Emotions
Every morning I wake up with a headache, my ears ringing. My emotions are so taut, I wonder if I will make it through the day without them breaking. Sleep feels nonexistent to me because even in sleep my dreams torture me of how my life is heading, but it is not me that I worry about, it is my children. Those three innocent kids that do what they are told to, who help clean the house, who will somehow think it is their fault because they did not do enough to help.
I have made mistakes in my life, decisions I wish I could go back and change but if I continuously look at life like that than I will never move forward. I am a firm believer that you can’t run and stick your head in the sand when a problem presents itself. You wait a bit, maybe avoid it for a while but it won’t go away, so you must use that time to figure out what went wrong and how you are going to handle the problem facing you before it gets to a point nothing short of a miracle will save you.
They say there is always help available you just have to know how to find it; they also say you have to ask. Well I have looked and I have asked but it only leaves us worse off than we were in the first place – it also doesn’t help when you get inconsistent answers to your plea for help. I have stopped asking for help because I can ask and ask for help until I am blue in the face and I get nowhere. I have stopped asking for help because my problems are my problems alone and I am tired of people talking about me and all the things I have done wrong. I have stopped asking for help because I am tired of getting lectured about what I have done wrong or people telling me what I should do. I have stopped asking for help because I am tired of people judging me. I have stopped asking for help because no one will help without telling me how bad of a person I am for the choices I made; choice I made thinking they were the correct ones to make. I have stopped asking for help because asking for help only breaks me faster.
Once I step out of my house, I put on a fake smile and happy face, I fight back the tears that I am feeling and I brave the people around me. Why should I tell them what I am going through? So I can get their sympathies. I had enough of that when my daughter was born – I just can’t take hearing “Oh I am so sorry for you!” Being sorry for me does me no good! Being sorry for me doesn’t help that I am losing my home! Being sorry for me doesn’t help the fact that I can’t afford to pay my bankruptcy payment! Being sorry for me doesn’t help the fact that I am going to have to look at my two boys and tell them we have lost our house because I couldn’t contribute to the finances because I had no one qualified to care for their sister! Being sorry for me doesn’t help the fact that I will have to tell them they won’t be able to attend their school next year! Being sorry for me doesn’t help me feel any better about the decisions I have made that put us here in the first place! I am not sorry for myself, I am angry with myself for not having the strength to say NO! or to take the money when I had it and put it back into savings! And who suffers for it all, my children, the very souls I was entrusted to take care of and look what I am doing to them.
My daughter has been through eight surgeries to correct the birth deformities she was born with. She is the bravest person I know and she is only four years old. She can be swollen and hurting from being in surgery yet if she sees someone else is hurt or crying, she will come hug them and pat them on the head, her way of telling them it will be okay. It is in those moments that I find myself pushing forward. It is the joy of seeing her stick her tongue out past her lips for the first time in her life that tells me all the pain I am feeling, all the hurt will eventually go away; eventually everything will be better.
People say I am a strong person but I’m not, I am only good at hiding behind a mask so people won’t see how everyday another little piece of me has been broken, shattered. I don’t know how many more times I can take seeing my son’s sad faces as I tell them I don’t have the money to give them for the snow cone they want at school or the fifty cents they want to get a treat at lunch. I don’t know how many more times I can take the betrayed look on my daughter’s face as I send her in for another surgery. I don’t know how much more I can see of my husband drained from working as much as he can so we can somehow make it out of the situation facing us and all I can do to help him is to clean the house and cook the dinners and take care of the kids.
I am tired of not being able to breathe because my emotions are stretched thin. I am tired of not being able to do more for my family. I am tired of always being in a stressful situation, no matter how I plan to avoid such situations. I am tired of my body being tight and hurting from the stress I face every day. I am tired of the torturous nightmares that fill my nights and the tiredness it brings to the next day. I am tired of being tired.
I have dreams like everyone else in this life but my dreams are not grand dreams, they are simple dreams. I dream of finishing my college education. I dream of staying in my house with its cracked foundation and myriad of other problems. I dream of being able to write a check out before my bills are due and not worry that I won’t have the money to cover it. I dream of being able to go to the store and pick up simple household items without worrying what I am taking away from by buying something as simple as toilet paper or paper towels. I dream that I will somehow crawl out of this hole a better, wiser person. I dream that today will be the day that I can look at my children and not see the hurt upon their faces because I told them no. I dream that the pain I feel will go away for good….
Dreams don’t pull you out of quicksand; especially quicksand you created for yourself. Many of us go through life with the best of intentions but those best of intentions are not always the best and it is only after the decision is made you realize it was the wrong one to choose. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve does not get you through life, it only makes the situation you are in harder to face but in the end you must face it.
This writing will not get me anywhere. I am one of those unlucky souls that will never get the help I need and I will never see my dreams achieved. I will never be that lucky soul who wins or is given enough money to give them a fresh start; a chance to turn their life around. I am at the point that I am ready to give up but I can’t because I have three beautiful children depending on me, their mother.
So tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and so on, I will wake up with my headache, my ears ringing, tiredness filling me from the nightmares I have traversed through the night. I will wake up worried about the day and what it will bring. I will worry about seeing my children’s crushed faces and my husband drained from working ten hour or longer days. I will worry if this is the day that the fight I keep fighting will come to crushing defeat; a fight I don’t know when to get out of; a fight that will leave me and my family broken from…..And why do I do this every day, day after day? It is a simple answers – because I have to….
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