I lost her...me...somewhere

Well I just give up tonight. I have given up the fight. The possibility that you can be a SAHM and maintain any individuality. That you have anything that is your own. I used to be vital...important because I made MONEY...because other adults depended on me. Now every thing I do is under constant scrutiny. My life, my job, my focus is my children. And I have no escape from life to job or job to life...they are one and the same. So where my husband or mother can go to work and get away from the stress of home life, and come home to get away from the stress of work life. Mine are intertwined. I have SUPERVISORS in my job as a mother. Ain't that a bitch. I guess it's normal for the husband to be like that, but living with my mother, ugh...I really expected to maintain my role as the head of my own family, respected for the role of mother to my own children.

I know, it's all my own fault. I chose to have children and stay at home with them, therefore I have nothing to complain about.

I knew what I was getting into having another baby right? I knew I'd end up barely able to walk by my third trimester, right? I have no room to complain because this is all my fault.

So I guess the person I should be mad at...is myself.

Except I can't find "myself" anymore. I don't know what happened to her. I see a woman who has little boys climbing on her, smiling at her, looking to her for love and answers and any other little thing that is so desperately important when you're 2 and 3 years old. I see a woman who lives for those kids and wouldn't dare change it.

But I also see a woman who is failing every day in her role as wife and daughter. This woman who sits silent and dying inside when her husband disregards her or criticizes her one more time. Who is lost in trying to figure out where her marriage went wrong and if she'll be the next single mother on the block. This woman is feeling very inadequate in her mother's eyes, and very lost in ever regaining any footing in that regard. I see a woman who is very very afraid of inheriting her mother's depression and losing what's left of herself further into an unknown abyss.

I see this woman, who sees her life and is sad. Who doesn't look in mirrors because she doesn't like the physical manifestations of her pain. She doesn't like seeing a fat, ugly, tired woman looking back at her. Because she knows only that reflection knows what she's feeling.

The scariest sight is watching her outwardly cold eyes and seeing a flicker beneath that gets smaller and more faint with every heartbeat.

She's sad, and empty, and almost too tired to cry anymore. She used to wonder what people would remember about her...now she just hopes they forget about her.