Overwhelmed and Tired

I am lying in bed next to a sleeping little girl and I am tired. So deeply tired. The last two days I have slept past my alarm. Significantly, might I add. I try to get up early in the morning so I can ensure that I fit in reading and relaxing before the day gets away from me and shifts into a client focused time period. The amount of people I am seeing a week has grown substantially and it has been a delicate balancing act determining what is too much and what is just right. I have not found that delicate balance just yet but I anticipate that it will organically sort itself out as most things do.

I am feeling deeply overwhelmed with everything that Is happening in my life right now. It seems like just when I feel there is a resolution to one thing something else pops up. My anxiety has been the worst it’s been in years, since my infertility journey began and I jumped into the unknown feet first. Someone asked me yesterday to walk myself back through my past to see when the last time I felt this way was and truly I can’t recall ever feeling this way during my childhood. I remember not feeling much of anything. This that I am feeling, this dizziness, this unbalanced feeling, the tightening in my chest, the deep feeling of dread, the feeling that led me to numerous doctors and multiple MRI’s years ago with no resolution is back and I just don’t like how I feel.

I feel very unsafe at this time, perhaps even an insecurity of sorts. It has awakened in me some deep feelings of not good enough and a deep lack of mistrust with myself. I suppose it was always there below the surface and perhaps that’s why I have always chosen safety and comfort over passion and adventure but these recent months have highlighted that I still have lots of work to do to solidify my foundation of safety within myself and more importantly that if I don’t trust myself, if I don’t trust that the end result will be ok, I will continue to make decisions out of fear and that has caused a world of issues in my life especially in the last few years. I have learned things all the hard way and perhaps that is the best way to learn or perhaps it is a testament of the fact that I don’t listen to myself or others. I am not sure the true answer but I am willing to acknowledge that I may have some more adjusting to do in the land of listening to myself, my gut, and others who are watching me in action. For the first time in years a friend pulled me aside yesterday and asked if I was ok. He could see the stress on my face, my body language all of it. He said I’ve never seen you this way and first I was shocked and second it made me realize how much of my life I have spent showing the world I was ok when in reality I was falling apart.

He saw my truest form yesterday. A complete stress ball. I am not sure if that is a good thing or bad perhaps, I will look at it as a minor victory. I am not suppressing my emotions and I am not acting like everything is ok when it truly just is not. I know at the end it will all get sorted out. It always does in one way or the other but for right now I feel like I am in survival mode and it’s a tad bit uncomfortable. Out of the discomfort I hope to find a beautiful change. Something I can be proud of, that is created not out of reactivity but out of patience and regulation. And if adjusting needs to happen I hope I can find my way through it one step and one day at a time.

These last couple weeks have been really challenging adjusting to the fact that my little girl is starting school next week. It’s hard to believe that she is 5 and that what I envisioned for her to have a sibling closer to her age is a dream of the past and one that I have had to radically accept as simply that, a dream. I don’t often think too much on it anymore. I processed and accepted months ago that I would not have any more children. There are times though that I think of what it would be like and it makes me sad to know that no matter how much I think on something it isn’t part of my journey. I suppose the thing that comes up most is had I known it would be my last maybe I would have done something differently and then I quickly get myself back in reality and realize that I wouldn’t change a thing. Having another child would have been a beautiful experience and I would have loved every moment of it but it is not for this lifetime. So, I look forward to what this next stage of life is about to unveil and I hope to have the knowledge, tools, and resources to support her growth and experiences as she embarks on her next stage of life.

I had hoped putting some thoughts to “paper” would help but I can’t seem to shake this fogginess in my head. The feeling of dread overcoming me more and more and feeling unable to release it or let it go. I will continue to seek out the answer, to work through the patterns, the beliefs that may be driving this feeling and I hope in time I can find a way to settle my nervous system and feel better again. Until then, radical acceptance.