My mom's quote from the other day really summarizes my life. "You have made being a stay at home job one of the worst jobs I could possibly imagine. You are so busy and you never have time for yourself."
At first I laughed and then I realized that she was right. I love being a stay at home mom. I love being able to raise my children, be there when they are sick, teach them awesome things by going on field trips or even making a grocery trip a learning experience. I love cooking - which 4 years ago, I would have told you that i hated it. I honestly love trying new recipes and figuring out how to make them better/easier/etc. But my week is booked. Every single day I have something to do, somewhere to go. I occasionally have days where I stay home and enjoy watching tv/movies with Jake. Sometimes we only have 1 errand to run and then I spend the rest of the day at home playing with Jake. I feel guilty if I don't run at least one load of laundry or do a load of dishes. I feel guilty if I don't help out up at Ellie's school when I can and do extra stuff up there. With that, came complete exhaustion. I'm so tired, constantly, from not being able to let myself rest.
My body finally told me that I had to rest. I didn't have a choice. After my dance rehearsal on Tuesday night I was trying to go to bed but my heart kept racing and then would slow down a lot and then thump back into a normal heartbeat. It did it over and over again and it really scared me. I ended up going to the Emergency Room because I couldn't get it to stop. They did an EKG and blood work and apparently it's all normal - I'm just exhausted. James and I finally got home Wednesday morning at 2:45. Thank God he stayed home with me on Wednesday so that I could rest and try and get feeling back to normal. I had a couple more times where the palpitations came on Wednesday but not near as bad as Tuesday night. Last night I didn't have them at all and today honestly, I feel mostly normal. I go back to the doctor on Friday to see what they have to say.
What this has made me realize is that I can no longer have mommy guilt or guilt at all for saying no. I am going to take better care of myself - which I had already started to do by eating more healthfully and also exercising more. I've lost another 4 lbs. I feel like slowly but surely I'm going to reach my physical health goals. Now I have to focus on my mental health goals. I can no longer be so stressed out all the time. It isn't good. I have to let things go. I have to focus on me. So, please don't be offended if I tell you no for something soon, I have decided that for my mental health, I'm going to say no a lot more. I'm not going to be taken advantage of and feel angry about it. I'm not going to kill myself trying to clean my house and do laundry because my house looks lived in and not pristine. No more mommy guilt.
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