Summer Simply Sucks

haven't written in a while. thought about pulling plug on blog. thought about writing a few times. been encouraged by a few people to write but was too mired in the day-to-day routine and survival mode that i haven't.

now that i am here, i don't really know where to start. maybe i should have posted when i hit the wall a few weeks ago. when i was overwhelmed, struggling and at my limit. in the middle of the meltdown.

the meltdown from....the end of summer, the fucking heat, the exhausted kids, exhausted me, the intense tantrums from the over-the-top defiant 4-year-old, the mother-in-law visit, the miserable-ass heat, the new wii mario bros-game- fixation from the 6 1/2-year-old, the marital fault-finding, the unbearable heat, and my underlying anxiety coming out as i-have-fucking-had-it anger.

but i didn't post then. i lost my shit. i asked for help. i cried in a meeting for the first time in almost 3-years of sobriety. i was honest. i got the hell out of my house for a nite away with a friend.

so here i am post-meltdown...able to breathe and feeling a little lighter. holding on to my sobriety not only because i owe it to myself and my babies but because it is the constant underlying all the craziness and the most important thing i can do to ensure i can handle all of the hard-ass mothering shit and also enjoy all of the bad-ass beautiful mothering shit.

and all of the shit will be happening whether or not there is some Vino to blur the sharp edges. being sober helps me have some gratitude, no matter how small, for all of it. being sober i know my feelings will change and pass and my perspective will, too.

so there is no new insight to be shared. no big decision to be made. no drastic move to make. just stay in the day. to remember that this very summer our kids have had two fabulous vacations, great summer camps and lots of fun with friends. to hang on because school is right around the corner. and to bask in the brief reprieve from the heat this weekend.

it's to continue to fantasize about making a mock bumper sticker of those annoying stick figure families people are sporting all over our town. it's to continue to get some pleasure from flipping off our children when they aren't looking because they made their 100th demand in less than five minutes. it's to continue to mock the 30-something hipsters -- especially the two bearded guys in a two-block radius sporting the same ironic captain hat at the same time on the same nite. it's to eat chocolate ice cream out of the half gallon container till Esposo kindly says "aren't you about done?". it's to commiserate with Esposo about all the things we HATE about summer.

it's to go back and forth about all the things we are worried about that our kids are saying and doing. all the things we are worried about that we are saying and doing. all the things we haven't done and need to do. and the things we have done and needed to do differently. but because of that constant underneath -- being sober. i am able to see all of this shit for what it is. we have made some progress in many ways and we continue to regress or behave as poorly as our children in others.

being sober, i am willing to see all of this and know that things will change. i am not adding Vino to the mix to try to lessen the hard stuff or enhance the good. being sober, i am willing to admit that i need to do better and willing to accept that sometimes we do the best and the worst we can. the one thing that will not change is my loathing of summer.