we are the reynolds: February 2014

Went to the Parada del Sol Rodeo last night. I can honestly say this was our first rodeo ;) My brother in law scored the whole family VIP tickets and we made a night of it. We ate at Picadillo's before heading out there and that place is like a sensory overload of flashing lights and workers rushing you to order. If you ever go there don't get the BBQ chicken salad, get a hot dog or something. I think they might be known for their hot dogs? The rodeo was super fun and Talis and Miles loved it! We were completely in awe watching the cowboys try to stay on the buckin horses. It looks so much scarier in real life, those guys have to suffer from whiplash on the daily. Being at the rodeo made me want to take vacation on a dude ranch somewhere and just ride horses in the wilderness or something. It was bringing out all sorts of an inner cowgirl in me. Can't wait to go to another rodeo sometime, Yee Haw!

It's 1:05 in the morning. It's 1:05 in the morning and I'm sitting at the computer in our room trying to type as softly as I can for I know if DJ wakes up he'll tell me to go back to bed. I'm sitting here writing because that's all I really know how to do when my heart feels full. I feel like a vessel full of emotions just full enough that I've become a danger of unloading at any given time. I feel like I've just done that. That my pent up emotions that I've been hiding and pushing back have fully come full circle and I have to deal with them. Which is scary because I don't know how, I don't know how to deal. The last few months has been a build up of worries and stresses and trying to cope and handle things that I never thought I'd have to handle. I don't want to go into detail nor do I want anyone to think the worst. It's more a personal thing. Like something that I feel like I've been wrestling with by myself. Although not totally by myself because I know DJ has noticed a change in my for a while. I guess I should slow down and explain a little better.

I haven't felt myself. I haven't felt myself in a long while it seems. I've felt like I had developed this shadow, this ever nagging shadow that would cast itself on anything and everything happy and joyful and be negative. I have never considered myself a negative person yet here I was feeling hopeless and unable to find the good in situations and people. I've become reclusive, once a very social girl and now I would get anxiety at the thought of having to try to keep up a conversation with someone. I had grown this self-demeaning attitude that seems to have soared to it's highest possible point where I hate almost everything about me. When I look in the mirror I only see how my once toned and skinny body has developed a belly and all over weight that I can't seem to shed. I see hair that hasn't been to the salon since September and I get angry at the reminder that I don't have extra spending money to keep up my hair. I see an unwashed face with makeup on from the night before last that has yet to be cleaned off for lack of any time for myself. I see a woman who had given up so many of my own personal goals in exchange of becoming a wife and mom and was filled with sadness and jealously every time someone else accomplished their goals (and than adding that crippling self guilt because of it.). I've been seeing the worst in myself for a while now and it has effected almost every aspect of my life, most importantly my role as a mother and wife. My patience seemed nonexistent and I'd easily get upset with the boys. I would take anything and everything out on DJ and started to resent him for things about myself that I was blaming him for, unjustly and undeserving of course. Self-help books, new diet programs, and compulsive shopping all seemed to help a little but only temporarily. I was feeling hopeless and I'm sure my little family was too just wanting me to snap out of whatever cloud seemed to permanently set up shop over my head.

Around midnight Miles started crying. He wasn't so much crying as he was moaning, like he needed something but was to tired to fully wake up and figure out what it was. I waited to see if he would go back to sleep. I decided I should probably intervene before he woke up Talis and went in the room. I fed him a bottle and rocked him slowly back and forth in the rocking chair. I started taking it all in. I've filled their room with so many sleep aids in hopes that it would help them both get a solid nights sleep that I just now was realizing how either silly or extremely comforting their room was at night. Their two fans on high, their humidifier humming away, the essential oil diffuser filling the room with the scent of lavender, the various blue nightlights and the sound machine constantly putting out the sound of ocean waves. Then I started to really look. At Miles's round fists that clenched around his bottle, his pillowy cheeks smooshed up against me, Talis' sleeping horizontally on his bed with his little legs crossed. The whole scene kind of hit me all at once and tears started streaming down my face, fast and uncontrollably. I felt every ounce of love I had for these little boys all at once and I started to feel the self guilt and unworthiness creep in. Why did I get to be these little boys' mommy? Why was I trusted to raise these precious spirits when I felt at such a loss with my own. Why did I deserve their attention and adoration every day when there were days when I just wanted to mentally check out?

It was then that I started praying. I started praying to my Heavenly Father, something that I shamefully had stopped doing a while ago because I was so frustrated with what seemed like one unanswered prayer after another. I thanked him for every little thing about those two precious boys. I thanked him for letting me be their mommy. I apologized for giving up on him so easily, for stopping my prayers. I asked him to help me. To help this dark shadow that's been looming over me to pass, to help me get out of this funk that I can't seem to shake. To help me know what to do and do it. To feel inspired. And most importantly to help me stop putting this crippling self guilt on myself for silly things that don't matter. I didn't see an angel. I didn't suddenly know all the answers, I didn't suddenly feel like myself again. But I felt better. In that moment in that room with Miles in my lap, Talis sleeping a few feet away and tears running down my cheeks I felt better and a slight peace. It wasn't massive. It was barely noticeable the amount of better and peace I felt but I felt it. And it was what I needed at the time. And I felt I needed to write about it. I don't know exactly what it is I'm struggling with. Depression? Life crisis? Stress? I don't know. But I believe that Satan in real and so is Heavenly Father. And in that room for that moment I made a plea with Heavenly Father for help and he sent me a little. A little peace. A little calm. A little reminder to turn to him and unload my burden. And I feel like this is the start of me doing that...