I need to dump. Just dump and let it all out.

You know I’m super tired and feeling pretty sensitive when the following happens;

I got to my training session and my trainer tells me to keep my abs tight as I’m doing squats. I look at him and my eyes fill with tears. “I can’t handle being criticized right now!” Silence. I realize I’m breaking down into tears in the weight room which feels like an oxymoron all in itself. Yep, that happened. Just yesterday as a matter of fact. It was awesome.

The last few days, I have slept for nine hours and woken up feeling tired…still! My brain feels dead. Nothing there. When I try to brainstorm or think of anything creative, nothing there. I think I had two panic attacks yesterday because I started wondering if my brain would be like this forever. One panic attack came at 1pm, and I cried so much the house flooded. Or at least that is how Pascaline described it with a smile. The second panic attack came at 1am in the morning. Not sure if there is any significance in the fact that both panic attacks were twelve hours apart. See this is me right now. Overthinking things, combined with being to tired to think. Not a good mix.

December is usually my sacred month off of work, meaning I don’t do any more shoots. But this new opportunity roled in to do a fashion shoot this coming Monday and Tuesday, and it’s for a friend, and they are coming out from NY and England, and, and, and, here I am doing the fashion shoot. I know it’s a good thing, but December 17th, Wednsday, I have drawn the line. I announced to Brian that I am taking two weeks off of work whether he LIKES it or not. He looked at me completely confused. “Okay,” he said.

I just feel frustrated inside. Brian thinks I’m sexually frustrated. I disagree. (nice try though, hun)

Creativity has escaped me. It’s as if creativity was my roommate, making me laugh at night, stretching my mind in different directions, tucking me into bed and filling my sleep with all kinds of magic, and then all of a sudden she went to visit relatives but forgot to say goodbye, say Merry Christmas, and didn’t even leave a note on the counter saying when she’d be back. I’m just sitting on the kitchen floor wondering what to do with myself.

My little brother knows me well. He said that it sounds like I’m “tanked” right now, even the fumes are gone. I’ve been going strong all year, and I look at this time of year as a time of rest and rejuvination. He said prayer would be a good thing for me right now. Prayer, then going to see a movie by myself, getting a massage (actually the massage was Brian’s idea, got to give credit where credit is do), journaling in a coffee shop, and talking long walks. He knows me well (and yes, Brian does too).

Brian and I prayed together last night before bed. That was good. I love Brian.

My creativite juices were still dried up after praying but I went to bed with peace instead of “crazy, freak-out-mom anxiety”. I got a massage too. And I even went to the acupuncturist. She asked me what part of my body was most tired. Without hesitating, I said “my brain! Can you poke my head in different spots and get it to turn back on.” I guess there are pressure points on your head called “the little flower”. I don’t think the little flower turned my brain back on but the little flower made me fall asleep. Slept HARD for twenty minutes on her table. Even woke up to myself drooling.

We put up the Christmas tree ornaments last night. I was so excited because sometimes those simple traditions refuel me. But why do I always, every freaking year, forget how stressful it is to decorate a tree with little kids.

“Oh, it’s okay honey. I know you didn’t mean to throw the snow globe down the stairs” (as glittery, snow globe water dripped through the stairs onto Brian’s head below.)

“Oh, she’s such a cute puppy–look, she’s eating all our red ribbon.”

“Sure Blaze, you can hang ornament #20 on the same branch that you hung that last 19 ornaments on.”

“You don’t like the arrangement of the nativity Pascaline? Wow, I didn’t realize you had such strong feelings about it. Why don’t you do it…oops. Shoot, the donkey didn’t really need both ears. Did he?”

So anyways. I have to admit that after typing this I do feel much better. You know what, I think redoing the hardwood floors did me in. I tend to tackle things head on and just do it. But having to unexpectedly move every thing out of our house, move into someone else’s house, then move every thing back in, and then empty boxes only to pull out Christmas decoration boxes…I think the floors may have made me more tired than I realized. Don’t get me wrong, I love how they turned out. But I am one tired mama these days. T-I-R-E-D! Come to think of it, Rosie’s bacterial infection in her colon during the moving in and out was pretty tiring too. Yep, you guessed it. She couldn’t control her bowel movements and just pooped wherever. But if I look on the bright side, cleaning up poop on hardwoods is much better than carpet. Okay, I’m going to stop talking about this because now I feel like crying again.

I don’t know if any of you are like this too, but I’m NOT the type of person to sit and watch a movie in the middle of the day or sit at all. I’d rather be moving and getting something done or thinking of a new idea, or work on a project with the kids. Brian, he can watch movies and eat Lucky Charms with the kids all day, but I feel like life is sprinting by if I do that. And yet, my body and brain are saying, “Girl, you need to turn on Anne of Green Gables, just push play, start in the middle, it doesn’t matter, just veg out before you combust!” Yet it’s so hard to do. Plus, you have all the “busy-busy” energy of the holidays. I heard Amy Grant’s new Christmas song, “I Need a Silent Night” and fell apart. What a great song.

Does anyone out there connect? Are you in desperate need of unwinding right now? Are you feeling tanked too? What are you doing to take care of yourself? Wat can we do to refuel before 2009 arrives?

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