Where am I at right now?

Truthfully, I feel stretched thin, ragged, and ready to just turn it in and hide for a while. My second little boy is due in early September and I've been riding the razor's edge near physical and mental burnout since well before April.

See, we found out we were pregnant on New Year's Eve. This kiddo was prayed for and hoped for through loss and heartache for nearly two years. Finding out was a massive surprise and the best start to the new year we ever could have asked for. But with the excitement also came stress. What if we experienced another loss? What if we went to another ultrasound appointment and didn't see a heartbeat? What if things didn't go well? What if? I feel like I've been holding my breath all year waiting for something to go wrong and I know my wife has been doing the same. Speaking of my wife, between stress and physical strain this has been an incredibly difficult road for her. She's been exceptionally sick and extremely uncomfortable for most of the year. Debilitating migraines and other pains have been the norm this time around. It wasn't like this with our first, but every time is different. And while she's been struggling to survive and doing the hard work of growing our family (which I'll forever be in awe of and more thankful for than words can express) I've been trying to keep the wheels on our lives and proverbial ship upright.

I FEEL like I'm failing.

I KNOW I'm not. But every time I remember that I forgot to clean out the refrigerator (because it'll make her sick if she tries), every time my 5-year-old begs me to play with him and I have to say "no" or "later" because I'm sweating and bleeding and crying when he's not looking trying to finish the myriad projects that have to be done before the baby gets here, every time I come up short on my list for the day because we ran out of daylight, every time I drag myself out of bed at 5am to leave for work where I know I'll just sit and stress about what I need to do when I get home, every time I realize suddenly that it's almost 9pm and nobody has eaten dinner because I lost track of time and didn't stop to make it, every time... Every time I lose a piece of myself and I feel like I've failed again.

Real talk, I've struggled with imposter syndrome and a crippling fear of inadequacy since I was a kid. ADHD and OCD lead to hyper-fixation, time blindness, and brutal perfectionism at the cost of my own sanity. I can't start because I don't have momentum. I can't finish because it isn't good enough yet. The projects will never be "finished" because it'll never be exactly how I want it. And while I'm in my head telling the little boy inside that he'll never add up and be enough I'm also screaming for acceptance and rest. I NEED to be carrying my family right now. And as the failures add up, I'm attacking myself for letting them down. The vicious cycle feeds itself and the spiral gains momentum. More projects fall by the wayside, failures mount, self-image suffers, the internal lashing continues, and on it goes. This is my fight, and I go to war with myself every day.

All this to say, I'm tired. I'm flagging near the end of a nearly 2 year marathon, and I know my family is suffering without my full support.

If you've read this far, thank you. I didn't come here to make a negative post. I just came to open a window and share the battle raging inside. There's catharsis in writing it down and allowing supportive people to see the places where we struggle. I discovered years ago that I am my own greatest enemy/critic/detractor. Time in therapy with a good coach taught me how to actually accept a compliment, how to be free with praise for others, and how to give the boy inside grace and accept him as good enough. But in the times when I struggle to keep up or there is obvious physical proof that I didn't get something done, I still struggle with grace for myself and I suspect I always will. I'm currently leaning hard on family, I'm leaning into faith and community, I have a strong and supportive marriage (I don't deserve that beautiful woman but that's another post for another day), I'm checking things off the lists one by one, I have a stack of fun parts for the car waiting in the garage for me, I have several weeks of leave from work coming up to rest and recover with my family, and most of all, in about 3 weeks I get to meet my second son for the first time.

I am BLESSED beyond measure and one step at a time I WILL finish this race. We're in the home stretch, and we're going to make it.

Stay the course. Hold the line. Finish strong.

-T