I'm giving my all to all the wrong people.

I've been home from work for 2 hours and I haven't moved far from where I sat down when I got here.

I work for a large retailer and during my last 15 minute break of my 7 hour shift today, something sad occurred to me:  I give much more of myself to the strangers in my life than I do to my own family. For 25-35 hours a week I bust my ass to be the nicest, most charming, funny, and helpful sales associate to strangers who could mostly give a crap as long as I help them find what they want.  I do my best to listen to their needs, to not annoy them in a stalker-ie (-y?) sales associate way, and to let them know that I genuinely care (and I honestly do).

But the second I clock out, all that goes out the window and all that's left is exhaustion. I find myself not even wanting to engage in anything. My children try to talk to me and I find myself only sort of listening, asking "huh?" or telling my sweet son when he asks a question or otherwise expects a response, "I'm sorry honey, say that again."

I don't want the best of me to be left at the time clock.  What good is it being a rock star at work if there's nothing left for my family?  The truth is, at work I can hide.  I can hide from all the things that press down on me when I'm not on the clock.  The bills, the chores, the unfinished degree, the clutter, the traveling husband, my daughter's less than stellar grades, the adult daughter's woes as a single mom, the unrealized dreams, the disabling feelings of failure, and so on and so forth.  I can even suck up my chronic physical pain and plaster a smile on my face.  Home is my safe place to turn inward and, for lack of a better word, sulk.

Omg, that's what depression has turned me into, a big bag of sulk.  I sit here and sulk.  I brood about everything I hate about my life and want to change but don't ever change anything.  In my 20's I vehemently declared, "I regret nothing!!"  But now that I'm 40 there's so much I regret that I'm paralyzed by my woulda, shoulda, couldas.  I need help. I guess that's a start, admitting that putting on this front is slowly killing me. It's hard to admit to being a train wreck without my usual humorous defense mechanisms to cover just how much it hurts.

But, like I so often do, I digress...

Back to the realization that I give the best part of me to strangers instead of my family.  My family deserves better.  They deserve my smiles.  They deserve, more than anyone, my efforts to give them the me that listens, that smiles, that is there for them.  It's not their fault that I feel defeated and unworthy because they really do nothing but lift me up.  They deserve for me to get help and give them the best me I can be.

I think that I've never made time for blogging, for writing, because I was always so hung up on wanting it to be funny all the time.  I want to make people laugh.  I want it to be rainbows and unicorns.  But like my blog description says, this is a journey to find peace for myself, and I'm never going to do that if I don't admit to and face the darkness within.  

So if you don't like the darkness that comes before the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, better walk away now.