Now, if you have read my blog for any length of time…You know I jump around from topic to topic. 

Sorta of in an extreme way. (see above image 🙂

The last month I have become very self-conscious about that. 

I started feeling like the “jumping around” indicated some sort of ‘enhanced PTSD’ symptoms and that you all were starting to wonder about me.

I have since decided to … well …. ignore that thought process. (Andrea: 1 ;  Insecurity: 0 )

My personality, by nature, is a “jumper”. 

I talk in circles until I come to a conclusion (I think that is called deductive reasoning … and now I am a nerd too 🙂  

That my blog posts jump from “Oh I am so happy” to “Oh holy jelly beans the sky is falling”… is simply just “Andrea”. 

Yes, PTSD may play a part in that now but I really no longer care. I have PTSD. There’s not getting around that. 

It affects every part of my life. If it “enhances” my “jumping”..well so be it. 

I am choosing to enjoy the ride…as if I have a choice.

So, my inhibitions about writing here again are vanquished and I feel like I can be myself here again. phew.

 
(ha)

SO! Let’s JUMP RIGHT IN!

It is 3:39am.

I have been laying in bed for about 3 hours.  It isn’t really insomnia. It is an all all worry-fest.

Does anyone else do this in the midst of the “witching hours” …. when the world is quiet but your brain is not.

Your brains seems to SPIN OUT OF CONTROL when everyone else is making their little sleeping sounds and seem to be oh-so-cozy in bed…whereas your sheets are relatively soaked in sweat from heavy thoughts and silly worries.

Tonight…I have thought about (in no certain order):

-crud I am a horrible wife/mom because I do not have a dinner idea for tomorrow night…or even the next four nights. Let alone the four nights after that. I must surely stink at this housewife gig.

-I desperately need to call my grandmother like NOW. (I honestly almost picked up the phone at 2:30am to call her but she is 84 and I was worried she may have negative health consequences from a middle-of-the-night phone call. I am not joking.)

-what am I going to wear tomorrow. I want to wear my yellow skirt but it feels tight around my waist. Maybe if I cut the elastic it will be more comfortable.

-I wonder if my kids are happy.  As in truly happy and will reflect upon their childhood with smiles and not inside a therapy session.

-I want a dog that is loyal and not a yapper and “excitable urninater”.  (I almost got on Craig’s List to look for one but that would seriously put my marriage in jeopardy right now.)

-I want to repaint our kitchen table…which led me to about 20 minutes of, mentally, choosing a color, considering the repairs it needs, where I would conduct this project.  (I’m going with purple enamel and then pale orange chair covers. Yes. I am … at least I think I am)

-what if there is a natural disaster? We do not have enough food to last more than a few days. Maybe I should reserve a bathtub for storing water from now on?

-I wonder if homeschooling is seriously damaging our kids. I am to unorganized to truly school them. Chase is 16. Maybe he’s past the “I can fix this” part of his education. Crap.

(those are just the thoughts that i can remember…it’s been 3 hours people. )

So.

All the Christ-followers who are reading this are thinking:

PRAY Andrea.

Andrea has PRAYED.  Yet, I still lay in bed, many nights a week, feeling like I have a 400 lb ticking time bomb sitting upon me. 

It is just WAITING to explode with “I TOLD YOU SO’s” and horrible events and proof positives that the minor things rolling through my brain did deserve my mental attention and that I should have acted…before the dang bomb “exploded”.

Now…some are going to say….

Read your Bible.

I.Have.Read.My.Bible.

You know what I found?

King David, Moses, Abraham, Ruth, Aaron, Jesus, Paul, Silas, Peter, James, Solomon, Ester, etc.

ALL key figures and major players on God’s team. Yet, they ALL had major struggles.

I find it hard to fathom that they did not lay upon their straw beds or wooden beds or dirt floors and ponder the state of their “being”.   

I do not feel ‘convicted’ when I read the Bible about these flying mental issues. 

I feel “in company”.

Am I dealing with an impending army invasion that Moses had to have his arms held up for (that was Moses, right?) in order to show obedience?  

No so much. 

But I do feel a sense of “invasion” in that “If I do not get some of these major and even minor issues resolved I am failing”.

I know a lot of this is not rational.

I know a lot of this will dissolve in the morning.

We will get take out for dinner.

School will go well. The kids will surprise me in some way with their retention and I will exhale a major sigh of teacher-relief.

I will talk to Jim about a dog and he will look at me like I have 23 heads.

 
(I’m going to get busted for this one .. but he’s sleeping peacefully…so I feel retribution is in order. )

I will buy the paint for the table and eventually get to the project. 

I will call my grandmother and slubber all over her about how much I adore her (She is my -deceased- Dad’s Momma. She is as important to me as my right hand)

But you know what…

I will crawl into bed tomorrow night…and..you guessed it.

New thoughts will start rushing.

My head will start aching.

My heart will start hurting.

I will try to talk myself out of the stupid thoughts…but…sometimes…my talking feels like silence.

Am I alone in this?

I have heard of other human beings (laugh) talk about this irrational phenomenon. So, I do not ‘think’ I am alone in this situation.

SEE EVEN MY PICTURES JUMP AROUND….

But I surely do feel alone, at night, as I wonder about a new dog, if my kids will be successful, if the birds got fed, if the nutritional needs of my kids are being met, if Jim still thinks I am ‘worth all of this’, if the major family “craters” we’ve traversed the last year (plus a few) will ever just stay in there place and if the hurt will stop.

Sometimes…sleeping is lonely. Especially when you are not. 

(How’s that for JUMPING back in? You know my next post will be about a fun birthday or our recent Christmas trip to Mexico to celebrate the end of the world with the Mayans -true story- but .. for now…THIS is what I wanted to write about…)

I wonder if I will ever pick up a paint brush again, I hope my friends will love and be loyal, I wonder if….

Oh heck. Andrea..find sleep.