I remember one day talking to someone about antidepressants or some such thing…taking pills of some sort for mood regulation.  The person I was talking to described it as having everything feel flat and even, without ups and downs, kinda grey (my least favourite colour).  It sounded dreadful because that was exactly how I felt every day on my own, without pills or anything else.  All I wanted was to go back to normal, which for me is feeling lots of stuff, good, bad and ugly, but usually pretty good fun.  It seems like for the longest time I have been feeling flat and colourless.  To take something that would make me feel like that would be torture.  I seem to be moving out of that….Thank God!  The other day, I don’t know what I was doing or anything, but it seemed like something turned back on, slid back into position or whatever, it felt so good.  I felt a little flicker of something that reminded me of the girl I once was.  I used to wake up every single day with butterflies in my stomach.  I was so excited by each and every morning because every day when I got up it was a new day, there was the possibility that something amazingly fun could happen!  I loved that feeling.  I don’t know when it stopped but it sucks that it did.  Those days I was single and working my little ass off every day.  I was really good at what I did, I was full of laughter and attitude and I had the world on a string.  Nothing was out of reach for me.  It was fantastic!

Fast forward quite a few years, I met a guy (again), fought like hell to stay with him, had a kid, moved away from the city, bought a house, got married, had another kid, started a business, had two more kids, had a shit-tonne of miserable family drama and bingo, bango, bammo, completely lost my identity!  What!!!!!????  What the fuck happened?  Where did it go?  When did it go? And how the hell did I not fucking notice?  I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for years (station break:  the creepiest thing just happened, as I’m sitting here typing this a voice out of nowhere with an English accent says “Time to turn back time”.  I just had a heart attack!) anyways, as I was saying…I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for years, trying to look busy, trying to convince “people” (I won’t say who) that I am getting shit done.  What am I doing?  I’m cleaning my house.  That’s it.  That’s all.  It’s a joke.  It sucks.  It’s so boring!!!!!!  I hate cleaning.  I love having a clean, organized home, but I really don’t enjoy cleaning.  I had a mini-meltdown the other day so I booked myself an appointment at the business advisory centre to meet with some objective people who could either point me in the right direction or confirm that I was right with the direction I know I have to move in to move my business back into existence.  During my meeting I was talking (a lot) about what state I was currently in.  We discussed goals, goal setting, writing things down, setting smaller goals, vision boards, etc.  I also was thinking back to other conversations I’ve had with people about moving a business forward, blah, blah, and one thing that came up was motivation and keeping in mind why I’m doing the things I’m doing.  What occurred to me that day at the advisory meeting was that my motivation has been all fucked up.

I’ve been moving around doing busy work so that at the end of the day it looks like I’ve actually accomplished something.  When I clean the house, do the laundry, stock the house, bathe the kids, volunteer…you can see that.  There is physical evidence of my “productivity”.  Measurable proof that I am doing something.  Because I haven’t been working I really felt like I had to earn my keep and somehow carry my weight.  In my mind, being a mother at home with her children just wasn’t enough to make me a valuable commodity.  If I’m working and earning, then my voice counts, but if I’m not, I’m at the mercy of someone else.  I don’t like that.  I feel less than.  Not good enough.  Certainly not like I’m standing on even ground.  So I keep cleaning and shopping and working with my kids to get them ready for school, but not working on any of my own shit.

Now, it’s time.  My twins are three.  I am working with them steadily this year to get them ready for full time kindergarten in September.  They are my babies so I will admit I have babied them.  But I will also admit, I’ve babied all my kids.  I like it like that.  They get to stay small for a little bit.  I do always have them ready to face the world when the time comes though so I don’t take it too far.  Whatever!  🙂  But, like I was saying, now it’s time.  It’s time for me to shit or get off the pot.  It’s time for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  I can, at any time, go get a job…wah, wah.  Only if I absolutely have to and if that day does come, it’s because I’m a lazy bitch and it’s totally my own fault.  So hopefully it never happens!  lol   I want to do something with my life.  I want to earn a living doing something I love, something where I feel inspired and happy, breathlessly happy.  I want to LOVE what I do.  I want to do something that others dig.  Something that other people benefit from.  I want to be someone that my kids can look at and be proud and maybe say I want to be like her…not exactly, but they might want to have some of the same qualities that I have…sheesh.  What I mean by that is that they will be inspired to do what they love even if it takes a while to start or even figure out what that is.  I used to say all the time that I wanted to do everything my Dad did.  He was stud!  He did everything.  He was self-made, he traveled all the way around the world twice, he had boats, he had his pilots license, he really lived life and did it all.  He was impressive…to me.  He used to tell me the most amazing stories about the things he had done in his life.  He was the best.  I want to be able to tell my kids stories about the cool shit I’ve done, but that’s never going to happen if I stay in this miserable little hole.

And so, it is time.  It is time to wake up.

ps…the creepy voice coming out of the darkness…my husband’s laptop, which the kids left on.