Yesterday I went through one of the greyest and darkest moments in my recent memory. It was so bad that I was actually proud of myself for having posted anything at all.
I felt like I lost my fight to win Big before the fight even started. I felt everything was pointless in raising my two stepchildren.
It started when I was sitting on the couch feeling completely devoid of energy. It was Sunday, we had just finished doing the housework and my partner had just finished helping Little with her homework and what should have been a good moment of doing absolutely nothing felt wrong. I remember wishing that I had the energy, even the tiniest bit of desire to do anything at all, but I had none. I remember feeling as if I had suddenly shuttled through time and turned sixty, except I am not. I am thirty something and I am exhausted.
I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I felt completely depleted of the energy that I am meant to have for myself, for my partner and for my kids. What completely broke me was seeing my partner and where there was fire and desire was just “meh”. That realisation hit me hard and saddened me in a way that nothing has ever done.
I love the kids so much but like I wrote in my letter to Big, taking care of someone else’s biological children is difficult and heart-rending in a way that can feel almost insurmountable. To mix metaphors into a grotesque salad, it is like treading water through a dark tunnel with no light at the end of the tunnel in flip-flops.
I want to say that I am hopeful but right now I am just taking it day by day.
Image: The Greyness of Autumn
The Otterist 