Me

There are some who say I am an emotional person. If pressed, I’d have to say I agree with them.

I was paying bills Thursday afternoon and was slightly irritated at the little stacks of papers and envelopes spreading across the desk. I decided to get organized and gathered the papers in one hand and set about looking for the bill file. I found a bill file, but it was empty and that couldn’t be the file I needed. Could it? On closer investigation, it emerged that, apparently, I had not filed any of our paid bills since November. Yes, November. As in, nine months ago.

There was a time when all of my bills were paid and filed promptly. There was also a time when, although my house wasn’t spotless, I at least worked mightily to try to keep it from being too messy. There was a time when my laundry was actually put away in dressers rather than sitting folded in baskets. Furthermore, there was a time when I did most of the laundry and cleaning around here rather than paying the babysitter to do it.

And that time? Well, it was prior to November 2005. That’s about the time when I started feeling that I was going to lose my mind. There was a reason for that. It’s a little bit complicated but mostly I got very stressed out because we thought we were going to move to a town 400 miles away but it seemed like there were always factors that made the move an up-in-the-air, uncertain thing. And then we finally got the green light on the move only to get a very good offer to keep us here.  So, I walked around feeling like I was choking with uncertainty for months, cried over leaving my family and friends, finally came to accept and look forward to the move and then ended up in the same place where I started. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot of stress to you but, for me, any sort of change is stressful and uncertainty completely does me in. I always like to be absolutely certain of the things I am certain of. Certainly.

Anyway . . . long story short: I experienced debilitating anxiety and depression, went to the doctor, and felt better but still not quite 100%.

But lately, I really have been feeling more like my normal self which is why I felt compelled to tackle the task of filing away bills. But when I realized that it had been nine months? I kinda lost it.

I sat on my bed and made stacks of bills organized by month and cried. My husband called and heard my sniffling and asked, “Are you okay?” I answered, “I haven’t filed our paid bills since November!”

“And?“

“And, so maybe if I’ve neglected the filing for the past nine months, maybe that means that I haven’t taken good care of you and the boys for the past nine months, too!”

Brad was alarmed by my crying, which was more like wailing by that point, and he shushed me and assured me, “Noooo, baby. You’re a great wife. You’re a great mom. You’re doing a great job.”

“But, but, but the house is always a mess!” I cried.

“We have two little boys, Heather. The house is a mess five seconds after we clean it. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“But, I hardly ever cook dinner anymore! We always eat out!”

“Well, that’s true. But you cooked dinner last night and things are going to slow down now that summer’s over. It’s okay that you haven’t been cooking dinner.”

“But . . .”

“No more ‘buts!’Â You are a great wife and mother and we love you, so please stop crying.”

Then he came home and rubbed my neck and shoulders, took me out to dinner and rubbed my feet as we sat on the couch later that night. That man really knows how to cheer a girl up.

I really was beside myself when I realized that I had neglected a task for nine months without even realizing it. It really did scare me because I wondered what else I had neglected without realizing it. The fact that the paid bills were abandoned to a pile on the desk as of November, it seemed so symbolic of the downslide my emotions took at that same time.

Now that I’ve had time to think about it and recover, I realize that it is a good sign that it bothered me to discover the neglected stacks of bills. Obviously, it never bothered me any other time over the last several months.

It’s a good sign that I am becoming me again.