I don’t know why, but this morning just seemed harder to pick myself up and chug along. Everyone is sleeping. I wake up at 5 am for some reason which doesn’t help the continuous cycle of not getting enough sleep. My guess it’s some underlying stress I don’t want to deal with because I slept until 7am on the weekend. Burying my emotions and just getting this done is starting to take its toll again. I once lost all my hair, was bald and had to wear a wig. When the hubby was first diagnosed and I was helping him, running my own business and started a new job, I kept telling myself I can do it, but the body knows the truth. And I feel like it’s happening again. I need to listen, but don’t know how to stop this train.

I see the hubby still has 1 hr and 15 minutes to go on his dialysis session. It’s dark in the room, but the dialysis machine’s screen lights the room. It is very bright. Sometimes it’s covered by a pillowcase, but not today. I see hubby’s silhouette and I’m filled with sadness. For us. I’m just hit with everything that still needs to be done.

• Put up tree
• Buy gifts – although having to pay back the $5500 back to the old job for the maternity leave top up is still hurting the bank account. Several paycheques later and I still can’t get back into the black. Fak!
• Grocery shop for all the things I want to make for the holidays
• Take kids to just do shit and get them off the electronics
• Donate bags of clothes and just get rid of junk

I look at the list and it doesn’t seem like a lot yet I still feel like I’m drowning. I don’t want to do any of it. I want to stay in bed, sleep, play my phone or watch Netflix in bed, snack and sleep some more. I don’t want to talk to anyone or take care of anybody. It’s work, commute and family. My commute is my “me” time, but it’s far from relaxing. I get home and baby needs me and hubby is exhausted and needs time away to decompress. Big boys vie for attention too. I know they need some love and attention. I love them. Feed them. Remind them to do homework, bath, brush teeth, settle squabbles and just give give give.

It just feels like no matter the task, big or small, it feels overwhelming. I get it all done, but just not with the sparkle that used to shine bright within. It’s a dark hallow existence inside and I’m going through the motions. Don’t get me wrong. I wear the mask of happiness for work, for family, and mainly for myself. But as I sit here reflecting during my commute, I’m not feeling happy.

I have a few theories.

• lack of sleep – when I do get rest, I feel so much better. Even the hubby remarked what a difference when I woke up from a 4-hour “nap” one weekend long ago.
• PMS – I know being more emotional is part for the course of menstruation, but sometimes I can feel the “crazy” inside. The whirlwind of emotions from happy, sad, angry, anxious, not finding happiness in anything.
• Diet – I was on a great kick of eating healthy when I started the job. I’d chop and wash Romain lettuce and spinach on the weekend and keep it in a big Tupperware. I’d just fill my lunch container each day and add a protein from dinner or just an avacado and a mini pita. Well, that has fallen to the way side as I don’t want to do shit on the weekend. And with the Christmas season, way too much sugar. And mcD had $1 coffees that I’d get an extra large double double decaf almost everyday at work. Now the sale is over and I’m still hooked. I get just a large, but when I would rarely get a coffee to wanting one everyday, mcD drug dealer me and got me hooked. Well, them and my love of a great deal 😂
• Lack of exercise – at my old job, the gym was in my same building and I’d go to classes that I prefer. This new job doesn’t have a gym close enough for me to hit the gym on my lunch hour as before. No time after work. I get hubby is just mentally and physically done after watching the baby all day and chauffeuring the kids, so after work it’s hard for me to extend my absence even longer. We used to take turns once a week to go out. Poker, dinner date night with my sister-cousin, etc. But even that became too much with this new schedule.

I need to get control of my life and do shit.

• Make the healthier lunch
• Arrange work from home at least once to two times a week
• get back onto one of those 30-day physical challenges – I’ve done a plank challenge, squat challenge, pushup/leg lift, etc.

I can help Franklin when he gets off the machine, I can get the sleep I need, I can be present for my kids beyond just getting home in time for 1.5 hours of nagging of hwk, teeth, blah blah blah

I feel like I have a good action plan to make it better, but as I lift my head to just breath, I see all the other commuters and think of all the deliverables I need to get done at work today. Sigh.

I just need to make it to lunch – which is a yummy stew beef and rice courtesy of my dad and family dinner leftovers. Saved a couple bucks which is good as I still need to buy gifts!

• Dad
• Grand niece
• Cousin daughter
• Niece – because she’s still in school
• Allison
• Dai-dai
• Bro-in-law and his girl
• MIL
• Hubby
• My 3 pickneys dem
• My brothers – I don’t have to, but I usually get them socks
• Brothers wives – I don’t have to, but I just get them something small
• Sister-cousin
• Niece (she’s not married and I wuv her)

And Chinese new year is right after the January credit card bill from Christmas. Ugh! I hate money.

I went from feeling like crap, to feeling good with an action plan, to overwhelmed with work deliverables, to feeling good for bring my lunch, to worrying about money. Wtf life?!