Changes

I am so sad to look at my followers and see that the number has fallen from eight to four since the last time I posted.

I loved...love this blog. It was so much a part of me and my life and I feel like a neglectful parent to have let it fall into sorrowful disrepair and desuetude.

I fell into the trap of knowing that certain persons were reading my blog and that things I said were occasionally hurtful to them. If I'm too negative, I feel like I'm not being thankful enough for all I've been given. If I'm too happy, I felt I wasn't being sensitive enough to their feelings. I couldn't fucking win. I want to be able just to be me. Happy. Sad. Mad. Whatever. Just Dawn without having to make excuses for how I feel or what I say.

I have to decide if I can rebuild this blog and make it meaningful and relevant again. Even if it's just meaningful and relevant to myself.

I miss blogging. I miss the friends I made through blogging.

It only just occurs to me that I've been trying to hide out, not reveal too much. Maybe I just need to get back to the basics of why I started this blog. I wanted to become a resource for other moms who were experiencing the challenges of motherhood. I especially wanted to connect with moms who may not have had the best mothering role models, but were finding ways to be good mothers and also to find mothers who were good mothers and who had good mothers and were willing to share their maternal wisdom with the rest of us.

The last few years have changed me. I do not like who I have become...someone cut off, cold, who wants to avoid emotions at every cost. I've heard myself say more than once that I wish I were a robot. And I do wish life weren't so hard for me at times. But then, I know it's no harder for me than it is for anyone else. I just never learned the right ways of coping. I let things bother me that I should dismiss. I lack patience and the ability to look positively into the future.

I want to change.

So...why can't I?

I'm So Tired

I hate feeling dumb. But boy do I feel dumb today.

For a couple of weeks now I have been totally on edge. Snapping at people. My poor kids and husband included. I've felt edgy, achy, totally discombobulated.

This week, it kind of came to a head. I was feeling anxious about Scott's show. I had to make a decision about a job offer I'd received for a pretty cool job that would pay a fantastic amount of money but require me to go into an office one day a week and force us to hire a nanny and/or housekeeper because I'd need someone to help with Beckett. I walked around in tears or on the verge of tears for a week.

There were a couple of moments where I wondered if I might be having a nervous breakdown.

I was wondering what was up? Why would stuff that I could typically deal with without batting an eyelash push me so close to the edge?

Then, Saturday, it dawned on me.

I haven't had a break since May. Scott and I have gone out alone a couple of times, but most of the times we've had a sitter, it's been because he's playing. Or we've gone out with other people. I've been with the kids constantly except for the two or three times I've hired a sitter to go to a work meeting.

No down time for me since May. Even when Beckett has napped, I still have Brendan.

I love my kids. I love my life. But sometimes... I need some time. A bubble bath. A quiet hour with a book. To go to the bathroom without someone knocking on the door and asking me to come do something that could wait.

So, this morning, I planned to get up at 6:30 and work out. I actually woke up a bit earlier raring to go. I got up, did some Pilates, and only just now has Beckett awoken. Brendan is still asleep.

And I feel great!

Refresed, revived, and ready to go.

Happiness Runs

The last week or so has found me in a very strange place mentally. I haven't blogged much because much of what I was feeling was dark. I was in a really scared and lonely place and didn't feel the need to subject the world at large to what was going on. I talked through a couple of things with Scott, with Suzanne, and with Jeremy. I don't know that I found any answers, but I found it incredibly comforting to know that I have people who care about me in my life. I'm lucky.

Obviously, a lot of what was going on with me has to do with the loss of my friend's baby. I keep replaying the moment, six days before Claire died, when I joked with my friend that she had a daughter for both of my sons. Her daughter Emily is just a month or two younger than Brendan and Claire was two months younger than Beckett. Emily and her older sister are both beautiful, but Emily is a real charmer with a smile that lights up the room while her older sister maintains that oldest child seriousness much of the time. I just keep imagining the beautiful, sweet child Claire might have become.

So, that combined with hearing from someone I care about that I'm really selfish and a bad friend, along with seeing a bunch of old college friends, has made me start taking stock of my life and some of the things I'd like to do but haven't yet.

I'm giving serious consideration to running in a half-marathon as a result. Of course, I've only been considering it for the last 24 hours or so after receiving an e-mail about this organization from my friend Susan. Susan suggested that members of our college class run the Nike Women's Half-Marathon in San Francisco together. It just struck me as a really cool goal to set for myself. A place to get to.

The problem is that I do not run. I've never been much of an athlete, but I'm thinking that can change. Maybe it should change.

Any runners out there who'd like to offer an opinion? Any advice on how to get started? Should I try to run with the 55 lbs. worth of kids plus a 20 lb. jogging stroller or without? Am I crazy to think I can start running now when I never have before?

Let me know what y'all think...