I wanted to run away today. That's not completely unusual, if I'm feeling extraordinary stress, but there wasn't even any particular stress today. It's a culmination, I guess.
I'm in the heaviest semester I've had, and even if it's my last one, it still sucks rocks. It will only get worse before it gets better, too. Two of my kids have particular needs right now that feel too big, and too scary for one person to deal with. They're ongoing. They're not something that is going to be "fixed" or dealt with in the next few days or weeks. It's ongoing. It's going to go until they are raised and on their own and that feels like too much, for too long. An evening away from them, or even a night or two (which I don't get anyway, not just to decompress, that is), doesn't cut it.
This whole parenting alone thing is not easy. Every solo parent will attest to that. But today, the urge to escape it all was so visceral and intense, it almost frightened me. I don't want to leave my children, but I also don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be the only one responsible for convincing a teenager that he has to do his schoolwork. I don't want to be the only one trying to teach empathy to a 10 year old, who just doesn't get it (in practice. He understands the concept in theory). I don't want to be the only one who is responsible for teaching 3 kids about drugs, alcohol, budding sexuality, anxiety, loneliness, jobs, school, friendship, spirituality, God... They hear lessons about these things from other places, but the burden, inevitably, is on MY shoulders. No one but me is raising them, in the final end. No one. No one else on this planet takes full responsibility for these 3 people, and it's simply too much. It's too much for one person.
I want to run away. I'm in my bedroom with a pile of laundry on my bed that is almost taller than me, and I want to run away. I walk across my crumb-filled, sticky kitchen floor and I want to run away. I swipe away some of the grime around my bathroom sink, and I want to run away. I see the list of zeros on a mid-term report card because of assignments not handed in, and I want to run away. I see things in a child's personality that make me fear for the type of adult they might turn into, and I want to run away.
He did run away. Life got too hard for him, so he ran away. "But Krista, you have more character and integrity than that. You are stronger than that." And I know I do and am. I am so much better than that. But integrity and character doesn't clean the bathroom and wash the floors. "But you have God to rely on." Yes, and I gain peace from my relationship with Him. But He doesn't go to the parent-teacher conference and need to have the "pep" talk when He comes home. Nor does He do the cooking or groceries or appointments or...
No one is doing this but me. That's the bottom line. It's all me, all the time. And I hate it. I hate it so much. I love my children to the very depth of my being, but I'm so tired, and I'm so wrung out, and I'm so discouraged, and I'm so scared, and often, I'm so depressed.
I'm tired of parenting alone and I'm tired of being alone. I want companionship. I want someone to touch me and hold me. I want even more than that. I want physical love and emotional love and soul love, from someone who doesn't care that I have all this other "ugly" stuff in my life. After almost 8 years alone, I feel it won't ever happen. It's too painful to hope, actually. Way too painful.
Maybe today was just a sucky day. Maybe tomorrow will feel marginally better. Maybe this solo-parenting gig won't completely suck my soul dry just yet. Maybe I'll really regret putting all this out there. But this is me. Take it or leave it.
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