Gallons

Where do I start? Usually when I wake up with this many thoughts overflowing from my head, I immediately pour them onto paper and try to make sense of them. But it’s been so long since I’ve blogged publicly that I don’t imagine that the overflow of emotions could ever transfer in a way that didn’t make me sound either completely insane or seemingly suicidal.

I am neither. But I am…tired. Just bloody tired.

The kind of tired that sends you to bed early and you fall asleep within seconds of letting your head meet pillow…but with that supersized side order of anxiety that wakes you up from even the deepest of slumbers to send you wading in your private pool of self-pity, frustration and despair. I find myself thinking, the minute the alarm clock goes off, of everything that’s miserable and how I’m going to try to simply push through it with a smile on my face. Just get by. Just smile. Make it a great day. Be your best you. Hang in there.

I’m trying.

But try as I might, I’m drowning in it lately…the despair. The loneliness. The uncertainty. Whereas I used to be able to vent, put things into perspective, count my blessings and then keep plugging along, I just feel consumed lately by the sense that things will never get better for me. I am lonely. I am broke. I am defeated.
I love my children more than any words on paper or on my computer screen could ever express. And essentially, they are the only reason I’m here. I love them more than I love me. Or you. Or anyone. And as long as they need and want me to be here, I am here and doing my best to be everything they need.

And therein lies my heartbreak. “They are the only reason I’m here.” Every mother worth her salt will tell you that it’s enough for them. Because what kind of mother would ever long for any additional or alternate sources of happiness when her beautiful, perfect children should be enough?

But let’s not forget this…I am not only a mother. I am a woman. I am a human being. Human contact is a basic need. I might be punished for saying so, but you’ll just have to forgive me for saying that I want more. I want friends who are present for me. I want a family who is involved with mine and my son’s lives. I want a companion and a partner who sees me as more, loves me and wants to be a part of my life. I want a career and a home that make me feel successful, fulfilled and comfortable. I want a life that is such that, when my boys inevitably move on and my nest is empty of children, it is still filled with or visited by people who want me in their lives.

None of that is happening for me. I never see my family unless I relentlessly pursue them, in which case I hate myself for seeming desperate or a bother. It’s become harder to keep in touch with some friends, and even harder getting everyone to come together. I’ve fallen into love with a man who continually detaches himself from me when I get to be too emotionally overwhelming, only to come back, leaving me wondering if I’ll ever really be loved and accepted fully ever again, if I’ve ever really been at all. My job and the people who work with me are sucking the soul out of me at a dizzying pace, and I am searching desperately for a replacement that won’t feel like I’m just settling. I’m in Purgatory.

All of these things, no matter how hard I try to better or change this situation, feel completely out of my control. I did not choose to be a divorced, financially-strapped, lonely single mom stuck in the middle of a suburban hell that she can't escape. But it’s what I got, and it’s what I’m trying to do my best with…having no one over the age of 6 to talk to at the end of a hard day and outside of work hours. Having a home so far from family and friends in a neighborhood devoid of friendly neighbors, that no one ever just “stops by.” Having no money to go back to school to better my career or get my boys or myself involved in activities that would reconnect us with the world, yet having “too much” money to qualify for any sort of assistance. Sleeping in one tiny corner of a massive king-sized bed, wishing there was a hand there to hold, or someone to giggle with while watching Family Guy. Staring at the stars at night, wishing I were anywhere else, wishing I never longed for anything, wishing I was a better person, wishing I were better-looking, or a better mom, or better at anything that mattered to anyone who matters to me.

My sons should be enough. I am a horrible person. You can say it to me over and over again, call me ungrateful, call me pathetic, call me trite, call me shallow, call me whatever you want. But I just cannot help how empty I feel, and I cannot help yearning for things to fill a void that I’m starting to think will never fill.

Recently I sat in my friend’s chair while she painstakingly flat-ironed my hair, and I bemoaned the latest rift between me and the man who I’ve been devoting the last several months of my life with. She listened carefully before weighing in.
I, according to my friend, am a gallon girl who is living a life surrounded by pint people. I have gallons of love and devotion that I’m handing to people, and they are either taking it and only refilling my gallon by a pint, or my gallon overwhelms them so that they decline any further offerings. That’s why I’m empty, she said. I need to find a gallon guy and gallon friends, or I will find myself carrying around an empty heart forever. I might not give only to receive, she says, but I’m noticing the emptiness nonetheless.

I don’t think there are any gallon people in the world, if that’s the case.

And that makes me sadder.