Gratitude

Today is the one year anniversary of my first baby shower (yes, I was spoiled and had two), and I have yet to send out the thank you notes.  *Sigh*  Sure, I could make excuses for how busy I've been and how I've had my hands full dealing with the Peanut and adjusting to parenthood, but I think there's more to it.

It's not at all that I am not grateful for the gifts we have received.  I completed about a dozen thank you cards the weekend before Peanut was born, but never managed to get them in the mail - Peanut arrived before I could complete the process.  I've been sitting on them since then because I feel like now they need to be amended in some way since I wrote them before all the madness happened.  And then there are all the other thank yous... And I feel this pressure to make each thank you perfect and personal, and the more time that passes, the harder that goal seems to be to reach, because now in addition to "thank you", I have to say, "sorry I'm such a heel".

I know I need to just stop procrastinating and thinking about it so much and just write them and get them in the damn mail already.  (Mom, I know you're mortified that I still haven't completed this task.  Yes, you did raise me better than that.)  I don't know why I have such a difficult time with this.  I have the same blockage when it comes to sending birthday cards and the like.  I guess I put this pressure on myself for things to be perfect, then I am afraid to try because I know it won't be perfect or it will require a lot of effort to achieve my perceived perfection, and I get so exhausted just thinking about it all that I end up not doing any of it.

I probably should have sat and written a thank you card or two instead of writing this post.  Hopefully writing about the perplexing difficulty I am having putting my thanks down in writing will help move things along.

I couldn't have said it better myself

In my struggle to figure out how to get my thoughts sorted out of my crazy brain, I found the following blog post which pretty much sums things up exactly how I WISH I could express myself:

http://the818.com/2010/09/i-carried-a-watermelon/

I'll try not to let this derail me, but I know I am easily derailed.  It's just so much easier to do the dishes and the laundry to satisfy my need for productivity, because that stuff is right THERE in my face all the time and harder to ignore.

One foot in front of the other...

I know, I know, I know... I fell off the blog horse.  And it is so easy for me to make excuses for why it happened.  The truth most specifically lies in the question, "What next?"  I have felt my posts need to start getting more specific now regarding some of the issues I've battled with this illness, but trying to lay things out chronologically seems too daunting a task.  I will have to practice with this blog what I am practicing in life - take it day by day (or minute by minute sometimes); just put one foot in front of the other.* (*Now I want to watch "What About Bob?" - "Baby steps to the door... Baby steps to the chair...")

I have a lot to sort out.  In the past few weeks, I feel like I have finally resurfaced from the depths of PPD.  It's gonna take some time to readjust and absorb what has happened.  I was struggling with my identity BEFORE the baby came along, so you can only imagine what kind of chaos is swirling in my soul these days.  Mama?  Me?  Take a deep breath.  Let's do this.