A Balancing Act

I have been told by educated professionals that I have a bit of autism or that I fall into the spectrum, and had the spectrum been used more prominently in my formative years I would have been diagnosed with some form of autism during childhood.

Personally, I often wonder how much of who I am and my slightly crazy tendencies and quirks are not just holdovers from an emotionally and physically abusive childhood, rather than problems with my brain chemistry. And, if my brain chemistry is off, could it not have been from the secondhand pot smoke emanating from the ever burning of a joint or joints in the living room?

Anyway, I am being highly critical of childhood that I cannot change and getting myself extremely off track.

I am a rules follower, which is one of the reasons that I like numbers. Numbers have rules, they have definitive outlines that they must follow. There is only so much that can be subtracted from or added to a number and only so many ways to contort a number to do what needs to be done. I take comfort in the rules and laws of numbers. It's how I imagine the comfort of God feels to those people that are better Christians than I am.

I get panicky when the numbers do not make sense, I get nervous and sweaty and lose focus on things because I cannot get the numbers to work.

Over the last few months, I have been unable to make the numbers make any sense at all, we were "robbing Peter to pay Paul"...(and John and Judas and Simon and Matthew and every other person that wanted something out of us). I couldn't grocery shop, I couldn't make a budget, I felt as though I couldn't do anything because I never knew which thing would be cut-off next, which thing would be cancelled, which thing would be next to make the world crumble under my feet.

And that was after 3 months of working a second job, never being able to spend real, quality time with the Hubs or Supergirl, only making it to church twice a month, and sacrificing my weekly date with the Scare Bear more and more frequently. I was lost and beginning to think that the world had finally beat me.

Until last week, that is.

Last week was the first time in 6 months that I was able to make a budget. This is huge for me, this means that somehow the dawn is breaking again, that there is finally some light at the end of this very long tunnel, that I can finally get some semblance of peace from the race that I have been running for the past few months.

We're not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but it's coming, if we can stay on track.

So, tires? Stay with me for a few more weeks, okay? And kid, hold off on that next growth spurt for just a little while longer, alright?

Momma is starting to feel sane again and I can't tell you how long I have needed a small dose of sanity.