Some days you're the ball.

This is not an inspirational post, I'm venting and well, not sure where to put it, so here we go.

See that kid up there in the header image? Yeah, that's a good spot to be. About to drive it outta the park. Kid's looking at a pretty awesome afternoon.

I'm not in that spot. The last week have been hell, sheer unmitigated stressful hell.

See, about ten days ago, I was in a pretty good spot emotionally, plugging along, kids are chaotic but fine, wife is -looking real good-, I'm feeling if not on top of the world, at least not feeling like I'm being ground under the wheels of todays society.

Then I tried to get some connection, some genuine connected time with my lady.

*shutdown*

Now, I know I'm not supposed to take her shutdown of me personally, and usually I can shake it off, but it's getting trickier to do that. I'm feeling lost and alone, overwhelmed a lot of the time. I have nothing I do for me time, nothing that refills my cup as it were. There's not enough time/money/daylight/space for anything like that once my duties as father and husband are up. But here's the kicker, all I do is work to support these guys, then cook/clean/care for them, 24/7. Never a moment off.

It's exhausting.

I'm not discounting what parent's go through, or minimizing what she does. My wife is amazing, talented and so very much more than I am in all of the caring and house details. I do my best, but it will never be as good as her worst day.

Here comes the twist. She's started working again. She's been home, being our heart and soul of the home, for the last two years due to maternity leave (Canada, some things aren't too bad). But she's started working again. It's a couple hours a day, three times a week. But she starts at six am, and is up by four thirty or five, and thus so am I. Starting that early she's shutting down in the evenings earlier and earlier. Her preferred bedtime is about 8, if she can manage it. Additionally, on the days when she doesn't work, she's exhausted and inflamed and all that, so her physical and mental state aren't as good as they could be either.

For reference, the kids fall asleep from 9 through 11 depending on age.

So, I'm on my own. Always. I miss her. I miss being married as it were, and it was coming to a point where I felt I needed to talk to her about it all, at least to find a compromise that didn't involve just leaving me to handle 90% of the home care as well as pulling 110% of the bills/appointments/etc.

Where the smurf was I to start? I'm hitting burnout, literally. I am coming unwound inside my own head, and there's nobody I can talk to about this stuff IRL.

I am honestly not sure where to go from here, so I guess I'll leave off and get back to work.