Times, they are a-changin'

For the past few months my life has been steadily changing. In January I was a stay at home mom who didn't really do anything besides take care of the kids and try to keep the house clean. It had been my life for 6 years.

Most people would think the life of a stay at home parent is bliss. It's not. At least for me it wasn't. It was boring. It was aggravating. It felt like I was living someone else's life. I sat here and I dreamt of the day that everything would change. I didn't care how it changed really, just that it did. I didn't want to be a stay at home mom. I didn't want to stay home all day and watch Dora the Explorer re-runs. I didn't want to listen to my kids fight every waking minute. I didn't want it.

Maybe you think that makes me a bad mom, but at this point, I really don't care what anyone else thinks of me. I know I'm a good mom, I'm just a tired one. A mom that isn't cut out to be June Cleaver. A mom that has to have something in her life that makes her feel like she has a purpose. Sure, you could say that raising kids is a purpose, but I want another purpose too. Kids grow up. Eventually that role would be over when they became more independent and they didn't want mom around as often anymore. My oldest is pretty self sufficient already. My middle one is too when he wants to be. My youngest is almost there. He wants to be independent, but he hasn't quite mastered the finer points of it yet.

In 14 years, if things had stayed the same, I would have no identity. My kids would be grown and hopefully out of the house spreading their own wings. And I'd be the stay at home mom with no kids to stay at home with. I refuse to be that person; That pitiful mother who doesn't know what to do with herself once the kids move away.

Another point here is that there isn't enough Valium in all the world for me to be able to handle this stay at home thing a moment longer. There aren't enough anti-depressants in all the world for it either. I am the type of person who needs something outside of family, outside of kids. I'm not a touchy-feely person and my personal bubble needs to stay intact at least 50% of the day. Sure I cuddle and love on my kids, but when they're attached to me 24/7 I start to lose it. I've spent 7 years trying to keep some small part of myself from losing it completely. I barely got out alive.

To go along with that non-touchy-feely thing, I'm not a commitment kinda gal apparently. I've been married for 7 years and it's been a battle in patience and endurance for me. Maybe I just haven't met that one guy for me yet (if one such person exists and believe me, I have no desire to go looking), but once the newness wears off I'm over it. I married for all of the wrong reasons, so that probably doesn't help things either and yes, it is all my fault.

I married my husband for security. I wasn't attracted to him in the way I should have been. He wasn't overly attractive, but he was good looking enough. His personality was so different from the type I would ever be interested in, as were his interests. I married him because he had always kept a steady job, he was dependable, he didn't do drugs, he didn't drink, he wasn't a video game addict, and he was dumb enough to ask me. He was, what I imagined at the time, the perfect father for my oldest son. He was what my son needed and by God I was going to get him.

Seven years later and I'm at the end of my rope. I was so wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I thought that I could (happily enough) be with him for the rest of my life. I thought that it would be tolerable. I thought I could pretend to have feelings I didn't have. I thought everything would be alright. I thought that the friendship we had would be enough. It wasn't. Everything I thought was so totally and completely thrown right back in my face over the course of our marriage and I realized how much of an idiot I truly was all along.

So, in late February/Early March he finally started putting the pieces together. He finally allowed himself to see how miserable I was and how miserable I was making him. He finally started asking questions. So one night in February (or March) he heard the truth for the first time. The truth that I had for so long wanted to tell him, but wasn't quite ready to really tell yet. I mean, my youngest is only going to be 4 in May. If I'm lucky he'll get into pre-school, but if I'm not...you see why I waited for so long. I didn't see how I could be a single mom, keep a job, go back to school, and all of that with a child not in school yet.

Now I guess it's all just going to have to work itself out however it may because regardless of my youngest's age, it's happening. It's like hearing those words before you've found a good hiding place "Ready or not, here I come!"

It's a scary place to be in, but at the same time it is so very freeing. I don't have that trapped feeling as badly anymore. Now I'm just impatient. At the moment, we're still living together and it's hard most days. We don't hate each other, but the static is there. There's an elephant in the room and it's breathing all the air. We're both suffocating.

I started classes in March to get my CNA certification. My test date is May 25th. It seems so far away. Like the future is just teasing me. I spent years putting in applications with nothing coming from them except a waste of paper and time. Do I want to be a CNA? No, not really. But I know that there will always be a job available for me out there after this class. It may not be a job I like, but it'll be a job that pays the bills until I can continue my education and get something better. It's the only viable option available to me at this time. The only way I'm getting out of this house. It's the life raft I'm clinging to desperately while I wait for something more substantial.

So yeah, my life is changing. But none if it feels like a bad change to me. I will be free and won't have to live this lie anymore. I'll eventually find my identity again. My husband will hopefully find someone who truly loves him because he is actually a great guy. My kids hopefully won't be horribly scarred from the experience and won't spend their entire adult lives in therapy. And somehow, someway I'm going to make this work because it's going to feel so damn good to be free!!