I’m almost afraid to type today.  Afraid too much of the truth might come out.  Such a difficult time of my life.  I feel terribly alone and scared and sad.  Trying to cling to the Lord.  It’s hard.  It’s hard to breathe.

My marriage has seen better days.  Toby and Dana.  Two peas.  We’ve been together since we’ve met, less the one week it took me to lure him away from his long-time girlfriend.  Best friends.  Able to do pretty much anything together.  Despite everything against us – dysfunctional childhood homes, divorced parents, financial distress, health issues, and the regular chaos of life – we made it 12 years, or so.  That’s amazing in this society.  They should give out big trophies to people who make it to another anniversary.  People like trophies.  Maybe people would like marriage if there was a trophy incentive.

Most men do not hang around when the lady is sick.  It’s a fact.  Right now a lot has fallen on Toby’s shoulders.  I am unable to keep up with the kids and stuff.  Tears fall off my cheeks as I type today.  Heartbreaking in black and white.  I think all of the little stresses in life have just added up and completely overwhelmed me – to the point that my plate is overflowing and I’m dropping oranges to pick up grapes, ya know?  A constant juggling act.

I think the biggest issue at the core of all of this, is the inability to schedule – from one day to the next to one hour to the next!  If you’re up all night in pain, you’re less likely to want to be busy in the morning and the morning is typically your best time… and you don’t always have a rhyme or reason to what is causing that pain to stop it.  Once it gets out of control, it’s more difficult to calm down.  In addition – there are other symptoms besides pain – I’m having cognitive issues – speech, speaking, short-term memory, inability to do regular tasks – I have to write down every step to complete a day of chores.  I’m emotionally different.  I’m withdrawn, irritable, and sensitive, at times I feel no emotion where I know I should feel something.  The fatigue is really intense right now.  I went out to shovel a bit in my garden a few days ago.  I got two scoops tossed and my arms and legs were done.  I cried.  Yesterday I was able to get a few more licks in and that made me happy.  I feel so restless.  So much I want to do.  I suck at this.

I suck at trying to deal with this and I’m a terrible wife.  Trust me.  Toby feels so unloved and unappreciated.  I complain, whine, and feel sad all the time that he wants to be out living.  I am constantly asking him to be home because I need him here to help with kids or so that I can go to work or because I’m just fed up and past my threshold for the day.  I am jealous of jiu jitsu.  I know, I’m a brat, huh?  I am very selfish and somehow make everything about me.  If I don’t change, and allow him to escape for training and his life in Boise, I’ll probably lose him forever, because he is at a loss of what to do.  Our marriage is very fragile right now.  He is a fix it person.  How do you help someone so lost as me?  I’m not fixable on this earth, I don’t think.

I am dealing with so many issues past and present – my dad, my mom, excessive self-loathing, a disease I don’t know how to fight, how to run a business, educate my kids, keep a home, and raise a husband with his own life and hopes and dreams.  It’s hard not to feel so stuck.  Wanting to go run and play and work hard and make my way, but only physically being up to rest on the couch.

If you know me, you know the person I am right now, is not the person I am.  Please, please, please know that I am not myself.  I don’t know how to get through this.  I’m going to go visit with my primary today and get some anxiety medication that should help settle things down up in my brain so I can get some rest in the other parts of my body.  I am uncertain if the diet is helping, and I’m at day 27.  I do not feel any change in energy level or pain this week.  I got a monster flu-bug and spent most of Wednesday night on the floor of the bathroom.  Haven’t done that since my early 20’s.  Ugh.  I’ve had a couple of other infections come up since doing this clean eating, healing diet.  They discourage me in the sense that my body should be able to easily fight them, but my immune system is super shot down.  Wondering if it’s worth it.  I’m pursuing medical specialists, but it all takes time.

Still unsure what to do with my business.  There are employees there relying on income, but I am just so tired of spending all of my energy there when that is what I am doing – getting my employees paid.  It does give us a lot of financial freedom.  I am able to purchase groceries, help with a bill here or there, and it’s my source of my personal money.  The money we do get from it is not worth the stress and headache of it all right now.  I went down there a bit last night, paperwork stacked up, chores to do, open house to prepare for, weddings, funerals, prom in a few weeks, Mother’s Day without my mama, graduation, Memorial weekend, Fiddle Week…  I came home and felt like I was going to have a nervous break down.  I told Toby I would rather just close the store than go through the Jordan… because it feels so big.

Please, please, please pray for me.  I need God to do a big work in me.