Habits

And in time
As one reminds the other of past
A life lived much too fast to hold onto
How am I losing you?

A broken house
Another dry month waiting for the rain
And I had been resisting this decay
I thought you'd do the same

But this is all I ever was
And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
And now I'm losing you

Fragile sound
The world outside just watches as we crawl
Crawl towards a life of fragile lines
And wasted time

-Ditmas, Mumford and Sons

I was just driving through the neighborhood after dropping D off at practice and Ditmas came on the stereo.  It hasn't come up on my IPod in a while and I forgot how much I like it.  I quickly turned up the volume and started singing and car seat dancing.  I was literally rocking out.  It got me to thinking about what some of the neighbors might think if they saw me. It led me to memories of Saturday night when we went out with our friends from college to see an 80s cover band.  We drank and danced and had a blast with people who've known and loved us for over 25 years.  Dancing to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and rocking out in my car to Mumford feels like the real me.  Just like I always feel better after I play soccer.  I forget about my stress and only focus on the present moment.

I've gotten out of the habit of writing on this blog.  The first month of the school year (plus all the kids' sports) coupled with being unbelievably busy at work has conspired to wipe away lots of my habits.  I just wrote an 88 page technical document for work which required working long days and late nights for the last few weeks.  Writing for work is exhausting taking away all of my energy to write in this space.  While I'm pretty proud of the work I did for my client, it made it hard to be a good mom.  The house looks like a tornado hit it.  We have all gotten used to grabbing laundry out of the dryer or from piles of folded clothes on the floor in the family room.  Menu planning has gone out the window.  Too many diet cokes and late night Oreos as coping mechanisms. Bad habits have won out.

On the other hand, needing to be overly focused on something as intense as this deliverable means that it doesn't leave a lot of room to be worried about other things.  Work stress has trumped lots of things this last month.  I could put my earphones on and drown in the intricate work I was doing and have the perfect reason not to do things that I would normally do or think about the tough things in my life.  I had a good excuse to let things slide. There hasn't been a lot of mental room for deep thinking. My grief can be put back in its jar.

My little car jam session, though, clicked something in my head.  I am very easily overwhelmed by my life stress that I forget that it's my life--the life of a beer drinking, soccer playing, sometimes bad language using, book reading, Bravo TV watching, goofy woman.  My role as mom (or in the last month principal analyst) sometimes squishes that Peg. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom (I don't love work that much).  I am so busy managing our family, though, that I usually forget about my own needs.  I struggle with finding my own identity outside of being Mommy/Aunt Peg.

We've just entered what I've been referring to as our "cluster of grief."  September 9th was Mike's birthday and then we move to the accident anniversary, Jeanne's birthday, their wedding anniversary and the holidays.  I decided tonight that I'm going to try really hard not to get overwhelmed by the cluster.  I'm going to try to remember to find those moments of being normal Peg (even if the other moms in our neighborhood think I'm a nutcase).

I need to get back into the habit of writing here.  It's so good for my mental health.  I've been forming posts in my head.  Things like my new research on the girls and attachment issues, watching A and M's relationship development as siblings, problems with some other soccer moms, and building issues with CA.  I also need to get back to journaling about our everyday--homecoming asks, baseball fun, and life with a hilarious 8 year old.

Thanks for bearing with me. I don't want to lose the real me.  I don't want to look back on my life and only remember work crap, driving and cooking.  I am more than that.