My Mid-life Reorganization

My Ongoing Evolution. 

Last summer, my husband was on a long tour.  Most of the time, he’s gone for a few weeks here, then home for a week or so, then back to the road.  Last summer was 3 months straight.  We had survived that kind of time apart before, but last year it broke me.  I spent several days practically chanting “I hate my life”.  Finally, I realized that something had to give, I couldn’t keep going that way.  I tried to figure out what I could do to change my situation.  I felt trapped.  It seemed like every direction I could think of to turn in, there was a very valid reason stopping me.  I wanted out.  I wanted a change.  I was bored, restless, lonely, and completely phoning it in as a mom.  Somehow, while I was paying attention to the kids, the house, the yard, my husband and everyday life, I had lost myself.  That is so not like me. I don’t know how it happened.  I can only imagine it happened slowly, over time.  That’s just so not me. To top it off, now that I have checked back in to me, I’m not the same person I was last time I checked.  What I want has shifted.  I decided to go back to school.  I decided to quit smoking.  I decided to finally loose that last ten pounds.  I decided to be selfish.  It’s sort of an early mid-life crisis.  Now that I am over the crisis part and into the changing part, I prefer to think of it as my mid-life reorganization.  I still have times where I slip back to the way I was before.  I don’t eat right, I blow off exercising,  I drink more wine than I have allotted calories for.  Some of those lost pounds have now been found again.  (It seems like no matter where I loose them, they are never far behind me) It’s all an ebb and flow thing.

      I’m not a fun kind of a mom.  I hope that when my kids are old enough they understand that I love them and the only way I could keep from hating them was to start loving me again. 

     I thank God everyday for my husband.  He has handled all of this like the knight in shining amour he always has been.  I don’t know how he does it.  He’s my biggest supporter, even from thousands of miles away.