Phhhhhhhhttttttttt!

Um, yeah.  That's me.  I am in a FUNK.  Serious-big-time-burst-into-tears-twelve-times-a-day-kind of funk.  It's not pretty.

I'm having a terrible time being thankful, which is pathetic, because I have tons of stuff to be thankful for.  I'm alive.  I shouldn't be.  I have a faithful, hard-working husband.  Not everyone does.  I have an amazing, crazy, wild, genius-miracle-child who I shouldn't have been able to carry.  I have a roof over my head and beautiful sunny yellow siding on my home.  I have food on my table.  Which many people don't.

And yet there's just this cloud.

Hanging over me.

I'm just sad.

So much loss.

I'm not consciously focusing on it, but there is a deep, overwhelming sense of loss. 

I wasn't going to post anything, but that's not being true to who I am, and I already tried NOT being true to who I am, and I couldn't handle it.  So this is me.  Flaws and all.  And I feel so flawed.  As a mom.  As a person. As a wife.

I know people love me.  I know God loves me.  I know, I know, I know.  But for some reason it just doesn't seem to be real right now.  Because I sit here.  Alone.  Wanting to be somewhere...anywhere but here.  With someone.  Anyone.  Well, ALMOST anyone.  If the Obama's called I'd have to decline.

I just feel like I'm reaching out to so many, and trying to give and give and give some more....and I'm getting shut down.  I reach out on a personal level to anyone locally, and I get shut down. 

The book club I was SO excited to be a part of....stopped contacting me because I couldn't make their first 2 meetings.  They changed the dates like 4 times.  The first month (August) I could go on the original date, but then they changed it to my son's birthday, because the man that used to teach history couldn't make the original date, and he is just so interesting and wonderful that they just hate to not have him there.

And how does that make ME feel?

Yup.

Less than.

Unimportant.

Without meaning.

And I know it shouldn't bother me that much.  But I've struggled with acceptance all my life.  And I really thought that I had found something I was really going to enjoy.

Then the second month (September) I couldn't go because I was sick on the SECOND date they chose.  The original date was fine.  I could have been there.  But then I got sick, and couldn't make the alternate date.  Then I never got any more emails.

That's what chronic illness has done to me.  It has robbed me of so many opportunities because people judge.  They automatically assume that I'm lazy, or a liar, or making things up, or being melodramatic....  The person who contacted me originally about this book group is a woman with a shop in town.  So when she SEES me, I look good, because it's a day I'm strong enough to go out.  But she doesn't get it.  No one who doesn't HAVE a chronic illness CAN "get it" no matter how hard they try.  But when people don't even try, it really ticks me off.

Anyway.  Enough whining.  I didn't bring any cheese to go with it, so I better stop.