What Happened To The Girl Who Got Almost Everything She Wanted?

This life is everything I wished for, and something so many other people would happily trade places for. It's also really hard.

Wallace had a stuffed dog I got from Israel 8 years ago next to the iPad on the table tonight. I stood in front of the stove and folded a tortilla in half with a spatula I got on clearance at the discount store last week, refried beans and shredded cheese inside. The pan was a gift - part of a set of pots and pans from my wishlist for stuff for my new-to-me house. I cherish the newness of these things.

It got a little smoky, but the vent hood was already on from when I slightly charred the grilled cheese I made for Wallace. Because there IS a difference between cheese between two slices of white bread and cheese between two flour tortillas, fyi.

He bounced into the kitchen asking for milk, reaching for the cups in the cabinet he broke earlier this week. It was an accident, of course. Cabinet doors from the 90s just weren’t built for determined little boys to pull themselves onto counters.

I reached for the cup before he could and put it on the counter next to the sink. “It’s the blue one,” I said when I sensed he was trying to figure out which cup amongst the overflowing pile of dishes beside the sink was actually clean.

He insisted on pouring the milk himself and it took concerted restraint to not insist right back that he not — to not think of the milk spilled all over the floor that needs to be swept, to not think of how I just spent a lot of money on groceries and I really can’t go back for more milk right now. Or, at least, to think of that stuff because of course I’ll think of it, but to swallow it down while he pours his own cup of milk — to remind myself that the worst that could happen is milk all over the fucking place, and him screaming, and everyone being mad there is no milk in the morning, and trying to find time to go to the store tomorrow - a THURSDAY, which happens to be HELL DAY- to get more milk with, I guess, the money I find in my car, maybe. Like, clearly, what is there to be afraid of?

Relax, Jill. Try smiling. Will the kids ever remember you smiling? You’re independent. This is what you wanted.

I plopped down at the table with a bean and cheese taco for myself after I was sure there were enough for Leyna and Lowell, along with a few in the microwave for Kendall when he gets home from the gym. The boys were watching two different shows on two different devices at the same time, with the volume up. All the rules have already flown out the window, anyway. The tortilla was obviously not gluten-free. I can’t find it in me to care anymore.

There are boxes stacked against the living room wall and a modem, plugged in, lying haphazardly on the floor. I can see shoes in a trail from the door to the stairs, like they shed them one by one on their way through. Shoes are supposed to stay by the door. Food is supposed to stay downstairs. Dinner is supposed to be device-free. Wallace is supposed to sleep in his own bed. My house is supposed to be unpacked after living here for almost 2 months. I’m supposed to avoid gluten.

What did you expect? This is what you wanted.

I am exhausted all the time now… No, I’m exhausted all the time STILL. It is all I have in me to keep my brain turned on for an 8-hour workday. I fight to move through my thoughts and not get stuck hyper fixating or spiraling or dissociating or one of the many other fucking things my brain does when it would be so much easier to just, um, pay attention. I am entirely worthless- physically and mentally and, honestly, as a mother at the end of every work day. This is not the work’s fault. It’s chronic exhaustion and mental fatigue that I guess is just part of who I am as a person now and forever because I can’t keep trying to fix it. Why could the gluten not be enough?

The messy house, the kids underfoot, the full-time job, the dishes from the wish list, the fresh start — you wanted this, Jill. You fought for this, and you from 6 months ago is in awe of you now. The you from 2 years ago is screaming because you won. You crossed her finish line.

I sway between thinking if I could just find a person… and then saying to myself I certainly don’t have time for another person. I don’t have time to put the bread away.

Loneliness feels like a thick sweater I can’t take off until the end of a too-warm day. It’s heavy, and I’m tired of wearing it.

There are angry and sad and hurt people in my DMs quite a bit lately. Their words, I know, are not meant as arrows aimed at my heart, but like overflowing buckets of pain they just need someone else to hold for one fucking minute.

Everyone I know is drowning in their own pain buckets.

I’m typing this in bed in a half-unpacked room, and only if you don’t count the closet. Because if the mountain of clothes mixed with hangers on the floor is part of the equation, this room is only a fraction of the way there. I wish I was in the arms of someone who could tell me to breathe, to remind me that buckets of pain don’t stay full forever— that at least some of it is bound to evaporate with time.

Instead, I’ll push Wallace off in an attempt to gain at least 30% of this king-size bed for myself. I’ll set my alarm for 5:30 a.m., and I’ll play Two-Dots until I nearly drop my phone on my face before passing out. The key will be to leave very little time for “thinking” about things before my dreams take over. They are insanely wild, but are always an escape from the real stuff that scares me.

And between me and Wallace will be a stuffed dog I got in Israel 8 years ago.

I will try to remember that this messy, exhausting life is everything I wished for, and something so many other people would happily trade places for. And I will also allow myself to feel like all of this is still really fucking hard.

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Thanks so much for your patience. I know it’s been too long since I wrote here. I know I owe so many people so many emails and DMs. I am trying so so hard to stay afloat, hoping maybe I’ll finally get some endurance behind me. I am ok. I mean, I’m not great, but I’m ok. I really hope you are, too xoxo