Juggling Chain Saws

I once gave a friend a card that said:

"Any idiot can juggle chain saws, it's the day to day balloon making that wears you out." ~Anton the Clown

There are many days when I feel like poor ol' Anton. Staying home with my kids so often can seem like balloon making, nothing ever changes. I referee the same fights, fix the same dino nuggets (what part of a chicken looks like a T-rex anyway?), change the same diapers, read the same books, wash the same dishes and then I wake up the next day and, TA DA, repeat. Again. Where is the joy in that? Up until about 6 weeks ago, there wasn't much.

Unlike my name, most of my life I have not felt very joyful. Depression started as a teenager/preteen and went undiagnosed. I had glimmers and moments of happiness but overall I felt sad, flat, uninteresting, uninterested and lonely. It wasn't until our oldest was 1 1/2 that I was actually diagnosed and put on medication. That plus therapy and things were better, for awhile. I went off medication when we wanted baby number two and in the four years since then there has been a gradual decline back into the great hole that depression feels like. About 6 weeks ago now I was at our doctors office for the baby's 4 month check up. When the doctor asked me how I was doing I nearly burst into tears. I made an appointment for a couple of days later and had another stare down with the hush hush word, depression.

Simply admitting to what I had known helped and I left the doctor, prescription in hand, and felt optimistic. I know that a little blue pill doesn't fix everything, not nearly, but it removes a road block to me finding myself again. In the first week after that appointment I laughed, and I mean I really laughed, for the first time in ages. (It's hard not to when a 5 year old gets a bag of dog poop stuck in a tree but that's another story.) I started to see the beauty in the world again. The mess in the house actually started to bother me. I realized what a disservice I was doing to my kids but just yelling at them and not parenting them. I was failing in "training them in the way they should go." I realized I had completely shut myself off from my husband and from God.

My days are still incredibly busy, simply making sure three kids are fed and reasonably clean is a full time job in itself! The difference is me, it's my heart, there is joy in it again. I laugh, I love stopping and seeing the world through my kids eyes, I love teaching my children. I miss my husband deeply when he is gone now and just sitting by him on the couch is a treat, something I don't take for granted anymore.

Maybe this post is a little deep but it is the pivotal event that brought me to even writing this blog. It's my life and it's really beautiful.