Not in a good place right now to be measuring . . . but at least I'm writing, so that's a good thing, right?

I measure it in "thank you, Mom" and hugs, and affection, and time spent. Right now . . . I'm at approximately zero. Found Sophie's lunchbox sitting on the living room floor a little while ago. I just don't know why I bother. I set my alarm and wake everyone up . . . I try to do it as nicely as possible. Let them know the weather, etc. Go out, make lunches, throw on my own clothes and brush my teeth. Battle battle wrestle everyone out the door, attitude, anger, irritation.

I come home and spend the day . . . alone. Alone. There's another person in the house. Really. But I never see her. Occasionally if she's feeling like crap she'll text me to ask for something. Or she'll come out just as the kiddos are getting home from school to cook herself something. Otherwise, I'm alone.

Picking the kids up . . . crap dumped everywhere. Does this help my mood? Not so much? So do I say something, and be the mom who only mentions the negative stuff, or do I let the crap sit there where it doesn't belong? Or do I play slave mom? None sound appealing, yet after so many years of trying to ask for stuff to be put where it belongs when it comes home, it's still not happening. So, yes . . . I AM the mom who notices that the backpack and jacket are dumped on the ground EVERY day and asks for them to be picked up. I AM the mom who reminds them EVERY DAY to wash their hands BEFORE heading into the kitchen to look for a snack.

But apparently this makes me a negative mom, in my husband's eyes. And when . . . when do I get some time with him? I come last with him every single time.

There's no thank yous. There's little affection. There's little time spent. Yes, I do it to myself by hiding away from the noise that comes from the chaos. Yes, it's a problem. Yes, I'm trying to deal with it. No, the medications I've tried have not helped in the slightest But . . . what's my NUMBER ONE problem? My measuring stick is non-functional from disuse.


 

I spent the month of October dutifully prepping for NaNoWriMo, plugging away, doing every exercise, learning so much about my characters, their story, their world, their everything! November blew past, and I finished my NaNo novel in 17 days, which completely blew my mind. Did I ever imagine I could do that? Not in a million years! Not if you paid me! I wanted it . . . I wanted it bad! But I wasn't sure I had it in me. Now I know. I made myself step away from it for a few weeks, and not look at the work as a whole, though I spent the intervening weeks thinking about it a lot, replotting and reworking it in my brain, so that by the time I sat down to do the first rewrite I already knew it would be vastly different when I made it through. That was December. January saw the third draft blow through, and brought me some excellent feedback from several sources. Now I know where my weak points are. Unfortunately, my brain is no longer cooperating with me, and the idea of sitting down to compile all of those various comments and suggestions, let along incorporate them into my manuscript, is daunting.

Here's what I've learned ... I thought maybe I was making an excuse, but I'm not so sure. I had started taking a new medication back in October, and I needed to stop taking it in . . . early January? Anyway, I began a new medication later in January which has made me exceedingly sleepy, and I'm honestly concerned about the way it's allowing me to focus/not focus. I did an experiment with sudoku yesterday, after finding myself very frustrated trying to finish some puzzles. I think I'm trying to re-train by brain to focus a little. I hope it works. This really sucks.