Failing as a Human

This is how I feel this morning:
Like a failure.

A failure in life.
A failure professionally.
A failure artistically.
A failure as an athlete.
A failure as a homemaker.
A failure as a wife.
A failure as a Mom (which is the worst, by the way.)

Basically, a failure as a human being. I'm tired of "God's Plan" for me. I'm even more tired of people saying, "God only gives you what you can handle." Screw that. He's been giving me more than I can handle for years.

I don't even know where to start to explain why I feel the way I do.

First, if you didn't know, myself and my two children have congenital heart disease and my husband had a heart attack. We are a heart family. We are miracles. We are blessed.
But...
Feeling like a failure is part of the process.
Don't even get me started with failures as a professional. I could write a book...oh wait...I did. Or I didn't? Whatever. All I know is a big publisher wanted it, but only if I  made changes. Changes I didn't want to  make so I said no. Hindsight says that was a bad idea.

Physically:
Let's be real.
I've been cut, closed, zapped, poked, prodded...you name it.
I can't exercise. I used to be an amazing athlete. Now I find it hard to climb a few flights of stairs. Total physical failure.

Professionally, I fail. I don't work full-time outside of the house for a lot of reasons, but because of that, you'd think I could manage being a perfect homemaker. First, Cadence has always been too sick. It's been a struggle. There was no way I could be gone all day, every day when she was younger. I had to be with here. She had to come home / stay home from school or miss days because of doctor appointments or hospital stays. It got so bad, we pulled her out to homeschool her.Second, I find it difficult to work a full-time job because of my own health. I get too worn out. Working so many days in a row appears to be hard on my heart. It wipes me out. But me not working is a catch-22. We need the extra income. With the amount of medical debt that consistently hits us every month and the amount of student loan we both pay, it's impossible for me NOT to do some kind of work. So I tried this and that only to realize I failed on this and on that.

Homemaker.
God, don't come to my house, except when I've just done a power clean (not the weight lifting kind either). Our house is always messy (not dirty, just cluttered), the laundry's never finished, I forget stuff at the store that I'm really supposed to remember, I'm not good at getting dinner done. I obviously forgot to get that Betty Crocker vibe.

Speaking of ...
I suck as a wife. I never go on dates. Mainly because we never could. Our kids were always too sick. We never left them with babysitters when they were younger. We just never left them. I mean, really, they required someone knowing CPR just in case. Would you leave them? I have friends who go to Hawaii and Europe without their kids. They have NO IDEA how crazy that is for us to even think about. We can't even go a few hours away for a weekend. NOBODY understands this.  Our daughter is scared at night. She had to go to therapy, where we learned she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. It stems from growing up in a hospital, from having multiple surgeries, from the trauma of being so sick. It stems from the nearly-fatal dog attack. I fear she'll never fully recover. I now sit with her EVERY SINGLE NIGHT before bed to help her fall asleep. Every. Single. Night. Because a now-13 year old has PTSD. Many nights, she will climb into bed with us. Many = almost every night.
And I allow it. Because she's a little girl. Who has PTSD and it's bullshit that any little kid should suffer from that. So, yeah, I often put her first. She's died before; so has our son. We've brought them back to life. Honestly, I take it for granted that my husband is big and strong and can be independent and I hope he understands that our little girl is fragile and miraculous and HAS PTSD. This is when I shrug and say, "But...." (she's scared. Or "I'll sit with her for a few minutes" or "I'll talk to her") When all I want to do is hold her because there might be a day when I can't hold her anymore.

And I know I suck as a wife when I don't work full time and that hurts us financially. It makes us poor. My husband works so hard - taking on as many extra jobs as he can (as a teacher and coach.) But I feel stuck. Like our lives will never make it out of quicksand. And for the record, money does buy happiness. You're deluded if you think it doesn't. It means paying the bills. Affording your medications. Maybe even taking your kid to a movie instead of pirating it online (haha joking). Everything we do requires money. And if I had a nickel for every time someone said, "At least you've got your health," I would be a rich lady. Add to that every time someone asks if we have insurance. Newflash: We don't have our health. Our health sucks. So at least we could have a little money.  Hell, I need to get a tooth worked on. I've needed to get it done for three years now. I keep putting it off because my children's teeth are more important. Everything they do tends to be more important, which probably makes me a shitty wife.

I also suck as a mom.
I try to be the best mom I can be. But clearly I fail.
Because I can't help my kids, especially our little girl. I can't fix her or take away her physical pain. I can't even help her emotional pain. And that's my job. To keep her safe. To keep her protected. To keep her happy. To keep her well. To take her pain away. To make her owie's better. To make her feel loved. I hope she and our son know how much they are loved.

Oh my God. Do you know what it's like to not be able to do anything for your child's suffering? I can't take her pain away. I never could. She's stuck with it. She can be doubled over in stomach pain thanks to her faulty GI system and all I can do is hold her, which is fucking stupid because it does nothing. She still hurts. Her heart can be pounding painfully out of her chest and I can put my hand on her chest to try to soothe her. Still nothing. Lame idea. She can be in the middle of an anxiety attack about having to go to school, which she HATES HATES HATES with a passion, and there's me...throwing her to the wolves. Putting her back pack on her shoulders and sending her off to have another bad day. There's me sitting in my car after walking her to the school hall, watching her wipe her cheeks to catch more tears, and trying to make myself feel like i'm not the asshole that I am because I'm sending this kid to school so she can ... get confused, fall behind, be upset, try to make friends, worry about what people will think of her, worry about how to answer why she's gone all the time. Every day she suffers, I feel like the world's worst mom. (addendum: we home school her this year.)

But what are you gonna do? I try to do the best I can. I fail a lot, but I try to get up. I hope they all still love me, even though sometimes I'm too overwhelmed with this world to go on. Sometimes, I just want to go crawl in a hole and hide. Hide from medical issues and financial issues and everything in between.

I just hope through all the ups and downs, my husband and kids don't think I suck too bad. I hope when I die they know I tried as hard as I could. That the house was messy and I did a horrible job finishing the laundry, but I tried. And, yes, I probably put the kids first too often and I didn't go on as many dates as I should have, but I thought about it on a regular basis. I didn't help relieve the GI pain or school anxiety, but I promise I tried.
I hope they know I suffered on equal levels.
I hope they know I loved them fiercely.

I hope other people know, those without sick children, that they are beyond blessed. Not that I need to give the poor-me speech, but having critically/chronically ill children is the hardest thing in the world. It alters EVERYTHING. It changes mothers. It changes fathers. It changes the kids themselves. It changes marriages. It's a constant battle to reassure yourself that you're doing an okay job. Not great, but okay.

So excuse me while I go have my five-minute cry. All done. Now...I take everything I said above and toss it in the trash. I'm not a victim of my circumstances. It is what it is. Here's the deal: I have learned optimism. I've learned that even in the darkest moments, I can find beauty and hope. I've discovered my incredible strengths - yeah, the laundry still sucks, but I'm really good at this mothering thing because I've helped raise good human beings. I'm a good wife. I'm pretty good at creative stuff and I'm trying to get better with the other stuff.

What I've learned over time is that I don't have to be who I used to be a long time ago. I've learned I'm stronger than ever. I've learned I am not failing at this human thing after all.