Getting My Sisyphus On

Lately I've been letting life weigh me down. I feel like Sisyphus - destined to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back to the bottom over and over again.

Here are some of the weighty boulders I've been pushing lately:

The accessibility and addictive nature of pornography. I don't want it in my life or the lives of my family members, and yet, it is being thrown at us left and right. Scotty got a new phone number recently, and within one day, he was receiving pornographic phone calls and text messages. You do not have to go looking for pornography - it finds you. The issue strikes home again and again. Just last week, a young man from our area was arrested for possession of child pornography. It broke my heart because he is practically a child, himself, and he has fallen prey to a horrendous addiction for which the resources for recovery are far too limited. I am greatly concerned with who else has this problem and how they are going to get real help. My concerns are amplified when I read things like this and this.

Controversy everywhere. Women and the priesthood, the government shut-down, vaccinations, gender, modesty, gay rights... and on and on and on. I can't even eat without accidentally putting myself in the middle of a battlefield. I enjoy a Pop Tart once or twice a year, and I feel like need to write a defensive essay explaining my dietary choices. Except that a defensive essay would result in a million critical comments and a few hundred published rebuttals when all I really want it to occasionally devour a hot toaster pastry in my jammies.

That person. The one who, no matter how hard I try or how much praying and repenting I do, I just can not be friends with.

This semester. Scotty is taking his heaviest load of classes ever while I'm trying to play a certain character: the wife and mother who has it all together and doesn't complain. I am trying to support Scotty and get him through this because I know that it's just as hard for him as it is for me. Meanwhile I am having a complete, private breakdown.

Being a stay-at-home mom. I made the choice, and I continue to stand by it - it is what is right for my family right now, but part of me aches to be somewhere else. Last week I was unexpectedly approached about a part-time job - a job that I had whispered to my husband a few weeks ago that I would apply for, "if" I were in a position to be working. I don't usually throw this out there because I don't want any critical backlash, but I am not a natural nurturer. I'm not a "kid person." I am a square peg, and motherhood is a round hole. So when there is something along the lines of a job offer dangling in my face, I go through a brief period of mourning when I walk away from it.

Depression. This is another thing I never talk about, and this is the paragraph of this post that I am most likely to delete later. There are approximately 2.5 people in my life with whom I've ever discussed my experiences with depression. It is there. That's all I will say.

I think most of us are feeling the weight of the world right now.

It's heavy.

And I have to admit, I don't always feel up to pushing the boulder up the mountain. Sometimes I just want to let it roll over the top of me.

I keep thinking of this saying:

Sometimes "doing it anyway" is the only things that pulls me through.