Retracing Steps

So the last week or so has been... odd.

T had to leave first thing Monday morning and head up to New York for a couple of days. He arrived at his hotel and called me, grumpily, to inform me that it was a full 30 minutes from everywhere he needed to be. Corporate scheduling mishap, apparently.

A few grumpy days later, he called to tell me that he would be delayed on Wednesday, and would arrive around bedtime instead of mid-afternoon as originally planned. He finally made it home, and we got a fitful night of sleep. Thursday morning, he found out he had to go back to Singapore. He needed to be on the ground first thing Monday morning to wrap up the work there. That conversation followed something like this...

"So you have to leave on Sunday, right?"
"Uh. You're forgetting the 12 hour time change."
"Oh. So... you'll be leaving on Saturday?"
"10am flight"
"For how long?"
"2 weeks."
"Crap."
"Indeed."

SO! We deposited him at Dulles bright and early, and then my head exploded.

Actually, we're doing quite well, considering. The boys are finally mostly over the cold we all get every year at this time. I managed to sweep and mop the kitchen floor, wash the dishes, run 2 loads of laundry, clean out the fridge, and do the grocery shopping. All in one weekend. (It may not sound that impressive, but - trust me - it was. Intensely.)

Of course, I also managed to forget to transfer the direct deposit for T's previous business travel expenses over to his AmEx card. Which was, like, awesome for him when he got to his layover in Tokyo and realized that 1) his card had been frozen and 2) The airport there blocks all outgoing cellular calls. He assures me that, the next 7 hours to Singapore? Wondering if I had perhaps been struck by a bus and was rendered dead and therefore unable to transfer funds to his charge card, leaving him stranded in Singapore with no way to get home for my funeral? Were supremely pleasant. (*cough*).

This isn't the first time I have had a memory lapse lately, it's just the most spectacular example -- up there with totally spacing on Toby's 2-year well check-up, which I had scheduled six weeks in advance.

So today I headed back into my trusty neighborhood mental health professional. I had not been in to see Dr. Headshrinker (unfortunately not his real name, because that would be much more entertaining) since about April and, since our insurance required me to check in with him anyway in order to maintain coverage, the timing seemed fortunate.

I explained about the events of the past several months. I talked about getting pregnant, about herniating the disc in my back and resultant sciatica, about the miscarriage, about T's new job and all the travel. I confessed my lapses of memory and my general fuzziness of late. He listened, asked pertinent questions, and generally pointed out that I am entitled to be a little fuzzy after everything that has happened since last Spring.

Then he wrote me a new prescription for ADD meds and said he'd see me back in a week to follow up. He also recommended that, after the next visit, I make an appointment to talk to one of the therapists at the practice. Because talking to a disinterested third party and sorting out the various contents of my skull could be helpful.

I kept thinking that I was handling everything so well. I'm generally feeling pretty good these days -- at peace with where I am at in life, enjoying my tine with the boys. I really miss T when he's not around, and I am probably lacking in the whole social/friends area these days -- but what Mom isn't?! Free time became a precious commodity the day I became a mother, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Lately, though, I don't do any of the things I have always done for my own enjoyment -- scrapbooking or reading or painting or sketching or even taking pictures. I've been lethargic, anxious, distracted, distant. Not at all the person I want to be.

So, once again, here I am reknitting the threads that have been unraveling. And it's okay - it's really okay. At the moment, I am perfectly fine admitting that I am not the wonderwoman I had convinced myself I was. Now I just have to remember how to be the fun-loving person I really am. And hopefully I can get closer to finding her before T gets back in 2 weeks. It would be really nice to be able to greet him with a wink and a laugh.. instead of a wan smile and a pleading "please take your children before I repeatedly smash my head against something very hard" look.

Actually, I'll probably end up somewhere in between. Because 2 weeks of uninterrupted parenting is exhausting, and already (after 3 days) I am remembering that "Go ask your Dad" are perhaps four of the most glorious words in the English language. Right up there with "Let's order in tonight" and "the kids are asleep".