I Am a Bad Friend.

It's true and I totally know it.  I feel bad about it in a detached kind of way.  Basically, I'm on auto-pilot these days with a very small energy supply to be doled out carefully in my daylight hours.  That meager reserve is for my children, the only people that I could never allow myself to neglect no matter how tired, sore, selfish or shitty I feel (which isn't to say that Princess DVDs and Nintendo DS aren't co-parenting with me some days.  It just means that I feed, clothe and snuggle them when they need it while not screaming "SHUT UP!" or sending them out onto the icy deck to play.)  That leaves poor Tommy Boy and everyone else in my life basically SOL.

Some people are pissed and/or hurt because I've basically checked out of life.  One actually told me so, letting me know that she misses me, I'm never around and I'm so different now.  I felt guilty but also annoyed (which are basically my core emotions these days.)  What does she want me to do?  I'm EXHAUSTED.  I've used that word many times in the past but until the last couple of months, I had no idea what it really means.  For me, it means living in a zone so far beyond the realm of tired that being "just" tired actually sounds like it would be a relief.  It means that I feel like I'm moving through molasses when I walk.  It means that I feel sucked dry of all vitality from the chronic pain and corresponding lack of sleep.  It means that I snap at my sweet children and my patient husband, none of whom deserve it.  It means so many things, all of them bad and selfish and regrettable.  But you know what?  There is only so much I can do.  

I've spent a good bit of the last 13 years faking a pleasant smile and hiding my sorrow behind my sense of humor for the comfort of other people.  I find that I can no longer do it, at least not right now.  That doesn't mean that I want to carry on like a martyr or host extravagant pity parties for all of my loved ones to come and pay homage to my misery.  Quite the contrary, I don't want ANYONE to have to suffer through my shit with me.  That's why I don't always answer the phone or respond to emails right away -- if I can't trust myself to stifle my blubbering, I avoid human contact for the safety and comfort of everyone.  I want to spare you the awkwardness of acting sympathetic when you are rightfully thinking, "HELLO, you wanted this baby and you are not the only person to ever be uncomfortably pregnant!" and spare myself the embarrassment I suffer whenever I'm weak in front of someone.  

That's also why I've been blogging so much lately; I have to get the bitching, moaning, ranting and whining out of my system so I don't start throwing my china at the walls (which is really tempting but then I'd have to clean up the mess) and here is the best place for it.  Doesn't make for the most scintillating of reads but it saves the people in my life from listening to me complain.

So, if I owe you an email or I don't pick up the phone when you know I'm home, please bear with me and look at my silence as a good thing.  It just means that I'm sparing you from my vitriol and I'll be in touch as soon as I can put on my game face and talk to you like the person I was before I devolved into this weak, sniveling shell of a woman.  It's only temporary, I promise.