One of the things I strive for in writing is honesty. I write my feelings honestly; I tell stories honestly. It rarely occurs to me to censor myself just because I happen to personally know most of the people who drop by this space. What you read is who I am.
Lately, however, my habit of honesty has paralyzed my writing. The fact that my voice is a known entity--to my friends, my parents, my family--keeps me from complaining too much, which is a good thing most of the time. When it doesn't work is when my fingers sit on the keyboard and the only thing I want to do is write about how frustrated/miserable/stressed/exasperated I am. I'm fine when I'm talking with people, but somehow that transparent relationship I have with writing isn't bringing out the best in me these days.
I can't write happy parenting posts because my parenting hasn't been happy. I can't write stories of my sunshiny days when most of the time I'm full of resentment. I have no one to be resentful towards, mind you. And really, I have no reason to be particularly resentful at all, but I am. Resentful about being ungrounded for months now. No real home. No date set in stone as to when we'll begin construction. And no sleep at night because Julianne has developed a persistent panic attack every time she has to go to sleep, as if entering that dream world is too far away from me.
I should pity her, feel sympathetic, feel empathetic (after all, I'm having plenty of panic attacks myself), but instead I resent her intrusion into the two hours I claim to myself. I count on 8-10 pm being for me, for watching tv or reading books or writing. But Jules doesn't go to sleep at 8 or 9 or 10. And when she finally does go to sleep, she wakes again an hour later, and then an hour after that. Her crib will not contain her; the little space next to our bed in our room will not appease her. It has to be me, holding her, all night long.
So it is that this is the recipe for misery that lasts all day long, week after week. Sleep deprived, short-tempered, exhausted, and homeless: that's all I want to write about. I've kept it in--until now--because I wanted to return here with happy words, strong words, words different from the ones you read in the news these days.
And maybe this act of writing about it is therapeutic enough to get me balanced again, but if I'm absent for awhile it's because I can't find the silver lining to all this. I'll return when Jules starts sleeping through the night, and when my honesty starts feeling a little brighter.
I suspect those two things are related.
