I’ve been putting off writing this, and I always have a different excuse.

I’m too tired, and I wouldn’t have the energy to get through it.

I need to do other things, like laundry or emptying the dishwasher or scrubbing the carpet, because Logan took off his poop-filled diaper and dumped it on the ground…again.

I keep making excuses, but really, I haven’t written this because I have no idea where it’s going to go or what I’ll end up revealing about myself or discovering about myself.

Oh, that, and my cynicism doesn’t want me admitting that I have feelings, and sometimes they’re not awesome ones, and that I can be vulnerable sometimes.

And I did the deep, winding, poetic, pontificate-y writing in high school, and it can sound way too full-of-yourself-ish, so I try to avoid it.

Also, I don’t feel like anyone’s going to read this, but it really needs to be said, for my own sanity.

So that’s that, but I’ll stop making excuses and get to it.

When I began blogging, in May of last year, I had just had my first miscarriage. It was the kind of event I would have, in high school, written about for ages and ages – as free-verse poetry, as a sort of memoir, and as a fictional story that happened to my alter ego (a redhead with freckles and big boobs, who still doesn’t have a name). I would have written it to death, trying to heal myself by catharsis. It’s what I did for years, and I was really good at it.

But that wasn’t my thing anymore. I wasn’t dark and depressing and full of feelings that I just had to share ALL THE TIME anymore; I had put up walls and colored myself a cynic. I stopped acknowledging any feelings I had, besides sarcasm and these weird, manic episodes, where I was absolutely untouchable and immortal. I believe the name for it is “high school graduation.”

I had stopped believing in the good in anyone, due to the actions of a certain male who put me through hell and basically destroyed me emotionally between late 2004 and, oh, I guess it ran all the way to the beginning of 2007, when I lost my mind one afternoon when he drove by my school, and I followed him in my car for roughly a mile, so I could talk to him one last time and get closure.

My mom and my boyfriend at the time basically had heart attacks when they found out I was talking to him, because he was essentially Satan to them. And with good reason, considering the way he treated me. I can’t believe that was over five years ago now.

I’m digressing. Stick with me, I’ll get back to where I was.

My blogging started out as just a way to get my thoughts “on paper.” Then I decided I wanted to start blogging “for real,” and eventually make some money off of it (haha…oh, how naive I was…), and I was going to cook a lot and make crafts and stuff, and maybe wear some cool clothes and show them off. I still haven’t moved any of my recipes over to this blog; they’re all still over at my old one, if you want to take a look at them. I just looked back over them myself, and there’s some really tasty stuff on there.

Digressing again.

When Andy and I moved to where we live now (over an hour away from where I spent 18 out of my first 21 years of life), I felt a shift in my life coming on. I didn’t know what it was going to mean for my future or my family, but I knew it was coming, and I knew it was going to be huge.

It all seemed to come at me at once.

The highs: getting the awesome privilege of being mentored by the phenomenal Brittany Gibbons, moving to my own domain (you know, here), gaining the TINIEST bit of recognition for my writing (it’s like METH), getting pregnant for the third time, living in our own house, getting the type of hospital job I’d wanted for so long, and eventually even getting a for-real writing job at what is, in my humble opinion, the greatest online magazine ever, and writing one of their most successful and controversial articles to date.

The lows: losing my third pregnancy, learning the hard way that you need to have thick skin if you’re going to write something online that’s both controversial and personal, struggling with whether or not I’ll actually be able to have another child or two (in my mind now, every pregnancy ends at 10 weeks, like my last two did; it’s bizarre, I’ll try to explain later), having an identity crisis that I never believed could happen to me, and the growing feeling that nursing is, woefully, not where I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life.

Oh, and the newest thing, and the reason I have written basically NOTHING of substance in the last six weeks or so…I constantly feel like I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack. In fact, at dinner at my parents’ house three nights ago, I almost had a complete breakdown. My dad was saying grace, and out of nowhere, I burst out laughing…and crying. Had I not been so uncomfortable and embarrassed and forced myself to pull it together, I think I could have cried for a good hour or two. And I have no idea why.

Guys…I think I need Xanax. Or something. I think I might be depressed, or have some sort of anxiety disorder. I honestly want to just crawl out of my own skin about half the time. I’ll want to just quit everything, sometimes. Even writing, and that’s my favorite thing IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

Thinking about going back to work in 14 hours gives me this feeling like having the wind literally sucked out of me. It puts me on the brink of a panic attack every time, even though, once I’m actually at work, I do alright. I enjoy my coworkers and my patients, and only, like, 15% of my total time there, do I have to deal with stuff that’s so disgusting, it’s unspeakable. Plus, I’m so thankful to have such a fantastic job, amongst such great coworkers and patients, in an economy as bad as ours, that I could just cry. Of course, I could just cry anyway. Like, a lot.

I’m trying to reconcile being a Christ-follower (I don’t use the word “Christian” much anymore, because of the connotation that has so unfortunately come to surround it, but that’s another rant, entirely), a writer and blogger, a mother, a wife, and a twenty-one-year-old who has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what she wants to be when she grows up.

For reasons I don’t really want to explain in detail (because it’s 1:15 am, and you don’t want to listen to it anyway, because it’s a bunch of boring logistics), I kind of have to go through nursing school, even though I don’t have any drive for it anymore. Nobody believes me when I tell them that; I keep getting told I’m basing that decision off the job I have now, and that my job is not a good representation of what I will be doing as an RN…but that’s not the case. I just don’t want to do it anymore. It doesn’t interest me.

I have no clue what I want to do now.

I want to be an activist of some kind. I want to DO something instead of just talking about things. I want to make a difference in people’s lives.

I want to start a home for pregnant teens who have been kicked out of their own houses.

I want to stand up for those who are under- or uninsured.

I want to improve people’s overall health, maybe by becoming a dietician.

I want to keep people informed about what’s going on in the world by writing…and writing…and writing…and writing.

Maybe I even want to get certified to do in-home daycare.

My gosh, my head is a tangled web of un-poetic crap right now. If you’re still with me, you’re totally my new best friend, and also, probably a saint.

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that this is where I am in life right now. I’m lost, I’m anxious to the point of shortness of breath about 80% of the time, I’m on the verge of tears nearly every waking minute because of the anxiety and stress, I’m having a mind-blowing identity crisis, and I’m doing all of this while trying to be this cool blogger/social media chick, being a mother, being a wife, and somehow be perfect at all of it, all at the same time.

I’m so far from perfect. I’m such a mess right now, in every conceivable way. I need a vacation, both physically and mentally, and maybe a mood stabilizer. And that thought is terrifying to me, because I feel like I won’t even be me anymore. I feel like I’ll be bland and uninteresting, and I won’t have anything clever to say, because I’ll just be “normal,” and my brain and the wit that I fancy myself to be so full of will just get bowled over by drugs. I don’t want to admit there’s something wrong with me. I want to be strong and perfect and funny and emotionally untouchable.

See? This is why I was afraid of writing this. Because now you know how broken and scattered I am, and I have no idea what you’ll do with that…or me…now that you know.

So…awkward, non-fulfilling end of this post, I guess. Thanks for reading, guys. It means the world to me, so much more than you could ever know.