of education meeting last week incensed only to be met with denial that the school has any sort of problem. We met with the superintendent on Monday to, in his words "hit the reset button". He's very good at saying what you want to hear, but no change ever comes of it, and we walked away feeling empty.
On Tuesday there was a parent meeting to address the lockdowns, a week after the third incident. There was an element of hysteria at the meeting, parents calling for metal detectors, others crying because they don't want metal detectors. Others are on a witch hunt to punish the perpetrator(s). What did I want to know? How does this happen three times and you have no idea who it is? They are just now implementing and following through on bathroom logs. As of Tuesday, they have yet to limit the number of students out at the bathroom. Are more frequent checks of the bathroom being put into place? The answers were, of course, yes those plans are going to be put into action. Why aren't they already put in place? Some schools this is just policy from day one, and you're saying it wasn't put into place after the first incident. Our kids had metal detector wands used on them and bomb sniffing dogs going through their belongings twice because you have no idea who was in the bathroom in a block of time and can only narrow it down to fifty kids? The meeting ended with some parents praising the school for all it's doing (denial that their kid is in a potentially unsafe position) and others just shaking their heads.
That was us, just shaking our heads and feeling powerless to do anything. I have never been so down as I was yesterday. I had surpassed sadness and anger. I felt like it all was just hopeless, the school, the cat, all of it.
This Sunday I turn thirty-nine. As I lied in bed last night, I realized that it is hopeless, those things. My cat is going to die and the school isn't going to change over night. But I had one thing going for me, this blog. And I remembered what happened last year when I focus on the blog and the projects I had attached to it, my life changed. I got out of the house and landed a teaching job. And though it didn't turn out the way I wanted, at least I knew. I grew as a person, moved forward. I'm back to sitting still and I hate it. I don't want to be a blob at forty who is so achy she feels like she's seventy.
I'm now focusing on what I can control and change in my life, and that is me. I can control the fate of this blog. I can learn about how to develop it slowly and within my terms of what I want it to be. I can keep writing and let it be what it is. And I can change my body and what I eat. I can control that, and it's really time I start.
On Sunday it'll be 365 days not just to happiness, but to FORTY!
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