Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 24 - Raising the "Children"

     As of yet, I'm not sure what to title today's blog entry.  I suppose I should come up with something by the end, but if it's still titled "24" you'll know what happened.

     This past week has been a roller coaster of things.  I started out things on a rather drab note, but because I had company coming over early in the week and I'd be gone during the weekend, I decided to concentrate on all of the chores that were necessary, and attempted to move away from my career.  It rather started something like this - be miserable but slog through the weekly chores.  Keep forgetting things because I didn't have a list written down, get more miserable for forgetting to take things out of the freezer or forgetting to go to the grocery store.
     Make myself more miserable by realizing that we shouldn't be eating out all the time for dinners and then guilty because that's what ended up happening a few days this week.  All because I couldn't come up with a grocery list and I keep trying to come up with new things but I only remember the things I've done recently and I didn't want to re-do them all again... or should I?
     Scroll through the job listings and get even worse than before until finally my husband said that even one of his old co-workers said maybe it's best if I just stop looking for a bit.  It's not doing me any good and I'm just miserable doing it because I keep getting turned down.  And he was worried at this point if I got into a job then suddenly I won't be able to help with the convention and I've been doing a lot of that lately and we think it's helping.  (Not that I'm doing any of that today, but I'll get to that in a bit.)
     So, I agreed and decided that maybe I should attempt to convince myself that THIS is what I want to be doing with the rest of my life.  That taking care of the house, being creative, and helping out with the convention is actually better than working and I should be happy having the time to myself.

     A true introvert probably would be happy.  I don't think I'm a true introvert, so instead of making me happy like I always thought it would; I'm miserable and alone with my own thoughts and the only time that I'm relaxed and not depressed is either when I'm writing it all out on paper or I'm doing some task that is so mind-numbing that I can't think about other things.  So sometimes, like today for example, watching TV, cleaning the house and mowing the lawn are my mind-numbing things but then I forgot to go get groceries and plan dinner, and thus I'm behind again; even with a list out on the counter I've started to cross off as I get things accomplished.

     Last week was a mix of all of that.  Wanting to search for a job, convincing myself that it was okay that I didn't, and eventually just getting caught up in having a stomach flu of some sort that I felt miserable and just wanted to watch TV when I wasn't running back and forth to the bathroom.  But I also started to feel a bit better about myself.  Got more things done for the convention, got more painting done, had an order from a family member that I got to mail off, got out of the house and did some shopping.  Got excited about doing things for the weekend.
     Then I tried to pump myself up for the convention stuff and I was kind of excited about all of that while we were having our meeting.  I was pretty happy at the excitement for the artwork and all of the advertising and such and that was pretty cool.  That, after spending a day sick to my stomach and feeling like crap.  And oh yeah, getting yet another rejection letter after all of the time I spent just having no clue why I wasn't hearing from any of the job applications I still had out there.

     And yesterday I really wanted to have a good day.  But I'm miserable because I've gained weight and my outfit was too tight.  I was miserably hot.  I was running to the bathrooms every few hours because of whatever flu it was that still isn't going away.  And I was miserable because I have no job and thus feel like I can't spend anything...and then I allowed myself to get talked into buying this hat that I really didn't like and wished that I could just instead walked away and bought something else I actually wanted...but I wondered if I would feel better.  I didn't.  But I wanted to.  I wanted to have that excited feeling I got when I bought my first potion bottle or when I bought my crystal ball, or perhaps when I bought the outfit that I wore and it was a small and the woman was amazed how well it fit and now it's just too tight because I'm nearly 20lbs heavier again and it was just miserable.

     I really don't want people worrying about me.  I really don't want to tell them that I feel useless.  Sure, maybe I catch someone's eye by posting stuff online, but it's not MINE.... let me explain, as I came up with this idea earlier today.

     My husband, back when we had just met, had taken on the convention just earlier that year and his friends were all pushing him to do his best to grow this thing.  If you wanted to compare it to a child, let's say someone had this kid, then after it turned two years old put it up for adoption and my husband and a couple of his friends took it to start raising it.  I met my husband right about that time and started throwing in my two-cents of how to raise this 'child'.  I didn't have a hand in it myself because I lived too far away, but they took my ideas and got it through its third year.  I didn't really start raising it myself until half-way through it's third year and got to celebrate its fourth birthday.  But, still, I was only helping it in little bits and pieces.  It was still my husband and his friend's 'child'.
     Skip forward to its teenage years and I spent most of my time helping to raise it with my husband and yet his friends (or rather, the vice chair) still acted as if it was HIS and that I had very little to do with it.  Even though I spent hours and hours of my time devoted to clothing, feeding, and bathing it, it still wasn't mine.  Now it's very nearly grown out of its teenage years and I see how much it has grown, that it isn't a child anymore, but here I am, still helping bathe it, still feeding it, still cutting its hair and dressing it, and only just recently have I started to get some of the credit for it.
     Look how much attention its getting on social media!  You're sharing all of these pictures of it and look how popular its getting!  What proud parents we are for watching it grow and doing so well for it!  But, you know, it's HIS kid...  So yeah, it's still my husband's "child" even though I've raised it and helped him nurture it and protect it from all of these people who sought to do what they wanted it.  But, it's not MINE.

     So, that's why I started making up my own business.  This one could be MINE.  This could be my tiny child that I raise up from nothing... but because I'm starting from scratch, it feels so lonely and I feel like I have very little ground to stand on.  I've had to push myself to do this thing - put together the stock and make the website and go to the craft shows and promote myself - all while having this "teenager" hoisted upon me... make him behave.  Watch it, feed it, keep it happy...
     But it's a teenager.  This is a baby - well, rather, this project is so new it's only a few months old, and in order for it to grow I need to spend a LOT more time on it, and yet here I am being stuck raising both, and we all know that teenagers need just as much attention as babies do in their own way.  But what suffers?  The little thing I want to do because I keep having to be forced between one or the other, especially when my husband now has a new job in order to take care of my dead-beat ass.

     Sorry, but that's how I've been feeling and it's a pretty good analogy.  So I figure, maybe I can see things through and maybe once I've gotten past the convention this year I can concentrate on my own project.  Maybe then I can find a job.  Maybe then I can be happy with whatever it is that I can focus on...I just don't know what anymore.

   

No comments:

Post a Comment