Crash and Burn

I'm so tired and so stressed. The house is in a state that can only be described as condemned. The kitchen is buried in a pile of dishes, the lounge room is being overtaken by the clean laundry pile and any and all carpet is covered in a fine film of children's toys and accessories. The beds are unmade and the dirty clothes pile having secured the laundry is staging a coup on the rest of upstairs.

In the middle of the chaos the girls are currently screeching because The Monkey has the particular piece of junk mail that The Elfling *wants*. WANTS for the mere fact that The Monkey has it and she doesn't. The Husband is currently curled in the foetal position on his computer chair occasionally yelling at the screeching children, but mostly huddling down and wishing he was on one of the ski fields that he's perusing to forget reality.

Then there's me, similarly huddled into a corner of our once treasured couch. A red, simple, but comfy and attractive couch that was the first bit of furniture that we owned together that wasn't a hand me down. It's not even from Ikea. I say once treasured because its corduroy like texture which once made it interesting and nice to look at now harbours thousands of unidentifiable stains, pen marks, crusted bits of banana that I can't scrub out thanks to said texture.

I'm feeling tired and harrassed and nauseous and trapped. Caged and cagey waiting for the migraine that has been threatening me all day to hit. Feeling the pit of my stomach somewhere around my ankles, and having difficulty breathing. Knowing I'm going to fail my exams tomorrow. Knowing that I suck as a mother. Knowing that in the last few months I have been a terrible wife. Trying to breathe through it all and get back to normally serene me and not making it.

Freefalling, panicked and jittery. Wishing I could take some sort of sedative that would allow me to sleep instead of lying awake until the wee hours and then waking before dawn. Trying to play with the girls and not get irritated when they trash the room that I've just managed to tidy. Trying not to yell at the Elfling when she pushes herself into my space, her hands or a book or a drink in my face, bodies climbing on top of me and making it even harder to breathe.

I love them so much, but for this one week a rotation, I wish I lived in my own apartment, away from anyone wanting to be near me or touch me or talk to me. Where if I don't want to eat for 3 days and mainline caffeine then that's fine and I don't have to prepare food for anyone else. Where if I go to bed at 3am I don't have to answer to anyone, and if I need to sleep until 9am the next day then that's fine too. Where if I clean up a room it STAYS BLOODY CLEAN.

There are very few times that I doubt my decisions that I've made, to get married and have children so young, to do it while I'm still studying. But in this crazy period I wish I'd been selfish. I wish I was alone. I wish that I was unattached and had no strings or responsibilities. I wish my money was my own. I wish I could go to the gym right now instead of waiting for a lasagne to cook and encouraging the girls to eat it before having to bathe, dress, cuddle, brush teeth and hair, read books and tuck in.

I wish I could hear silence right now, or my Matrix CD, or Radiohead, or the Verve instead of the freaking Wiggles and occasional screeches.

I wish I could just breathe.