I haven't had a Chai Latte in three days so to make up for it, I've eaten copious amounts of chocolate. Now I'm paying for it with a nice little headache that has started in my temples and is threatening to make its way around my brain in retaliation for treating it so poorly. One cannot live on sugar alone, although I do try.I love my kids. Have I mentioned that once or twice? We spent the day eating at my mom's and then watching TV at my place. I slept through numerous, mindless children's programs and woke up in time for Mr Popper's Penguins. I now want to visit the Antarctic and see penguins for real. Shouldn't be too hard to make that happen.
I'm literally sitting here, casting about for things to write. Mind is blank. Hurts. My mother suggested I write about the weather and I told her I'd like to move to a place where people don't talk about the weather because it's always sunny and warm. Apparently it's like that in California. I read a story about some starlet visiting New York City and she saw some leaves whipping about in a circular pattern and started to cry because she thought it was a tornado. Either very stupid or has never experienced wind in Cali. My kind of place. Hmmm. Earthquakes. Right. Damn this tempestuous mistress we call the Earth. Why won't she behave?
I think my problem right now is I have spent the last three days thinking about what to feed my constantly starving, but forever picky children. They would live on toast and cereal if I let them. Sometimes I do just from sheer exhaustion. I once told my brother I spend most of my time planning, shopping for and cooking meals for my family. He said that was kind of sad. I argued that it was nice to have that kind of stable life, a life where my biggest concern is what to feed my family. That I liked taking care of them...but this little tiny worm in my heart told me he was right, that it was boring and sad. I'd let myself turn into Mom Megan and there was no room for Fierce Megan. No more roar left in me. For a passionate person, being passionate about what type of pasta to cook that night just wasn't cutting it. But I was so exhausted from going to school and working full-time and cooking and doing homework and taking care of the kids that I didn't even read anymore. I, who used to read two or three books at a time, no longer read for pleasure because I had too many text books to get through and too many papers to write.
But then I was finished school and at first I just thought, I want to rest. I want to think about nothing but what to feed my family for dinner tonight. And I did that for a long time until I woke up one day and said, no fucking way is this my life anymore. I love my kids, but I am more than Mom Megan. Hear me roar!
One day, shortly before we broke up, my ex and I got into a crazy, day-long fight where we ended up not speaking to each other for most of the afternoon. Have always hated those fights and did a lot to avoid them (read: lie down and roll over to avoid them). But this one happened and I let out a lot of pent up anger that had been brewing for months, maybe even years. We made up long enough to go visit friends and be civil to each other and them, but on the way home, we got into it again. My ex turned to me while I drove us home and said, "I feel like I don't even know you anymore. I don't know who Megan is, I only know this Mom Megan who just tries to get through every day to make it to the next. I don't know how to get to know you again. And I can tell I've pissed you off by saying that because I can see your jaw clenching." I told him it was late and we still needed to get the kids into bed and I didn't want to get into it again. And that was it. The next day we acted like nothing happened, but a few weeks later I was saying I needed a break to sort my head out and figure out what I needed and wanted.
Because the problem was...I WAS Mom Megan, that was all I was anymore, to my children, which is normal, but also to my husband, which is not normal and not okay. And I felt a lot of the reason I was just Mom Megan and not much else was because I'd HAD to be. I wasn't kidding when I said being a mom was the first time I really felt absolutely stellar at anything I'd done before and I took it over like it was my new mission in life. But then I lost myself in it. I didn't write anymore, I didn't read, I didn't go out, I only saw my friends if they had kids and we made it a playdate and my husband and I hadn't gone on a date just the two of us in months. We used to care about that, used to make an effort to make that happened. And then suddenly I realized, we had a gift card to a restaurant that we got for our anniversary in January and neither one of us had made an effort to make that happen in TEN MONTHS. I'm not blaming him in the least, I'm blaming US. Because we were both so caught up in the apathy that comes with just trying to get through each day that we forgot to care.
So I'm not going to lie and say that since my break up I've decided to live life to the fullest and I quit my job and I'm moving to the Antarctic to visit the penguins and then maybe on to Africa to see the lions. No. I still go to work and make money to take care of my kids, whom I still love above all else and I still spend a lot of time thinking about the price of Cheese Strings and wondering why they have to make cheese fun for kids to eat it because it's fucking cheese, what's not to love? I still have responsibilities and sometimes I'm still just trying to make it through the day to bedtime. That is life. That is reality. But I'm sure as shit going to take more time to find out who I am and where I want to go. I'm going to take the time to write and I'm going to read two or three books at a time again (off to a good start with a Farewell to Arms and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and just started Skagboys, the sequel to Trainspotting). I'm going to plan trips and I'm going to get tattoos because life is short and death is long.
For now, back to Game of Thrones
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