Thank you all for your kind words.

I had a better day today than I’ve had in awhile. Not sure why. (maybe prayer helped? although assuming God would help me always seems presumptuous of me)

I still hate myself…but one thing I’ve noticed is different recently than when I was at the happiest in my life (when I married my precious husband) is that I haven’t been enjoying anything. Even things I “like” to do. Everything recently has become a (never ending) to do list. I have goals for myself, but somehow they’ve become demands.

I’ve been sick for several days and just had to sleep. Then realized as I started to feel a little better, but was cautious not to push it in order to avoid spreading my germs to others or becoming sicker and bedridden again, that the slowed down pace helped me actually enjoy something again.
First, a simple meal and upbuilding video about nature. Then a walk with my dog (now that the heat has subsided). Then just sitting in nature. Then weeding a little in a flowerbed (something that I’d been dreading because it’s become a “weed bed” instead of a flowerbed). But, I do like weeding. I had kind of forgotten. I was weeding just to be outside. Sitting in the grass with my hands in the dirt; just to give my body fresh air. And suddenly I remembered what it was like when I first was married. How I enjoyed all the “work” to be done in our farm. I wasn’t obsessing. There wasn’t a “to do” list. I just enjoyed waking up each day in a peaceful, secure environment. That was new to me. I had never felt that kind of peace before I married and moved here. I had always walked on egg shells. Had always felt my personal goals were insignificant, even selfish. Had always felt hopeless and without direction.

But when I married my dear husband, for the first time I had this huge sigh of relief. A safe place; and it was home. Never knew before that what having peace at home felt like. I made goals, and worked at them. I spoke and felt valued. I had hopes and plans.

Fast forward to shortly before the pandemic. I won’t go into depressing detail (because I don’t want to go there today) but my dad was diagnosed (belatedly) with Alzheimer’s and my moms health began failing too. My brother (the one sibling out of 9 that I have a com rade ly with) got his spirit broken and has not recovered. And he has become my parents’ primary caregiver and is consumed by it. I help where I can but he lives with them so he gets the brunt of it. Being there so much recently has felt like being drawn back into a dark pit of despair, hopelessness, anger and internal strife.
I’ve taken all my duties at home and turned them into demands of myself. My family ( my husband and our life together) should come first, so I demand of myself to have all things at home done before I go to my parents. ….but that has been impossible. So I’m struggling with the feeling of failure; then comes all the baggage from my life before, returning like a tsunami burying me, not only while I’m physically at the home I grew up in, but worse than that, after I leave. The emotional baggage won’t leave me.
It’s more than my parents’ failing health, which is devastating in and of itself, it’s the return of all the disfunction and emotional distress of life before I met my husband and got out of that dark pit.

I tell myself to “do what you can and leave the rest alone”. But sometimes it’s impossible for me to differentiate. What is being a good daughter and sister, and what is being used and pulled back into the pit? It’s a daily struggle.

I hope I can remember today and the feeling of just being in the moment, a good moment: laughing at my silly dog, pulling the weeds away for the flowers to get sun, having dinner and conversation with my husband.
I hope I can keep this barrier I’ve had today and regain the ability to enjoy the things that are truly precious.