We have one TV in our house. It seems to work out for us because we all watch TV at different times. The kids get the TV after their homework is done and on weekend mornings. My husband gets control of the remote on the evenings and I don’t really watch TV. On the rare occasion we watch together, we can all agree on home renovation shows.
My little men love the idea of demolishing walls and buildings, my husband is always impressed with the finished project and I love the visions people have; seeing the ideas form, questioning the how and being in awe at the after.
We start looking around our house and each of us will throw around ideas on how we can make our house better. Each one of us has a particular go to room that they have ideas for and sometimes we go all in and renovate. Our bathroom downstairs is our latest master piece.
In a recent discussions we chatted about our chain linked fence around our backyard. I DON’T like it. We have trees growing in between the links and the grass grows up the fence, I think it makes our backyard look terrible.
Ok, I’ll admit, it was a selling factor to us. We have dogs and how great for them to have a giant backyard to roam around in without us worrying about them. BUT, we don’t weed whip the fence. We don’t replant the seedlings that land in the un-whipped parts. My husband thinks it’s great because our little dogs can’t squeeze under if they can’t see the bottom of the fence but it looks bad.
When we play volleyball or any other ball sport they often fly over the fence and then we have to climb over to continue playing.
I’d love to rip it out, open up the yard. Free the trees for maximum growth potential.
I argued that we don’t really need to keep our dogs caged anymore, they are so old they don’t go far he argued that it isn’t about keeping things IN as much as keeping things OUT of our yard.
Hmmmm.
The conversation got me thinking about my life lately. Maybe I could use a fence.
The truth is I’ve been taking on too much of other people‘s responsibilities and it’s crushing me. The weight of my grandparents failing health, the weight of parenting my parents, parenting my brother and the stress of it all is affecting how I show up for MY kids and how I show up for MY life.
Watching the downfall of someone you love is devastating.
The truth is no matter how it looks on social media – I can’t take it.
I haven’t ever been this depressed or worried for my safety in all my 39 trips around the sun. I’ve lost the ability to see the bright side of things and that is NOT me. I have even passed up on a job promotion because I can’t take on anything else right now.
The burden of other peoples choices is suffocating me. The stress of wanting something so much for someone and watching them throw their entire life away is exhausting. I’ve been emotionally depleted with no sanctuary for a year now.
There are so many people that care about my brother and have reached out to me with messages for him. I am grateful for those people and I have passed along your encouragement; but dealing with this part of my journey has become like poison in my drinking water. An unseen killer affecting me one sip at a time.
The way I look at it is I have two choices. I can keep trying to help and continue taking in higher dosages of the poison until the silent killer has infiltrated me completely with no return
or
I can fight for ME.
I can put up my fence and take the baby steps needed to heal myself.
When it’s laid out like that you can see there never really was two choices, there has always only been one…
ME.
I hope he gets the help he needs but I also have the same hope for me.
As I protect my shattered self by putting up unbreakable barriers I have asked my parents to not call me and bombard me with my brother‘s terrible life choices and unwillingness to get professional help.
I don’t want to hear about or see him.
My little humans deserve my BEST me and they need me more than an adult that should take responsibility for his own life.
When it comes down to it, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You have to want the changes before you can make changes and my wants are of no interest to him.
It takes a lot to remove yourself from an unhealthy situation, to take a stand against your own mental health. I hope my little men see me as an inspiration and not as someone taking the easy way out; because trust me, this is NOT easy.
Though my internal light is dim with defeat I have no doubt it will be back brighter than it used to be.
Namaste,
Jes xoxo