Anxiety.

My friend Kym wrote a super honest post that inspired this. All the things I find myself type and then deleting before hitting post. Just random thoughts. I often find myself comparing myself to everyone around me. And it's So so not healthy. Especially when you live in a neighborhood where the average house is close to a million dollars. These are the people that go to Jasper's neighborhood school and it's hard not to compare myself to them. These women with million dollar houses, with their maids and daily tennis dates. But it's so ridiculous to compare myself to them. I know this. We are at least a decade younger than 99 percent of them. Of course they are going to be further in their careers than we are at 26 and 27 (okay Drew's career, I'm well aware I don't have one) and even though I KNOW this, I still compare myself to them sometimes. And it sucks. And I need to stop.  I love nothing more than being a stay at home mom. I've said I won't choose to have more kids if I know I'd have to put them in day care full time to work outside the home. (Just a personal choice nothing wrong with daycare!) But I'd be lying if I said I don't think about the day when Jasper, Tindra and future siblings are all in school. I worry I'll feel worthless. Empty. Bored. Not inspired. I worry about this very much. But I know without a doubt I'll never ever for even a second regret staying home with them these few short years before they go off to school. It's everything to me.  I cry probably once a week thinking about how fast my children are growing up. I wish I was kidding. Drew thinks I'm crazy. But ever since Jasper started school, and seeing how much he's changing, growing up, needing me a little less and less, it's seriously breaks my heart. And no joke I'm tearing up write now just writing this paragraph. Drew says he's only 6. I say but he's already 6! Probably half of the time we are going to get with him that he actually wants to be around us is gone. Forever. 5-6 years from now I'll probably have to beg him to go for a bike ride with me. Soon he will much rather be with friends. And oh how that though hurts.  Over the past couple of years I've started struggling with anxiety. I was never an anxious person. Quite the opposite really. But now kids are involved, I struggle with it all the time. I don't think I ever really understood what being anxious even was till a couple of years ago. It was just a word that didn't have a real meaning to me. But there are horrible things going on in this world, and I feel such panic about it. It wasn't really till Jasper started school that this anxiety began. I think I just thought since I'm with him 100 percent of the time (and I was till he started school) I could protect him from anything. But then I started having to let him out of my site. And horrible, unthinkable things happen. And I developed this anxiety. I don't talk about it with anyone really, I mean Drew knows, but I don't know if he really understands the extent of it. I don't even understand the extent of it. I don't know when it's going to kick in. Or where. I can be sitting in my living room and hear a police siren and my heart will stop. And then start beating really fast and feel like it's going to jump out of my chest. I'll race outside and stand in the middle of the street and look down towards Jasper's school and make sure it's not a siren rushing to his school. Then I start thinking.Mind racing.  How fast can I sprint down to the school to get him if something happened. What if it was a bomb. What if it's another school shooting. I could leave Tindra in her crib, she'd be safe there with the door locked and run the .4 miles to his school.  And the police/ambulance/fire truck zooms by in the opposite direction and I'm left standing there in the street relieved. And I go back in and go about my day. This is probably a twice/three times a week occurrence. Where that panic creeps in and I've convinced myself I need to go get Jasper from school. I'm well aware it's not normal, but I can't help it.  Last week there was another school shooting in Colorado, exactly 7 miles away. It was seven miles away, and I sat here panicking. It took everything I had to not wake up Tindra from her nap and go get Jasper. It's not rational. But when that anxiety creeps in I just want my kids here and then I'm fine. I never feel this way when we are home together safe. So I guess it's the realization that I'm powerless in protecting Jasper when he's not with me that sets me into panic mode.  I had other things I was going to share but I think I've over shared enough for one morning.