an update about my crisis

Thank you to all of you you have reached out to me with your love and words about my time of crisis.  This has been building for a while in my life and I have mostly been strong throughout all that life has handed me but this month I have run out of strength.  So my task now is to figure out how to juggle all of what is on my plate right now and not drop anything.  And to give everyone what they need and deserve but not run myself so ragged.  And last but not least I have come to realize that I need to put myself on the list of who has to be taken care of too. 

Here is what I am juggling:

1.  I am a mom to two teenagers whom we home school. 

-  My oldest “graduated” (meaning he is no longer a full time student) in June.  He is currently working full time here at our ranch plus we are preparing for him to move out this fall to his own place.  We have spent the past few weeks ripping up the ground for all the utilities to be put in place and get his new home hooked up and running before winter.

-  My daughter is 15 and I think she currently finds herself in her most confusing years of her teen life.  She is a social butterfly online (which I appreciate because of our rural life and I hate because “friends” invade our home all the time).  Friends take up all her time and I struggle to get her to manage her time to focus on the things she doesn’t want to do like school work, home responsibilities and ranch work.  I have yet to find a way to put boundaries around her time that fit with my chaotic life and time away from home.  (We just finished up a discussion about this and what my game plan is for October to hopefully address this. She is not happy with me.  I finished the talk with how I need to be a parent and I have been shirking my parental duties AND that being a parent really sucks sometimes.  Sigh.)

2.  I have been assisting my mom with her medical needs for over a year now.  It has been quite a journey.  And since January we have been spending 2-3 days per week at the hospital for magnesium infusions plus traveling for specialist appointments.  Even that was all going well till this summer when I just ran out of gas.  But I ran out because…

3.  In June we had our 7 year old nephew come to live with us after a crisis with his father.  So not only have I had to adjust to have a youngster in our home again but one with a lot of emotional baggage from his broken family life.  He has anger issues and has social interaction problems.  But we have decided to home school him (for his own benefit) and we are currently pursuing guardianship of him.  BUT he is not an easy student to teach and I feel pressure to meet grade level standards just in case he has to go back to public school next year. 

Sooooo, if I was dealing with just ONE of any of the above scenarios I could handle it no problem.  But all three (along with all regular life things – bills, housework, business to run, friends and family and so much more), is just more than I can handle in this moment.  I think what has happened is that I have run dry, I am running on empty.  So the other day the thought occurred to me that I need to have something for me, something that doesn’t involve my family and my job with them at home.  Something that will hopefully refresh me.  Jordan and Deanna go to Knighthaven weekly.  Wes and Deanna are part of the community choir.  But I have nothing.  It is like being at your job 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.  Anyone would burn out working that schedule. 

So my game plan so far is:

1.  Find something for me to do that allows me to be me, not serving others.

2.  Set up boundaries and accountability for Deanna to meet in her daily life.

3.  Find a school method that will work for my nephew.

4.  Stop “managing” my mom.  Be there to assist but stop taking over, stop trying to convince her of things and  stop trying to make her think like me and deal with things like me. 

5.  Learn the importance of rest.  God told us to rest once a week and there is great wisdom in that.  I need to to do this.