I’m having a feel-sorry-for-myself day. A day when I can’t help but wonder if I made the right choices, if me staying home was the way to go.
Every time I turn around, I feel like I’m losing my mind, my temper, my patience. I’m constantly snapping. My son is on the receiving end way too many times.
I hate cleaning this house. I hate this house. I’m failing at appreciating what I have. I’m losing myself in the desire to just want to start over again, to move into a place that doesn’t *need* any work…. work we will never be able to afford… work I’m constantly arguing with my husband over.
But new house or not, I would still hate cleaning, and then I hate the guilt I feel over not wanting to clean, not enjoying the “homekeeping” side of this stay at home gig (though I always try to remind myself I’m a stay at home MOM and that everything else is just gravy, the guilt is still there). I want a job so I can just pay someone else to do it for me. I tell myself it wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass to stay on top off if we didn’t live in this house so much. If we were all gone a good 8 hours a day. If I wasn’t serving up three meals a day to a 2 year old here…. if you can even call them “meals” these days.
I hate the financial stress of being a one income family, too. I feel like so many of these stresses would be eliminated if I was making my old salary (not banking on ad payments for this blog, which I hate soliciting, and which totally screw my plans when they come 2 weeks late). I feel like if I went to an office every day and brought home a paycheck every other week, I could put my son in a great school, surrounded by loving professionals who *enjoy* crafting with him every day, where he would be free to make whatever mess he wanted. Maybe he would learn more, certainly I wouldn’t yell at him as much, and perhaps I just might appreciate my time with him more. We could get out as a family and actually DO things on the weekend, instead of sitting around here and balancing the budget… and cleaning up the house I’ve neglected all week.
If I went to an office every day, maybe I’d get satisfaction from completing major projects. Maybe I’d feel more worthwhile if my biggest accomplishment for the week wasn’t keeping the counters clean, the dishes done, and taking Kendall out every day. Maybe I’d be more relaxed in the evening if I had the opportunity to go to lunch with co-workers, to go to Starbucks without a toddler. Maybe I’d be able to get my hair cut and colored more often, maybe I’d feel better about myself if I got to buy new clothes for myself more frequently… nice clothes. Maybe these material things DO matter to me, as much as I wish they didn’t.
Maybe I’d like this house more if I could pay someone else to keep it clean for me. Maybe instead of spending my time wiping down baseboards and windows, I’d finally get around to all the fun projects I’ve never been able to start for this house, like printing and framing our wedding pictures, or printing the thousands of pictures I have of Kendall that I’ve never put into an album. Yeah, aren’t stay at home moms supposed to have time to do all this? Not this one.
I think a big part of my problem is coming to terms with the fact that I will never be that stay at home mom who bakes and cleans and menu plans every day. I won’t sit down to do a different craft each day. I won’t be okay with letting my son “explore” while making a gigantic mess, especially if I just cleaned the kitchen floor. I won’t. ever. have. my. shit. together. If it hasn’t happened after 2 years, it’s not ever going to. And am I okay with that? Because at least if I were working, if I wasn’t HERE all day, I would feel like maybe I had an excuse.
And it’s not that I don’t appreciate that I even have a choice to stay home. I do. Many sacrifices have to be made, but it’s workable for us, and I am very appreciative of that. But, in a way, I almost feel like that makes it worse…. that the choice wasn’t made for me. That our meager savings account is because of MY choice, that our inability to take family vacations is because of MY choice, that the stress that comes from trying to balance the budget and realizing that we just can’t afford to do the upgrades to this home we planned on when we purchased it are because of MY choice… MY choice to stay home, MY choice to be something I’m not even sure I’m suited for.
It’s just been a rough weekend, I’m sure made worse by these pregnancy hormones. My brain is telling me to grow up and get over it, quit feeling sorry for myself and make something happen. It’s just hard to start… hard to figure out what to do. I mean, it’s not like I can search for a job 6 months pregnant. I’m not even certain that that’s the answer to my problems. I think the answer lies more in forgiving myself, in re-assessing my priorities and in counting my blessings a little more.
Kendall is 2 1/3 and I’m 24 weeks pregnant