Last night’s lamentation

The past several years of finance-related stress, and the major changes in our family life this spring, seem to have caught up with me. My face looks melted and old, the eyelids droopy. I spend my weekends in a state of torpor, sleeping until ungodly hours (10:30, 11:45), eating “bad” foods until I'm stuffed, inert; watching TV or hanging out on the Internet for hours. At night I am too agitated to sleep. My mind races as I lie in bed and attempt to get comfortable. Whether I'm alone, or Michael is sleeping beside me – it makes no difference; the insomnia is persistent.

Here is what I wrote last evening while waiting for Michael and Melinda to get home from Providence. I was as depressed as I can recall in recent months, briefly in tears.

My soul is hollow. My heart despairs. My life – so enviable – feels empty, wanting.

I crave connection with the divine, but I shy from church, from sustained prayer. I sense that each of us is alone in the universe, trapped in a tangle of neurons inside a bony skull. I am frightened. How lonely life is!

I have children; my children are not me. I have a husband; he is not me. I have friends, but I have not had or made time for them in my life.

I loathe my physical self; I am shamed and burdened by my fat, my age, my ugliness. I objectively dislike and disappoint myself. I am poisoned by selfishness and self-centeredness. I wish to cease being lazy, duplicitous, cynical, suspicious, and shallow.

Fatigue at times overwhelms me; it did so today. I can’t exert myself. I sate myself with too much unhealthy food and then neglect my family. Tonight I let Kevin down: I had said I would make his favorite pasta with sautéed garlic shrimp, but I had no energy or desire to do it. Michael is getting take-out food, and I am near tears because I failed. I wanted to this for Kevin, and I could not.

Could not. Would not? I’m afraid to answer that.

How discouraged and angry I feel!

God, I am helpless and humble before you. Give me the will and strength to assess my desires, passions, weaknesses, and whatever integrity I may possess so that I may take steps toward becoming whole. I wish to be loving, selfless. To eschew gluttony and sloth. To find my way to you through your son, who feels distant and unknowable.

Help me to have energy and motivation. Help me to hope.

I need to take some vacation time and unwind. What I'd love is to get away to a spa for a week and begin purifying my body, detoxing from sugar and fat, and strengthening my muscles so that I can bear the weight of exercise on my arthritic joints. That's way too expensive, though.

Also I would love to make a spiritual retreat at one of the numerous monasteries and retreat houses around New England. Right now I can't leave the kids at home alone, even though this option is quite affordable. Michael hasn't earned vacation time yet at his new job, so I'm on duty here at home.

Nevertheless. I am attempting to take baby steps in ways that are do-able: a purifying liquid fast for a few days, an eating and exercise plan, earlier bedtimes on weeknights, to-do lists both at home and at work to help me stick to schedules and cross off jobs as I complete them.

Please send me some good thoughts or prayers, whatever comes naturally to you. I am resolving to do my best. Yes, I need to be tolerant and kind with myself, but I also need to achieve some modest goals relating to my mental and physical health.