Wisdom

What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?
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I spent a couple hours this afternoon griping about this prompt, and wound up telling myself that I need to shut the hell up already and stop with the self-defeating nonsense.

See, there's a part of me that doesn't see any of the decisions I've made as particularly wise. There's another part of me that feels I didn't really make much in the way of decisions, that I just kind of got swept up in life and "things happened" without so much as a say so from me. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. It's probably not, but it's how I feel, regardless. I even feel that I've knowingly gone along with bad ideas because I didn't really think there was another viable option.

I mean, so many things happened that really just felt entirely outside of my control, that I found myself saying "oh boy, this is a bad idea. Shit, nothing else to be done though. Here goes nothing..." at least, in the back of my mind, if not outwardly so. It's a crappy place in life to be, and I hate it.

That being said: Progress, towards what I'm not entirely sure at this point, is being made. The biggest thing was kiddo coming to live with us. This was not exactly my decision, and it wasn't even exactly my desire. But it needed to happen, and I went with it, despite the "oh boy this is a bad idea" nagging at the back of my head. Things with his dad were SO BAD that I couldn't just sit back anymore and not do anything. And, admittedly, the change in location as well as living situation, has been good for the kiddo. But it hasn't been so great for me or M.

Ugh. This is fresh in my mind right now, after an evening battling with kiddo trying to get him to pay attention to the world around him long enough to do simple things like brush his teeth without it taking a half an hour. Maybe the frustration is coloring my view of things. But that's it, isn't it. This level of frustration... I don't know what to do with it, or where to channel it.

By having the kiddo here with me, his life is better. He's healthier, and his emotional state is healthier. But mine... My emotional state is worse, drastically. My freedom is gone. I cannot just up and go somewhere, I have to worry about if he's home or not, if he's fed or not, if his homework is done, and so on and so forth. My peace is gone. If he's not eating away at it directly, then he's doing so indirectly with video games or tv or playing loudly or what have you. Things do not run smoothly here any longer -- everything is a battle. Everything. From getting him to eat dinner, to getting him to get ready for bed, to getting him to do homework, or take a shower... Nothing is simple anymore.

There are nights that I can't sleep because I've had to endure so much frustration, all the while attempting to be a good mom and not lash out at him about it, that I'm an aching ball of stress. Tonight is one of those nights. And while I know that having him here is the best possible option, the only real option, the wisest decision even, I can't help but hear that voice in the back of my head saying "oh, this was a bad idea..."