Fixing what's broken.

(Fair warning: this is a freewrite, an unedited mind dump, and by golly it felt good to write. It's not pretty or polished, but it was therapeutic.)

Gnarled. I can't listen to music that makes me thoughtful because I don't like where my thoughts are lately. Yesterday I read a blog post where someone mentioned being a warrior for their own happiness. I thought: when was the last time I was a warrior for my own happiness? I thought about the Chris Bathgate song, "Do What's Easy," and living a life that is manageable but mostly kind of sucky is pretty easy.

My life isn't sucky. I know this. There are lots of good things about it. But yesterday my 5-year-old had a complete and utter meltdown, the likes of which I haven't seen in ages, enough to shake me up a little because it was so INTENSE, with the screaming and crying and the inability to hear reason and the eventual slapping me in the face, repeatedly. Out-of-control. And all I can think is: this is my fault. How can I fix this.

There are things going on behind the scenes that aren't appropriate for blog posts, but it's dredged up a whole host of worries for me, about our current situation and how to fix it and really at the crux of it is how do I get to the life I want to lead?

And then there's the tension of: this is the life you're leading. Be happy and content in it, and I want to do that, but when I see how my daughters are affected by the current situation, it's hard to relax. And then I want to fix. Be a warrior for my own happiness. And theirs.

What's worse is that in the face of all this behind-the-scenes turmoil I become the opposite of a warrior. I shut down. I drink a little too much wine and ignore the dishes in the sink or the clothes that need folding and I don't find my workout clothes for the next day even though I know if I leave it for the morning I won't get it together in time and there will be no workout. I sit on the couch and watch stupid TV and drink wine and go to bed early and sad.

How fucking stupid. And I don't use the F word lightly, but I think I need to dredge things up some more, get angry for once, anything but complacent and FIGHT, just fight for myself for once. Instead of just existing. Fight. Even a little. And live.