Tripped Out

I feel old....real old. Not like, hey I'm a granny, someone get me my depends. More like, crap, I'm not a teenager or even a twenty-something any more. I'm an almost thirty mom who says things like "Get that helicopter out of your pants!" and "Babe, I'm really not seeing sex in the morning happening in like, the next 6 years." So what makes me feel old is that I'm even thinking about my age. And I'm seeing all of these people who I knew so long ago, and their having kids and getting married and traveling the world. I've been there, done that....what's next, what's new for me?
Then, I get an epiphany...a dose of the truth. And it's a doozy...
It's not about me.
Yeah, my life is not about me. I've been wondering why the heck I constantly question what it is I'm doing and why it matters. Our culture bombards women with the message that you can be a mom and wife and that's all great, but don't waste your entire life on just that!! Go to school, get a degree, get a job and for God's sake contribute something of worth to this world!! Here I am, thinking, yes! You're right!! Changing poopy diapers and doing laundry ain't cutting it!! I need to get out there. Shift my focus off my family alone and spread the wealth of my wonderous abilities with the masses.
But here in lies the problem. My life should not be about sharing myself with others in order to fulfill myself and make myself feel worth something. I am a Christian. So what does the Bible say about my calling in life?
1. If I am a wife, my first priority (after God) is to my husband. I need to make sure that everything I do supports and enables my husband to do whatever job God has given him to do. And not only to do it well, but to excel.
"Great," I think. "I'm nothing more than a walking servant slash doormat that has to serve and cater to my husband?" Well, no. Because if my man is in line with the Word, and being the husband that God fully requires him to be, he would be treating me with the utmost respect, adoration and love that Jesus has for us...in that he would die for me, fully forsaking himself to give me life. So support and equality go hand in hand with my role. I am to respect and support him in return.
It makes so much sense...yet it is hard to admit that I can find joy in my daily life by being in a supporting role and not in the lead. But I guess it's better to follow God than my own, lame, selfish desires...
Well, a baby is crying and a little boy is trying to get the dog to go down the slide...it's the story of my life!

Depression

It's frustratingly simple. I didn't want to be fine. I wanted to sit and stare or sleep every chance I got. I didn't want to get up and do laundry or wash dishes or see friends. I am having to admit at this moment that my post-partum depression was healed and I didn't want it to be. I didn't have an excuse anymore.
I should have been happy. Joyous. Excited. To realize suddenly one day that I wasn't looking through life through dark sunglasses anymore. The herbal remedy I was hoping would work, because it is affordable and without side effects, actually was. It got me able to summit the mountain I had been trudging up two steps only to slide back 3. I was at the top. The view should of been beautiful.
Only, it wasn't. I have read a lot about depression, especially post partum depression. I felt like I knew my foe. I prayed for God to lead me to the right thing to help. I was given several verses about overcoming obsticals with help from others. So I researched medicines, natural and man-made and talked with friends who have suffered. Not having health insurance, I decided to try the natural medication I thought had the best reviews, safety and price. Great. It came in the mail. Good. I took it every day for a couple of weeks. Hope started to stream in instead of just trickle. Wonderful.
Except in surmounting my counter attack I didn't realize that I would inevitably be forced to see the casualties of this battle. And from the mountain top, boy do you have a clear view of the world around you.
Brad had been working really hard, 10-17 hour days. He didn't have time to do much around the house to help out. He was supporting me as best he could considering the circumstances. So the world I saw around me was chaos.
Loren was not himself. He was beyond the regular almost 5 year old stuff. He was utterly defiant. He was responding the only way he knew how to my being present in body only. I had a lot of work cut out for me to do damage control and return him back to his usual sweet, loving and mischevious self. Luckily the baby was in the stages of needing simple and basic things and was not effected. She actually was the one thing that made me feel needed completely. She helped a lot. Some days I only smiled because of her.
My house was a disaster. No clean dishes, no clean clothes, no clean place to sit the baby down on the floor. I was mortified at the state of affairs in the Loomis house. I was making Brad late for work because the man had to stay up late to do laundry just to have clean clothes to work in. He was working 2 jobs, leaving at 6 am and getting home at midnight or later and he had to wash dishes just to have a plate to eat off of!
I was overwhelmed at the task ahead of me. I could not fathom where to start. Oh no, I thought, I'm sinking back in! The medicine stopped working! Nope. Actually, apathy kicked in. I just didn't want to do it!! And I blamed it on depression. Man, did God kick my butt. And he used the classic Seinfeld pop-in.
Do you know about the pop-in? It's where people just show up at your door, unannounced. They drive up, ring your doorbell and say, "Hey, just thought I'd stop by!"
So God sent my step father in law to my house. Unannounced. FROM NEW MEXICO. That's right. I was so mortified. And so, I got my act together real fast.
Things are better now. I will never be a domestic goddess. But the house is usually presentable now. And I try to make sure everyone has clean clothes to wear. I sleep better at night. I really do.
All that to say, I believe in depression. It's real. Post Partum depression is real and scary and needs to be watched out for. It can hit even 6-9 months after delivery. I didn't know that. I do now. I'm still not all myself. I still am trying to find all of me again. Because I struggled with this without knowing it since having my son in 2001. That's a long time. Medication is good and sometimes necessary.
I realized through this that I was relying on medication and myself to get me through it. So of course I failed, even when I was physcially better. I left God out of the equation. If I don't pray continually and make sure to study the Bible, I fail, miserably. Failing is not the lack of falling. Failing is that I don't pick myself up after a fall and thank God that it happened and reflect on what it has done to change me. And the cool thing is, I have grace to sustain me. All the time. No matter what. Forever.
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12-13

So, I'm fat.

No really, don't shake your head or roll your eyes and try to pretend like it's not true. I'm okay with it...you should be too. Not to say that I'm happy about it. But change doesn't come until you realize you need it. In the immortal words of Matt Nickel, you won't use deodorant until you realize you stink! So, here I am, admitting to Who Ever that I stink. Well, no, admitting that I'm fat. (And if any of you Who Evers ever notices that I need to change deodorant and doesn't tell me, I'll kick you.)

I've always been big chested and curvey. I never realized that I had an attractive body until college and then I didn't care what anyone thought of it but my boyfriend, and he told me my boobs needed to be perkier. (In so many words...and with a nice hand gesture that I cannot relate into words...) I did get attention in 8th and 9th grade from boys a lot but they were usually either gross or weird and oh, yeah, I was 13 and 14 and clueless about boys so I felt more self conscience instead of flattered. I look back now and think of some of the looks I got from by friends-that-are-boys in high-school and realize they weren't looking at me that way because I had mustard on my shirt. I do remember thinking how fat I was because I was curvy and all the mags and fashions were about stick figure chicks. I of course see the error of my ways, since I was a 7/8 then and have doubled that at this point. I was hot. Now I'm all floppy and jiggley and my face is all round and puffy and I've acquired an additional chin. The worst of it is that I'm tired all the time and I'm no fun for my son, who wants to run and play and jump and I don't wanna. Then I had my daughter and for some reason I dropped 32 pounds 3 weeks after she was born. But I have gained it all back and a bit more too. What to do?

My next step is talking to Brad about getting a gym membership and working out together. I can't do it alone, and I can't do it at home. We have a treadmill but without anyone cheering me on I'm not going to get on it. And learning to eat right. We both need to cut out the white stuff (rice, potatoes and sugar) and eat a lot more veggies. Let's see what happens...