I haven’t been writing much about my personal life lately. I know that one of the things I was good at, until recently, was taking an honest look at my personal life and identifying moments of grace and areas where I needed to grow in virtue.

I haven’t been able to really look at my life lately because just living it is so exhausting. It’s harder than I could have imagined to be without the Ogre. Some things are wonderful. I love living with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, spending time with my nephews, and beginning to develop a sense of order in the midst of chaos. I love being able to see my friends, having a sense of community again, and being able to drop off the children with my parents. I love being able to go see a movie with my mom or have dinner with the Ogre’s parents. But things didn’t really work out with us moving in with my grandfather, and we’re a 45 minute drive from him now. I wish things were different. I wish we could see him more often. I feel like I let him down.

I feel like I’m letting my family down left and right these days. I made an appointment with a therapist, finally, because the stress of it all was actually making me wonder if I was losing my mind. The Ogre couldn’t keep fielding hysterical phone calls at 3 am. The children couldn’t keep living life wondering if their mother was going to hug them or scream at them or just sit down and cry. Liam, for a few days, crawled away from me every time I walked toward him. I reached a breaking point, and broke.

We don’t have money for therapy. My family needs me to be stronger than I’m being right now, and I’m failing them.

I’m failing you guys too. I haven’t posted anything good in a while, and even the thought of pulling up a new post makes me nauseous. I want to be able to blog the way I used to, and feel good about it. But I feel like I have stage fright. I feel like I can’t handle any more rejection, any more failure.

I’m too tired to put on a brave face and pretend things are going well. They’re not. And I owe you more than what I’ve been giving you…this mask, this persona, this pretend person who can handle things with good humor and grace. Grace is coming in a tiny trickle for me right now, and good humor is almost impossible to force myself into.

So I’m putting things on hold for a few days. I hope it’s just a few days. It may be less, or more, but I hope you’ll understand and forgive me.