Can I Get My Own Country Song Now?

I know, I know – it’s not cool or even PC to b*tch on social media platforms, especially when you’re a middle-class gal living in Johnson County, employed, with an outstanding family and a circle of friends one only dreams of. But once in a blue moon, I find myself feeling a bit like this:

Climbing mountains that pop up in every direction one looks, scaling one after the next, teetering on one, hopping over to another and at some point, just crashing and burning from fatigue.

Don’t get me wrong: most of it I do to myself. Working extended hours that likely don’t provide much of a return, filling the weekends with social activities in a desperate push to balance life outside of iPhones and travel, playing 15 hours of basketball each week in an effort to stay connected with my busy two-year old and ignoring a house that continues to pile with pet hair and dishes as the hours fly by. Since mid-January, there are only six nights I haven’t picked work up again at 9 p.m., three weeks the hubs and I have actually been in the same city, two health scares, four new people we love with cancer, a flat tire, expensive house repairs and a chronically ill hubs who seem to be having a helluva a time recovering from not serious but debilitating virus symptoms.

All this has led to this:

Instead of stopping, reassessing, slowing down and taking care of myself so that I can take care of those I love, I’m instead opting to shove half a cheese pizza and donuts in my mouth each week. Not to mention the sodas, Twix from my office candy jar and anything I can think of that provides that bit of a bandaid in the moment. Because right now? I’m just not buying that whole “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” saying.

Though my super cute red dress disagrees…

Don’t worry...I anticipate the cheery, normal gal will be back soon. And in the meantime I’ll keep scribbling down my daily gratitudes, reading the gracious emails you all send and delighting in each moment because even the tough ones are amazing and trying to choose walnuts over Whoppers.

So what about you? How do you cope when life throws you a few curveballs and you’re not your best self? How do you gain back perspective? Ok, and energy…

Because it’s one a.m. and there are no Oreos in the house and Taco Bell is just too far out of my way right now, so there goes my current strategic plan…