My gradual descent and saving myself from it

I noticed today while packing up the Christmas tree and decorations that my day-to-day life has become way too housewifey. Somehow, I was cooler when my kid was a tiny baby. Somehow, I've gotten dragged into a situation where I am doing an awful lot of cleaning and picking up, reorganizing of the house—and too, too many trips to the grocery store and Target.

Enough!

I hereby declare, with 2010 upon us, that I will return to my bohemianism and get in touch with myself. And myself is not a housewife.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

No, I chose to quit my job after maternity leave to stay home with my little one. I chose to take the salary cut and the cut from connection with lots of grown-up people each day to work from home in my spare time. But, somewhere along the line I started doing more housework, and this, I do not like. I don't know if its because housework is one of the few things that is relatively easy to do when you have a toddler/preschooler around, because they either like to help, or they think that you are playing, OR if its because there is more of a need for it with all the messes that toddlers/preschoolers make, but it has taken over my life. And housework makes me want to drink...and get high...because, it is boring! Even playing with a toddler/preschooler, to me, is probably less boring than housework, but it is sometimes less gratifying, or, maybe I am just compelled to do the work because I see this mess building around me all the time and I am obsessive/compulsive like that. But, I often feel like I have spent the whole day picking up stuff and cleaning and thinking, man, if only I didn't have to pick up and clean so much I'd be able to spend more time actually playing with my kid.

This is what it's come down to? I lament the fact that I do too much housework to play with my kid? What happened to learning guitar and Portuguese? (These things I mentioned to a friend I would do in my "spare" time during my sabbatical from work, staying home with my kid, of course, while I freelanced, too...WTF was I thinking?!?)

The worse parts of all this are that I have gotten too fat and I have turned into a bitch. Being around here all day, making countless mini meals for someone who doesn't seem to like anything but yogurt and cookies (OK, I am exaggerating) and eating and drinking out of boredom and frustration has added up. As for being a bitch, without a decent release, without good breaks or good mental maintenance, I blame my husband for my discontent. If he would only pick up his shit...if he would only this...only that....I hate myself for all this. It's not his fault I'm a nut.

I kind of feel like I've turned a corner just by making these observations, but, what to do next? What direction can I take, now that I have saved myself by seeing the problem state that I've arrived at? I'll have to think about that. I will probably blog a bit about some things I've been wrestling with over the past couple weeks of the holidaze, and then usher in the New Year with some kinda fresh attitude I hope will last.

Revelations from everyday entertainment

Last night we watched 5oo Days of Summer and it dawned on me...I actually love my husband!

Of course, this is something I should already know, but, I am often highly annoyed with him (probably my problem, not him) and I often (in the past, before my recent decade-end epiphanies) have felt at my wit's end. BUT, now that I have seen this movie, I know I love him.

First of all, I will say, the movie was cute, not the greatest movie, not the worst. The leading man vacillated between mildly cute and wholly unappealing. It almost made me dislike Zooey Deschanel until I reminded myself she was just playing a role. (Because I have to like her, as a frequent collaborator with musical fave M. Ward.) But, at the end, I was like...damn, I guess I do love my husband.

Because, when they were showing the parts where the guy was rethinking their relationship and remembered her irked smirk when he showed her a Ringo Starr record (she had told him Ringo was her favorite Beatle) and when she was like, I am tired, I just want to go be by myself....I thought, I never would feel that way about my guy. Even when I am totally pissed at him, I am never repulsed...and she looked repulsed...like she wanted him gone. Even when I am sooooo very annoyed, I still want to snuggle. He still is...my life. It is so weird! He would never gross me out. And watching this movie, I could see why Zooey Deschanel would be grossed out by this guy. He is so needy and so adoring of her when he doesn't even seem to really get her. My husband on the other hand is attractively detached. At times, I may feel like he does not know, care about or respect the real me...but he's not cloying about a me he doesn't know.

Weird. I know. Must be chemistry. It seems, he will never gross me out. Ever.

Going Underground

Regular visitors to this blog (all three of you—ha!) may notice a change in our banner. We are going underground and going anonymous! So...you don't know me. Shhh.

I am going to lay it all out now and use this blog for therapy—I need it. There are some things I need to sort out and things I need to say and hash out that might even provide content for future, more-developed pieces. At first, some of it may be ugly...but I think, eventually, it will help me be a better person. I just need to get some of that stuff out before I move on. Like cleaning house. And my poor husband has heard so much of it that he has become numb to it. And it doesn't really matter to me who hears it...it's just that I need to get it out and the semi-anonymous format of a blog is what fits me right now, I like to type and be on the computer more than writing in notebooks, for one thing.

So, here goes...

Update

I think I am in one of my lulls again. So much to say, but then again, not so much.

I won a $10 Starbucks card for my cupcakes—one of the very cards I went and purchased for prizes for the event, but my cupcakes were chosen anonymously for the prize. Nobody knew whose they were.

I was going to write about how I feel like an outsider amongst the suburbanites who have money and are into decor and other bourgeois stuff...but that doesn't sound quite right.

I am in a phase where I am wanting to be more inside myself and live a more private life, so may have another lull for a while.