My internal dialogue is tired. But like all internal dialogues, it also never stops. My day time thoughts slip into night time dreams and back again, over and over, days and weeks slipping by. It’s the middle of September already. The middle of September last year feels a world away. We lived in a different house, a different town, a different place. We prioritized different things. We had people in our lives that are now gone.

It was a different life.

I keep waiting to feel relief … from something? anything? everything? … but relief never comes. Hours seemingly disappear and suddenly it’s dinner time. I haven’t showered. Or done half the things that were on my To Do list. I’m exhausted. A migraine is lurking. I can’t catch up.

I think maybe this feeling will never stop. I will always be pushing to feel caught up, to catch a breath. I forget that two years ago things *also* felt hard. I forget that my rose-colored glasses and nostalgia don’t serve me. I feel sad. I miss my mother.

We moved home because we missed home. Because we didn’t know for sure it was home until we weren’t there anymore. And now we are back. And I am racing to make up for lost time. I am continually surprised – nay, shocked – at the changes that happened in 18 months. It simultaneously feels like we never left and also like we’ve been gone for decades. Time is trippy, weird.

I talk about writing. I fleetingly think about reading. But I can’t keep up with life, so no writing happens. No reading happens. My fatigue governs my days, as my clothing piles up in my cluttered “I’ll get to it this week” closet of horrors. Haha. Things that used to feel easy or routine are a heavy lift. I talk to myself out loud ~ “You’re okay,” I say repeatedly. I say it, but do I believe it? My knees buckle underneath me, I stumble and reach for anything to steady my steps. I am defeated, my inner dialogue says. I have lost. I look at my reflection in the mirror and fail to see anything positive. I see the fatigue, the pain, the weight gained. The creases around my eyes and forehead. The evidence that no matter what my inner monologue says, time keeps marching forward. I am forty-four. I look it.

I look tired.

I am happy to be home. I am happy in this little life that husby and I have carved out for ourselves. Me, him, our Tiny Terrorist dog Eli. I know these things. I reach for them when everything else feels overwhelming.

Xoxo, g