It's hard.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a post about January and how it can be kind of an emotional month for me.

There are a lot of things going on in my life right now. Physically, mentally, emotionally - just a lot of stuff. Some minor, some major, some right in the middle.

I generally try to keep a pretty positive outlook on life. I'm the type of person to "act as if" and just push my way through when I feel like crap because most of the time, I have no choice in the matter so I might as well make the most of it. What I don't always admit is that it's hard.

Being a parent is hard.

Being a friend and girlfriend is hard.

Being a homeowner is hard.

Sometimes, just being is hard.

The past few weeks have been a struggle for me. I've been in a funk, and although it happens occasionally - this one was worse than usual. I still got up every morning and took care of the kids and did what I had to do, but that was pretty much it. I didn't do a whole lot around the house, I didn't go out and do anything fun and exciting, and I certainly didn't do anything that didn't absolutely have to be done. I made lists of things to do around the house, but at the end of the day I'd just throw them out because looking at lists that didn't have a single thing crossed off just made me feel worse.

Part of it has been the weather. Although the past few days have been nice, the cold weather just makes me feel blah. It makes me hurt and I don't want to do anything. Part of it is hormones, because you know, I'm a woman and I'm in my mid-40s and everything just has to get all sorts of out of whack right about now. Part of it is just normal everyday stress that is made worse by crappy weather and wacky hormones and my usual lack of sleep from trying to get everything done.

I lost it last night. I was exhausted after 2 full days of cutting down bushes and digging up stumps in front of the house, and I needed help. The kids were not cooperative and didn't do what I asked them to do, and I flipped. I locked myself in my bedroom and told them that getting everything done was up to them. At that point, I didn't care what happened, and I let them know it. I even took out some of my frustration on The Dude via a long text conversation.

Not knowing what to expect, I came out of my room several hours later. The boys had all gotten baths and were in bed, supper was cleaned up with the leftovers in the fridge, a load of towels had been dried and folded, stuff was ready for school, and more laundry was being done. They didn't do it without complaint though, and I heard quite a bit of grumbling about it (including a "you didn't do anything tonight, Mom" to which I snarked back "welcome to my world") - but they did it. We talked about it a little this morning, and they all agreed that had they been a bit more cooperative to start with, it wouldn't have resulted in my freak out.

Once I got everyone to school this morning, I came home and got busy. While I scrubbed bathrooms, I thought about everything. I contemplated how I really try to only talk about the good stuff here or on facebook. I always try to portray this image that everything is good and life is easy - but in reality, it's not. There are days or weeks where things really just plain suck - and while they're not pretty, they're nothing to be ashamed of. They're all a part of life, and trying to pretend that they don't exist doesn't really accomplish anything worthwhile and all I end up doing is bottling it all up until I finally flip out and go on a Mom Strike like I did last night. I need to get it through my thick head that it's ok to talk about the bad days.

It's ok to not be ok.

But the good news is that now that I had my freak out and took a break from everything, I feel a little more rejuvenated. I'm not ready to go out and take over the world (yet) but at least I'm actually crossing some things off of my list today. The Dude is planning on coming over and spending some much-needed time over the next few days, and hopefully we can use some of that time to get some things done around here and to relax together - both of which we haven't been able to do much of lately.