Raindrops are Like Tears

Ok so almost anyone who knows me is aware that I suffer from chronic depression. Some days I do fairly well, other days I find myself so deep down in a well of despair I don't think I will be able to climb back out again. I've been having one of my down times and I have not been coping well. Life has not been easy lately. I told someone today it's like some kind of cosmic joke, not only can we not get ahead we can't even get caught up. The expenses keep getting higher and the money keeps getting lower and the ends don't meet in the middle anymore. I try to get up every day and I try to get through the day and it gets harder every day. I know I'm bad when giving up seems easier than trying any more...the only things that keep me hanging by my very slender thread are the responsibilities I have to my younger children and grandchildren. This is not a pity party, I'm not asking anyone to hand me a kleenex.A little understanding from the ones who are closest to me would be nice but I have come to accept that for the most part that is not going to happen. I just find myself feeling so very alone and I wonder what will happen if it ever gets to where I can't tell myself I have to hang on for the babies any more.

Thoughts

Waking up alone, on a rainy Sunday morning, in a quiet house tends to start you considering things. I have spent twenty-seven years being a mother. I started out like any other new mother, overawed and overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a first baby and the discovery that you have depths of love inside your heart you had never known until the first time you held your newborn baby. So here I am all these years later, most of my children are grown, a few still here at home but not for long. Before I know it, the last three will be gone off into the world. Where will that leave me? Even though Caleb is just ten I already feel so un-needed, strange for me to say considering how much I have sheltered, pampered, ok babied Caleb my youngest child. Boys are independent creatures who do not cling to their mothers. None of my children really did. They were ready to go far sooner than I was ready to let them. I tried to teach them to be strong, to prepare them for the hard cruel world. Honestly I don't know if I did my job adequately I only know that I did the best I could, often under very trying circumstances. The thing is, I lost myself somewhere along the way and I do not know where to go looking for the pieces I left behind. This reflects on something I said in a previous blog, is there anyone out there who truly knows the me behind the mother or must I find ways to ensure that when I leave this world someone somewhere will truly remember me? I loved being a mother so much. Every pregnancy was more miserable than the one before, as I was sick right up until I went into labor. I survived twins and two c-sections, natural childbirth which was actually easier to recover from and epidurals that left me with lasting complications to this day. I made it through crying babies, cranky toddlers, elementary school, the nightmare of middle school, high school, bullies, teenage romances, teenage pregnancy, you name it I did it. I also worked to support my family and missed out on so many things I can never get back, but someone had to do it. I am not very close to most of my children, not by choice, but simply because they are living their own lives and I am trying to find a way to live mine, and they do not often overlap. I babysit grandchildren when asked and revel in the fun of being able to give them back to their mother's at the end of a glorious day. Grannies can spoil their darlings unabashedly and enjoy all the little things that drove us crazy when we were there in those years with our own. Is this the sum of me...mother and grandmother? I don't think it is, but does anyone else see me as more? So this is something I want to tell my children; family is everything. Being a parent is a privilege and a blessing and a responsibility. The thing is, and this is going to sound so incredibly selfish, you cannot and you must not give everything away in the process of raising your family. You must keep some small secret part of yourself locked away somewhere, so that when that inevitable day arrives and you are left alone, you can begin doing the unthinkable...living for yourself.

Things I Want My Children to Remember

As a mom of nine children the one thing I have always feared is that when I die no one will remember for anything but the fact that I have nine children. Will anyone remember who I really was on the inside, the things I loved, the things that made me unique? I ran across a poem today that I thought was just lovely and I wanted to post it here. This is one thing I would like my children to remember.

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Written by Mary E. Frye, 1932

Rain Rain Go Away

This spring has been so rainy! I find myself wondering if sunny days will ever return. I almost feel like I am living in some perpetually rainy place like Seattle or London. This kind of weather is not good for my mood. When the skies are gray and dreary so is my outlook on things. Hard to get motivated about doing things in this sleepy weather. Even harder to have a positive outlook when nothing seems to be going my way. My next door neighbor planted some beautiful flowers in her yard but all this rain has not helped them much. Isn't it funny how if it's really hot we wish it would rain, but when it rains we want the sunshine back. I guess it just goes to show that we always want what we don't have.

Summer is Fast Approaching

Here we are it is May already and summer will be here before you know it. I am about to begin the last two classes in my academic freshman year. I have begun the process of applying for funding for next year. I am not too excited about the next two classes, I fear that they will be much harder than the six I have already taken and I am not at all sure I am up to the task. I have a GPA of 3.84 and I would like to maintain a decent score and end up the year on a positive note. I think that after all these years of being out of school I have done well. With hard work and study I hope to achieve good grades in the last two courses of the year.
Isn't it funny how things never quite work out the way you think they are going to. I had thought I was dropping out of school to work and an unexpected technical difficulty prevented me from being able to do that. I am disappointed because we desperately needed the money but I will look for something else. Weather permitting my darling husband will be able to pick up some side work and I am sure we will muddle through just like we always do. Perhaps we need to cut back a bit on some of the little extra expenses but that is o.k. too. There is always a way. Next project will be using my school refund to get a car. Not looking forward to that either.