Oh hey, look at that – it’s been a week since I posted. It wasn’t an intentional lapse in blogging, at least I don’t think it was. Leaving the blog for seven days on such a down note isn’t something I like to do, but it feels good to be back.

I’ve spent the last several days in a heavy state of busy. I worked two days, one of which included taking charge of my first labor patient. She delivered six minutes after my shift ended, but I stayed until the baby was born just so I could meet the stubborn little girl who refused to hold still all day. I’ve never had to adjust an electronic fetal monitoring belt so much in a single day. I guess she knew I needed the practice.

We also ran away for two days this weekend. We packed up the kids and went to a picnic with a large group of friends, followed by an overnight with friends in Oxford, OH. Cordy got to spend time with her best friend, Mira got filthy playing in the dirt, Aaron got to geek out with fellow geeks, and I got to lose myself shopping in Ikea on Sunday while chatting with one of my best friends. It was a good time.

Other days of the past week were spent in a deep purge within my house. You see, it’s been a busy few years, and during that time we’ve accumulated a lot of junk. A LOT of junk. Mira has yet to even have her own room – we simply carved out enough space in Aaron’s “den” to shove a crib and a dresser against the wall. She was a baby – what more did she need?

Being depressed has a few benefits. It makes you hate many things about your current life and can sometimes give you the motivation to change it. I realized much of the junk, knick-knacks, boxes of clothing and old baby toys were not only cluttering up the house, they were cluttering up my psyche, too. I want open spaces and if it means shrugging off some emotional connections to inanimate objects, I’m ready to shrug myself silly.

So we’ve been carving through the sea of junk, clearing off shelves, cleaning out boxes, trashing anything that can’t go to someone else or Goodwill, and rearranging our space. The bookcases have been moved from Mira’s room to our bedroom, Aaron’s computer no longer lurks in the corner, and all that is left in Mira’s room is her furniture and toys.

Cordy’s room is next, and we’ve decided it’s time for her to have a big girl room. She’ll be five years old in a week and she needs some new furniture. The toddler bed will go to Mira in favor of a twin bed for Cordy. Her dresser – with the changing table top – goes to the yard sale pile collecting in the garage, and she’ll have a proper set of drawers.

The guest room is after that. Eventually, I’d like to give a makeover to the living room and kitchen. And maybe someday we’ll paint or go crazy and hang something on the wall.

We filled our trash bin last week, and I hope to do the same this week. I like seeing the emptiness opening up from under the clutter. And the items I’m choosing to keep have so much more meaning to me now.

Thanks for the comments last week. I realize I am overwhelmed by so many changes over the past year. I’m working full time now, the girls are in school, Aaron is still looking for a job, the bills are being held at bay by the forces of good, but always threatening to scale the walls, and I’m adjusting to the realization that this is our life. Acceptance of this reality hasn’t fully come yet.

So for now I am trying to control what little I have control over. And at this moment, my focus is on my house. Maybe next I’ll tackle all 1,385 unanswered e-mails in my Inbox. Maybe.

I feel like I’ve been trapped between worlds in the past month: not quite a fully-functioning member of my family, my job, or my community. It sucks.

My online presence has been far less than I’m used to, partially due to the incredible time commitment of my job. I’m feeling like a lousy friend to so many people, with my feed reader reaching new heights of negligence, updates on friends going ignored for the time being.

I occasionally get the chance to send out a tweet now and then, but I worry people ignore my tweets as nothing more than background noise. And I wouldn’t blame them, either. I’ve had so little to say lately that I’d consider interesting. The topics I do dwell on feel like a broken record: worried about Cordy and her school, bills hanging over our heads, feeling like a total noob at work, and my frustration with right-wing efforts to block health care reform.

(And OMG don’t get me started on the fake uproar over Obama’s speech to schools. I survived listening to Reagan more than once as a child and still don’t buy into Reaganomics.)

Work is going well, although I’m still adjusting to 12 hour days. When I do come home, I have every desire to get online, get involved in conversations, and catch up with friends. What actually happens is I collapse in my chair, eat dinner, lurk on several conversations on Twitter, maybe read a few blog posts without commenting, then fall asleep.

I’m also still feeling a lot of stress at work. I feel completely disjointed in trying to learn what I need to know for my job as I follow the nurse I’m working with that day who has the most interesting patient. Well, now I’m generally doing most of the work, hoping that I’m doing it right and wondering if I’ll ever remember it all. Add in doctors who are less than patient and quick to yell at you, and I go home every night feeling like a complete screw up.

Of course, I miss my kids. No matter how crazy they make me, I still hate going days at a time without seeing them. (And no matter how much I completely and utterly trust Aaron to care for them, I still feel I’m better at it. I think it’s a mom instinct thing.) I hate not having time for them because I’m exhausted or because I have other chores I need to do, like paying bills or errands. And Aaron and I are kind of like ships passing in the night – we have little to talk about, so we spend most nights in our separate corners of the living room, watching TV or working on our computers.

I’m trying to be a superwoman who does it all, but in the end I’m doing none of it well.

I know I’m isolating myself away from friends when I’m not online, or when I’m lurking and no one knows I’m there. That’s the one downside of social media and digital neighborhoods – it’s far easier to pull away from everyone who cares about you when they can’t call or show up at your house and force you to stop listening to emo music and come out of your dark, dreary shell already, dammit.

I don’t like admitting that I might be depressed again. It frustrates the hell out of me, because I’m sick of fighting it off, tired of letting some small part of my brain get the better of the rest of me. I’m also embarrassed to feel so down about my life when I know so many have it far worse than me. Here I am whining about work being tough and missing my kids when I should be grateful I’m supporting my family with my job. Sheesh – sometimes I can barely tolerate myself.

I already have a yearly physical scheduled with my doctor (for late October – I got an appt. with my dermatologist a full month earlier than that – upside down world, eh?), and it looks like I may be bringing this topic up then as well. I don’t want to go back on meds, but if there’s no other choice, I will.

In the meantime, I’m going to make a better effort to socialize with friends, online and in person, and to use the magical endorphins of exercise in an attempt to boost my mood. (Let’s not talk about how little I’ve exercised since BlogHer. It’s not something I’m proud of.) Maybe I’ll get the hang of my new routine before October and I’ll look back on this and wonder why I felt so worried?

Or maybe I’m once again trying to tackle something larger than I can handle by myself?