For weeks, I have been feeling “off”. Irritable, mopey, lacking in motivation, short-tempered, crying at the drop of a hat, tired, just not myself at all. I’m usually the kind of person who is cheering everyone else up around me. But I was having a hard time pulling myself out of this funk. And I even found myself ashamed for how I was feeling. Thinking it was all my fault, I should be able to control my emotions more.

I gave up on figuring out the answer and decided to talk to some friends about it. And it turns out that just opening up, saying how I was feeling. That was a step in the right direction. And then I had a long talk with hubby about it. I apologized for always being so cranky and for not having much patience at night with the kids. Have I mentioned that I have a 3 year old and almost 1 year old who still both wake me up at night? Like one of my lovely friends pointed out, there’s a reason sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.

It turns out that just having verbalized how I was feeling helped me immensely. I had gotten myself to the point of thinking that everyone around me no longer liked me. I know there are plenty of people in this world who care little for me, but when I have myself convinced that good friends just decided to stop liking me – even though they were calling, emailing, inviting me over, whatever meant being their usual selves – then I guess there’s a problem.

I am feeling better. I’m still sleep deprived. I’m still irritable by the end of the day. But mostly that’s just because half of all my meals get snatched by my kids and I’m hungry and tired by the time 6 o’clock rolls around.

Today has been a good one. I got up early (5:30 early!) and exercised. I drank coffee and read a book in peace for 2 glorious hours while the kids stayed sleeping. We ate breakfast together, giggling, playing, doing our usual fun stuff. We went out to do some errands and everything went great. I guess the only downside of today was when I got dressed and Bug asked me why I was wearing daddy’s jeans. I am wearing my own jeans, thankyouverymuch. And I’ll look on the positive side and assume that she thinks they’re daddy’s because they’re pretty baggy. And baggy jeans that didn’t used to be baggy are a good thing, right?

Right.

Onward and upward.

I think I’m back.