"Are you ok?"

I am not ok. But how do you tell someone that? Especially someone who has no time to help you. Then i'd feel guilty for telling them.

I am mad at the world, i'm very depressed, i'm taking it out on my family.

I am NOT ok.

I don't KNOW how to be not ok, i'm ALWAYS ok. I don't know how to be weak, or to not be the rock.

Moreover I don't know how to stop being not ok. This is insanity, my children deserve better. I can't stop this drain i'm swirling around.

I'm fat and out of shape and ugly and it depresses me and i don't care enough to do anything about it and THAT depresses me and I AM NOT OK.

I am so depressed, my marriage sucks, my life is so mundane and useless.

I AM NOT OK.

Something I remember...

I was rereading my earlier post tonight when I remembered something Tony told me years ago...

"God and I had a conversation long before either of us were born. I showed you to Him, and I told him, 'she's the one, the one I'll love, the one I'll want forever.' He agreed to give you to me, and me to you, but first I had other things to do, and two baby girls to create. I always knew I'd love you, even before I met you."

The power of memory is unbelievable in me tonight. I feel like I could fall in love with him all over again if we can just hang on to the good feelings long enough.

Remind him, Lord. Remind us both how very much we need and love each other.

A Change of Pace

So it seems my entries are always depressing...or rather, when I'm depressed. Maybe because when I'm feeling up, I care more about doing other things so I don't take the time to blog. But...in the spirit of relationship salvation, I'm going to post some positive things about my marriage and my husband. It seems I've spent a fair amount of time talking myself out of this marriage; so it's high time I start talking myself back into it.

I love how he still does chivalrous things sometimes, like...
opening doors
pulling out my chair
leading me into a room with his hand on the small of my back
having me take his arm when we walk (provided we aren't pushing a stroller or two)
helping me into a jacket...

stuff like that. It's like he recognizes I'm a very strong, independent woman, yet I still like to be treated like a lady now and then. I like when he tells me he'll never let the boys mistreat me when they're older. I like the way the bedroom still smells like him 6 hours after he's gone to work for the day. I like the way his guard is down in the middle of the night, and even if he's mad at me, he still slips his arm around my waist in his sleep. I like picking up one of the kids and realizing they smell like him because he was holding them or playing with them.

Despite the bad place we're in right now, I love remembering. Oh my god, the way he made me feel when we fell in love. I felt beautiful, smart, funny, WANTED. I felt like he wanted to protect me, fiercely, and would die for me. I felt like we rushed home to each other at the end of the day. And if we had a bad time, we had our mountain to go to, and talk, even if it took all night.

We need a mountain, I think. Not one to climb, we've got plenty of those. But one for perspective, just like Lookout Mountain. Where we could sit above the fray and find clarity and peace. The answers always seemed clear atop that mountain. We never really sat there for long...it seemed most of the work was done in the car on the way to the summit. Sitting at the top for a short while was almost simply symbolic, as if to say, ok you made it here, the clouds are beneath you now, you can make your way back down to your every day.

Ah, for now I have to go. Motherhood is my mountain at the moment.

If you are out there reading this, I do love you, Tony. Somewhere inside, I always, always have.

More later...