The more BF and I talk about this move, the more I feel compelled to do some serious soul-searching to appease my own guilt. What do I hope to accomplish by moving back to LA? Am I being real with myself and not expecting that this move will magically solve all my problems? Do I really think that just moving to LA will automatically guarantee that I’ll actually be able to finish writing a book and have the time to keep up the household? Will I ever learn to ask Papi for a break every once in a while? I’m looking for answers to these serious existential questions (”What is the point of my life?”), thinking there’s only one way to be sure about a decision like this.
Lately I’ve been having a really rough time coping and coming to grips with the fact that the best I can do for a total mental break at this juncture in my life is getting babysitting so I can fold the laundry, load the dishwasher, and shop for groceries. I normally pride myself on being a working mom and being able to stay on top of it all, to the point of being obnoxious, but lately I’ve just been exhausted and grumpy. I used to party three days straight, come home at 5 AM and be at my desk at 8. I used to organize photo shoots and celebrity interviews and weekend trips to Comic Con with my hands tied behind my back. Now I sleep from 8PM to 5, I can hardly manage eight hours at work without wanting to nap at my keyboard, I leave all the chores to Papi, and I still can’t help but bitch about how bored and tired I am. I can’t help but ask myself “How the fuck did this happen? How did I become that mom?”
The truth is, for a long time I went twenty four hours a day I’m dealing with a low-level worry; I’d been in such a habit of multi-tasking that whenever I was actually doing two or more things at a time, I was also listing in my head all the million other things actually was not doing, and I couldn’t focus on a single damn thing. You’d think this would have turned me into a half-assed machine of sorts, but instead I think my brain just gave up.
Now I’m at this point where I’m lazy and unmotivated in all areas of my life. I’ve been doing minimal work lately so as not to raise a red flag with anyone watching me, but behind it all I’ve been moving at a snail’s pace and I’m not really getting anything done. I’ve been feeling so mentally fatigued that I don’t even have the energy to feel sad or angry or guilty about it. Like I don’t even have the energy to feel strongly about anything lately. The free time I have is spent basically watching TV and Facebooking from the couch and let the house get messy and let the dishes pile up cause I don’t have the energy to do anything else.
I’d finally reached the point of laziness where doing chores actually made me feel good. I did laundry, loaded the dishwasher, and bought groceries while my mom was watching Hugga. It was a two-for-one: I got a couple of hours to shut my brain off with a mindless physical task, and when it was done, I was able to stop feeling guilty about the wrinkled pile of clean clothes sitting in the corner of the room and how we’ve been out of milk for the past two days.
We at least have trusted babysitters here so that I actually can get a mental break where I get chores and errands done and can blissfully force myself to listen to bad pop music in the car to drown out the fussing in my head. And this is something I need on a somewhat regular basis, an hour where I’m not worrying about five things at a time; where I’m not thinking about all the chores I could be doing instead of sitting here, or whether or not my typing is going to wake up the baby, or if the people in my row of cubicles have walked by and saw me browsing non-work-related stuff too many times.
I guess I get a little nervous because this isn’t going to be solved by moving to some other place where there’s more stuff going on. As much as I feel in my heart that moving to LA will be good for us, I’m still trying to work out how to feel better about the hard parts and the burnouts and my ability to take it in stride.
