This week has been a really stressful week.  Wednesday I e-mailed the chair of the department to tell her I wasn’t returning and might not be staying and then I let the word spread through the the rest of the department – PhD students mostly – and a couple of other faculty know.  How am I feeling?  Like trash.  It’s baggage, really.  My entire childhood was spent not feeling good enough, then I was the loser who got married at 18, knocked up, couple of kids, divorced and re-married before any of my siblings ever married the first time.  I have alway felt supremely inferior and at times like this it is soul-crushing.   My dream has died.  Again.

Being lonely doesn’t help.  How can I be lonely with a husband and a house full of children?  I wish I could explain.  Post-institutional kids are not all that intuitive to things like “Mom is sad” or “Mom could really use a hug” and they aren’t good at stuff I like to do.  They’ve all got short attention spans making board games and the like more of an ordeal than they’re worth.  I don’t think I am an impatient person, but we tried to teach the Czar and the Emporer a card game once and they ended up nearly in tears because they couldn’t focus and couldn’t remember what was trump or what was played and it was just no fun.  And I like people.  Lots of people.  I’m starting to doubt the INTJ test result and think that the Introvert just comes up becaust that is my habit.  I keep to myself because there’s no one else to keep with.  The Sarge doesn’t really get what I’m going through.  He’s pissed, sure, but he doesn’t get the whole soul-crushing sense of failure thing.

I learned something very interesting about myself though.  I have learned that the lower I’m feeling, the more likely I am to address people as “Sir” and “Ma’am”.  I’ve been doing that all week long.  It was particularly pronounced yesterday and today.  Why do you suppose that is?  Shrink my brain, readers.  Please!