It Can't Rain all the Time

March 15, 2012 The Maven

Some days even I, The Maven, spiritual guide and moral compass to the masses of motherhood, gets down on herself.

The inside of my head these days.
It's a neutral colour, so it goes with anything.

I feel sorry for the few close friends I've been opening up to lately. It's been a tough few weeks emotionally, physically and financially, and I'm pretty sure most of my peeps are tired of hearing me complain. Heck, I'm tired of hearing myself complain. On top of it all, whining about how things suck only makes me feel guilty about whining (because I really should be grateful all the time, I figure, as I have a lot to be grateful for). This guilt then leads into worrying that maybe people are going to start avoiding me and that I'll wind up standing in a lonely little emo puddle of self-inflicted misery.

So before I break out some Robert Smith, I'm going to get all my complaining over with in one shot where everyone can read it. I'll likely get embarrassed that I shared all of this online, and then go back to feeling grateful to save face.

See? Super healthy thought processes abound. I'm pretty sure I missed my calling as a therapist.

Here's what happened in my world over the last couple of months:

I left my part-time job in January to become a writer.
Surprisingly, this did not immediately generate mass amounts of income and notoriety.
We are now broke. Not just broke, but scary broke. Not cardboard box broke or repo man broke or "dude, where's my dial tone?" broke, but broke enough that if anything unexpected happens - any repair, any sudden expense - we can't cover it. We just can't. Every drop of income is going into bills and food and other really boring stuff. Our meagre emergency savings of yesteryears are no longer. Looking at the budget spreadsheet the other night made me burst into spontaneous ~~laughter~~ ~~song and dance~~ tears, and I spent 20 minutes wondering if my running mascara made me look more like Courtney Love in the 90's or that dude from A Clockwork Orange. (These are important things to consider as you're sobbing into a Kleenex box. Vanity, ladies, first and foremost and always.)
I have contracts coming in, and I'm grateful for those contracts because they're helping me build my business. But I need it to build faster, dammit. I crave instant gratification. This whole startup thing is not nearly as glamorous as The Social Network made it out to be. I feel lied to. It makes me want to ~~punch~~ ~~kick~~ ~~make out with~~ make a "talk to the hand" gesture at Justin Timberlake, who made that movie interesting. I need more Benjamins and I need them now.
(Technically, we don't have "Benjamins" in Canada. Our $100 bills feature former Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden. But saying "It's all about the Bordens" doesn't have the same rapper ring to it. And as we all know, I'm pretty white suburban hybrid-driving gangsta.)
Because I'm so stressed, I can't write. I can't create. I feel completely blocked. Shut down. And that means I'm not generating as much income as I could or really need to be. I'm an artist who isn't making things, which is the worst kind of artist. It's also the most broke kind of artist. *Insert vicious circle motion here, whatever that would look like. Use your imagination.*
And then there's the whole feeling of being caught between a rock and a hard place.. Or maybe between home and a workplace. I have kids who need me here (and yes, they really do. Special needs families have different requirements than typical families, and at this point my special needs family needs someone home at 2:30 when school lets out). But I also need to make money. And I'm stressed about balancing it all, which means I'm not doing a great job at either parenting or working right now. I need to be writing. I need to be writing from home. There are many, many good reasons why this should be my career, and at the top of that list are three boys named Intrepid, Gutsy and Spawnling.
And then I got sick. It was the first time in about a year that I came down with something nasty. This says loads about the stress I'm under, because the gluten-free lifestyle has been very kind to my immune system. This virus knocked me out for most of March Break and made me feel even worse.
And this whole thing has taken a toll on my self-esteem. I feel rather ugly. And fat. Very fat. I know I'm actually fat, believe me. But I'm usually good at accepting this about myself and thinking I look plus-size smokin' most days. With this perfect storm of insecurity and stress brewing, however, accepting me for who I am on any level has been a challenge. So now I just feel frumpy and gross.
And I'm trying to cut sugar out of my diet again and finding it very hard, which is only fuelling the self-deprication because my jeans are getting tighter again.
And come to think of it, I probably could have summed this all up by saying that I'm in a bad place all over, so please be gentle and send coffee and hugs.

Okay, that's it. I think I feel a little better after that exhibitionist-like venting session. And now, when someone asks me how I'm doing, I'll just send them a link to this blog post instead of sharing the verbal equivalent of throwing on the goth garb and writing poetry in my own blood.

To quote The Crow, it can't rain all the time. The sun is going to shine again. I know it is. And it's going to be brighter and warmer and require much more sunscreen than it has before. I just wish it would hurry up. I miss being me.

And does this qualify as writing? Because I'd really like to think I wrote something today.