Guardian Angel Roxanne sent me (through facebook) to a page with some nice advice.  The best of the bunch for me just now:

Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.
 Stop trying to be someone you're not.
Stop being scared to make a mistake.
Stop trying to compete against everyone else.
Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others.
Stop trying to make things perfect.*
Stop trying to be everything to everybody.^
Stop worrying so much.#


*A common mom problem, I suspect.  Definitely a Me problem, having been raised by a woman who did seem to do every single thing perfectly.
^I know this is a mom deal --- trying to meet every child's needs.  It also dovetails into the making things perfect issue.  And I'm still trying to be everything to a person who isn't here any more.
# How easily typed, how near-impossibly done.

I Promise

One day, these posts won't be "Oh, Pitiful Me"-themed.  But that's pretty much where I am right now.

 

Briton is in his new apartment.  Yesterday was fairly exhausting, yet I had trouble getting to sleep last night.  I'm interested to see how he did his first night in the new place.  We're meeting up in just a little while to go get Hannah.  I don't think she had a very pleasant end to her semester, and I don't think she's going to want to talk about it, though we surely need to.  We simply can't keep spending what little money we have on sending her to school if she isn't going to be a student.

And need-to-do-s from Nashville are still rolling around in my head.  Basically, I'm in a constant state of near-panic.  Or, more accurately, near-panic-attack.  I just cannot get my mind to be still.  And trying to distract myself fails utterly.  Losing Mama --- hell, this whole year --- has made me realize how easily time can be wasted.  It can slip out from under you before you know it, and you never get it back.  What have I done this year?  A nervous breakdown.  And a half.  Couldn't find a job.  Now, trying to pull together a Christmas, funds are even scarcer than they were last year, my heart and mind and dealing with grief and loss and children's problems. . .  "Let this Christmas go," I've heard in my head more than once lately.  "There will be others."  Maybe.  But what if this one is our last one all really together?  What if, for everyone's sake, this needs to be a really fun holiday?  Who puts that together?  It's supposed to be me, I guess.  And I'm not up to the challenge.