When Accidents Happen

I can always tell when I have a lot on my mind. My house is spotless, I watered my flower beds, washed the siding and deck of the front porch, cleaned out the garage, washed trim work and walls, mopped floors, its almost 10pm and I still feel manic. Its so stressful to want to be more helpful or feel more "there" for others when you really cant help anything and responsibilities like paying bills and tending to a home, children, and pets keep me here. I want to drop everything and take a few days but my logical brain swirls in a place of ambivalence and wont allow me to put myself in an irresponsible place for the sake of someone else. I cant sacrifice my wellbeing and my stability. Ive come too far and worked too hard to let someone else's setbacks become my setbacks. I have to refrain from wanting to rescue people from their own path of growth and learning when it gets painful. I dont like seeing people I love hurt. But where does the boundary of love for others end and the love for self start? 

Im making space and it feels surreal i dont know what its for. Future Cassie, when you read this reflect on how you feel, this discomfort of transition. What's coming and did you let it?

Introspection

As a stay-at-home, work-from-home mom of 4 children, when I say that I need a break, I'm not talking about wanting a reward for doing my job or that I'm seeking a respite from my responsibilities.

It simply means Im requesting a moment to feel like a human being in the midst of a relentless life where I don't belong to myself anymore; where I give my love and energy away, every moment of my existence, and I struggle to keep any for myself.

4 years ago, I broke. I didnt have breaks, I didnt recognize myself outside of dirty spit up and breast milk covered shirts, I felt lonely, isolated, anxious. I wanted to find "me" again but I spent so many years pregnant and nursing and in a hurricane of hormonal chaos, I didnt know who that was anymore. 

You know whats the worst part... is to be convinced in your own mind you're missing yourself, when all along you were always you. 

I had this preconceived idea of expectations of what it meant to be a mom, to be beautiful, to be someone who could give and receive love. It was always there. The only thing keeping me from me being me, was me not loving myself and letting myself care too much what others thought... 

Call it a learning curve, call it growing up... 

"Dont it always seem to go... you dont know what you got till it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot"