4 am musings

I could do without the random sleep patterns. I really could. I was exhausted today. I woke up tired. Completely crashed for over 4 hours in the afternoon. Was exhausted all evening. Crashed again before midnight (which is unusual for me). Slept soundly, though I know I was dreaming much like the horrible dreams I had at naptime. Lorelei woke up. I noticed that Maggie's light was on. And suddenly, here I am. Wide awake at 4 am. I know if I were to lie down and close my eyes, they'd pop open five minutes later. It's ridiculous. I don't want to wake up exhausted again tomorrow morning. I'm already tired thinking about our schedule for the next two weeks. I'd really like to get some decent sleep, but all I get is insomnia and bad dreams.

Ok. That sounded really whiny. It scares me when I wake up at night. Especially when I'm this wide awake. For one thing, the night has always scared me. I don't like the dark. I don't like feeling like my senses are handicapped. I especially don't like not being able to see. For another, I always get this feeling that I'm awake because someone needs me. Beyond Lorelei, that something awful is going to happen and I have to find out what it is before it happens so I can keep it from happening. Or at least so I can pray. Most of the time I'll start praying in a panicked sort of fashion, "God, please keep anything bad from happening to anyone that I love."

This evening was not a fun one. Having Molly home for the summer, if things continue in this fashion, will not be fun. I know she's running on high emotions at the moment. She misses school, she loved her teacher, she's nervous about third grade. She gets into her routines that are familiar and comfortable and she hates change. She takes her anger and fear and sorrow out on other people. I don't know how to help her. I cut myself to deal with those emotions. I drink. I take narcotics. If I don't know how to deal with pain, how I can teach her how to?? I tried to talk to her about it all tonight but she either says that she knows it all already or she argues. At the end of the conversation she told me that she won't be able to change if I keep having these conversations with her that make her sad. What am I supposed to do? Dealing with her behavior without dealing with her heart is unacceptable. Her behavior isn't going to change to any great degree if her heart doesn't change first. But I can't change her heart. I gave her up to God over two years ago (not that she wasn't always his, it was more my perspective) but it's awfully hard to live there right now. The violence of her emotions scares me. It scares me how out of control she gets. It makes me angry when she hurts her siblings either emotionally or physically. It makes me angry when I see them reacting in turn when I know if she were kind to them, they'd be kind, more often than not.

The thing that bothers me most is that I know I'm treating her the way my mom treated me and I HATE that. It's not that my mom was a horrible mom, but I got blamed for everything. I grew up under so much pressure to be the one who set the tone of the household. I know Molly is feeling that same pressure and I don't know how to relieve it. We've all gotten into some very bad habits over the years. I finally feel like my marriage is where it should be - or at least at the place of new beginnings. I hope it translates into our family life, though I have no vision of what that would look like practically.

I know kids are going to fight. It's the intensity of Molly's negative emotions that scares me. She's out of my control. She's not in control of herself. And while I know that God is in control of the whole situation, it doesn't feel that way most of the time. She threw her folder of Bible Verses against the wall tonight. I know she did it purely for my reaction, which I didn't oblige her, but it speaks to a coldness that I see building again. A few months ago I saw that coldness melting away, but then Bob and I took over life with our problems. I know the kids felt the stress, but I think maybe they were trying to hold it together for us. It's all coming out now. I've been able to see it in Maggie for a while. Liam's been more violent and cranky. Lorelei's been more clingy and destructive. Maggie's been so incredibly needy. And Molly is so scared of everything life is, she's exploding emotionally. How do I fix my family?

I had such visions when I was younger. I have gotten everything I asked for. But it looks nothing like what I envisioned and it's my own fault. I don't take all the blame. I know that all people are sinners, I know that even if I were perfect all the sin all around would still mess things up. But I am so far from perfect, it's ridiculous. I've hurt the single most important person in my life more deeply than I can imagine. And I've been given four children to love and nurture and I've screwed it up, almost minute by minute. It's hard to live with that knowledge.

I'm not without hope. But hope is a strange thing for me. Knowing the truth of the Bible, having hope because of it - first of all, it doesn't really change the reality of my circumstances at all. Things are what they are - all screwed up. Second, it doesn't prevent anyone from any sort of pain, either inflicted by me, because of me, or in spite of my best efforts. And third, it doesn't exactly give me any sort of direction. I feel so overwhelmed by the gravity of the circumstances and the lack of knowledge or strength to get us out of it.