Reality Bites

Since finishing off the veg patch last month I have felt a little…lost, a little rudderless if you will.  The completion of the veg patch gave me something to focus on and aim for, now it is done, I don’t really know what to do.  It’s not that there isn’t a lot to do, there is.  There are still projects to work on, chores to do, plans to follow up on.  But I can’t seem to get myself started, focused on anything.

I don’t know if part of this is the fact that we’ve been here for almost a year now, life has started to settle down, we’ve started to feel more settled, this country life feels a just a bit more like our life now and reality is slowly taking us back under her wing.  It may also have something to do with the fact that our life has been in flux for what sometimes feels like forever, but really, the past seven years or so.  In 2010 we found out we couldn’t have kids, 2012 we started the adoption process, 2013 the boy came along, 2014 the girl came along, 2015 J gave up work to retrain, 2016 we moved to Cumbria.  So 2017 feels a bit like we’re standing still, and it’s a bit strange.  Not bad, just strange.

This is also the first time in my life I have been what I’d consider a proper housewife / stay at home mum. There’s a never ending list of chores that need doing around the house / garden just to keep on top of everything, and this seems to take all of my time when the children aren’t here.  I cook, I clean, I do laundry and it’s all just a bit, blurgh and not really all that satisfying.  I think the risk is, when you end up stuck in the cooking / cleaning cycle, you end up feeling like a housemaid, except without pay or holidays, and then you end up resentful about the amount you do and how actually, there is no time at all, for you.  I’m not blaming J for this either, as I know he’d be happy for me to focus on a project and not spend all my time tied to the housework.  But this is about my expectations of myself, and it appears I expect myself to put housework as my top priority.  It doesn’t really help that I can’t properly relax in a really messy house, and also use tidying up as a distraction from getting on with whatever other task there is in hand.  I keep having a word with myself, but it’s not worked so far, and so I persist in this shit soup for the soul cycle.  Part of me wonders if this is mid-life crisis, part of me thinks “Nah, perimenopausal”, and part thinks I think too much.

This isn’t a bleak cry for help from deepest, darkest Cumbria, it’s just me blurting on a Friday evening, which I am hoping will give me a kick up the bottom to forget about the chores for a few hours and focus on something a bit more satisfying, and one day, you never know, lucrative.