it's gotta be hormones

Either that, or I am completely losing it.

It feels like I have to reach up to touch rock bottom.

This is two nights in a row that I've spent an hour or more crying on my husband's shoulder. The second night in a row that my eyes have poofed and swelled and gone squinty from the salt-stains coursing down my cheeks. The second time that I've sobbed hard enough and loud enough to wake the baby. And still, I feel no relief.

I'm angry. With everyone---about anything. Pick something, and I'll find a way to be mad about it. I'm frustrated with every tiny not-going-the-way-I-want-it-to-go detail of our lives---and that's a lot of details. I'm despairing over ever having a life that feels manageable, normal, quiet or even fun. My entire self feels surrounded by those horrible clouds of depression and some acid rain, just for kicks. I'm grieving inside over what feels like the loss of my body, my youth, my wifehood, my homemaker-ness, my privacy, my home. The only part of me that doesn't say "ouch" when you poke it is that part that loves my husband.

Usually a hot bath, mug of tea and a good cry will fix everything that could possibly be wrong with me. But it's like there's this buildup of stress and pressure and growing-up-too-fast and trying to be strong for everyone and trying to make sure everyone knows that we're okay and happy and doing fine. Like I've been trying so hard to ensure that the whole world is aware that Life Is Hard, But God Is Good---and ending up lying to them and to myself in the process.

In the long run, in the big picture, I know that everything that is wrong right now will turn out just fine. I know that all will be righted and fixed and made beautiful in His time.

But in the meantime, far from my Bible and my "healthy" normal self, I wonder: Why in the world did we move down here? Why did we think we could live across the street from my husband's family? Why did we think we could actually build an entire house? Where is the body that I only shared with my husband for four months before becoming preggo mommy? What were we thinking, to have a baby so young? Where has all the time gone? Where is the determination that I usually have to finish what we started? Where is my hope? Where is my joy? Where is my peace? Where did it go???

I don't know the answers. And usually I'd say next, "But I know the One Who does!"----and that is still true. But instead, I find myself wondering where He is. I know in my head that He's close by, but it's been a long, long time since I've heard His voice. It's been a long, long time since I've sat in quiet, listening for Him. And it's been even longer since I've felt peace, way deep down in there, that peace that is unexplainable but real, that peace that makes everything okay, no matter how crazed it feels.

So I hang on, I guess. There isn't another option. Sleep, eat, take care of Sweet Baby, talk on the phone occasionally, love husband, and find my Bible, buried somewhere in the mountain of paperwork waiting in the camper to the filing envelopes to be pulled out of storage, and find some quiet corner to sit and find the real me again.

Cause that girl sure is nowhere in sight.