Fatigue

There have been other times in my life when I've felt as exhausted as I do now but usually that was due to some small person making their entrance into this world. I swear, I could lay down right now, rest my head on the keyboard and easily wake up hours later with a nice imprint of the letter "r" crushed into my cheek. "It's a freckle, I swear....."

I'm not sleeping well on one hand because Rosie has decided that sleeping through the night is just so yesterday's news. I don't know if it's her teeth or that she hates being stuffed into a sleeping bag to go night-nites, but she's taken to wailing in her sleep, loudly, several times a night. I've been bounding down the stairs in the dark, going into her and rubbing her little fuzzy head each time, and just as I'm about to leave & close the bedroom door, she starts howling again.

Last night, I took teeny tiny steps across the room to try and reach the door before she knew I was gone, but I got busted as I turned the handle. Once I finally did get her settled for good, I had the wonderful joy of hearing Typhon picking up right where she left off.

I'm also exhausted because I am stressing about going back to work after 10 years of being at home in sweatpants. All of the sudden, I'm needing to actually shower every morning and, not only that,  needing to find clothes that match AND that don't smell like huskies or poop. Not an easy task when I've decided to become completely French and go on a full fledged strike against the washing machine.

I'm exhausted because I'm still on an emotional roller coaster that started a month ago today. I see things clearer now than I did then. I feel better about most things now than I did then. I actually feel that I might be able to find some positives out of a really shitty situation.

But then, all of a sudden in the car, or at night when I'm on the dark stairs listening to Rosie, or when I get a text message from The Man, or when I'm just picking up toys, or putting dishes in the dishwasher, or reading something about the strikes, or I hear a name, or I get a hug from a friend, I go there. That place where my heart exploded into a million pieces and where my life, as I naively loved it, ended.

I'm exhausted because I love. Because I haven't stopped loving. Because I'm in a place where my heart is trying to glue itself back together and carry everyone with it. It's a hard choice The Man and I have made and happy as we both seem about things, it's going to take a long time before anything feels like normal again. This is now life as we live it. Cautiously, humbly, not taking anything for granted.

This life, made up of our lives, that are a whirlwind of shattered pieces, new jobs, children who need reassurances that everything is going to be ok, dog fur, and a teething baby, is exhausting.

And I'm not ready for it to naively end.