Disaster

Maybe I'm growing up.  

Ok, I'm not growing up.

Maybe I'm becoming responsible. 

Nope. Not it either. 

Oh, I know. I don't give a shit!

Today, I went to get my license renewed. In a hoodie. With no make up on. Possibly with food in my hair. 4 years ago, during picture taking time, I did my hair, my make up. I looked cute. 

Today, I looked middle aged. My hair is gray. My double chin was especially visible. My pants had god knows what on them (but they weren't in the picture I reasoned). I even had my muffin top thing going on. 

I have become the mother of two boys. As long as I don't smell bad, it's become acceptable to go out in public this way. There are a few things wrong here. 

1) I no longer feel pretty. This is damning in many ways. I don't try to be pretty because I don't feel that way. I blame daddy because I most certainly didn't have these two kids alone. It's absolutely not really all his fault. And this thinking has landed me in some bad places over the years. I hate that I feel this way and got a gym membership to overcome it. But I feel too bad to go the the gym. I plan to just get over it and get back to me. 

2) I punish myself for being "not enough". I'm not skinny enough, smart enough, tough enough, or strong enough. One bad parenting day can lead to days of eating chocolate and wearing baggy pants with my hair in a ponytail. One bad day of not getting enough done in the house can tailspin me for days and then even more doesn't get done. I'm trying to figure out how to make this stop, but so far I've been unsuccessful.  

3) I have bad kid days. The worse I feel about me, the worse I parent. Oh, you want a bag of cheetos an hour before dinner?  Why the hell not. This is unfair to my kids, me and Daddy. I try really hard not to have this happen, but it does. Then I feel bad and we run back into problem #2. 

In case no one told you guys, parenting is hard. Not just because of the kids. I make parenting hard too. I don't live up to what I think I should be some days. The long and short of this is that while parenting is the hardest thing most of us ever do, being a parent with questionable mental stability is downright awful. I second guess a lot, I agonize, I fail. 

If these two little completely helpless things didn't need me, I'd have quit this parenting gig a long time ago. I'm patiently waiting until they can move out. Then I can worry about what's going on while I drink.