I think this is my favorite blog post of Rita’s because it addresses that feeling we all encounter … “I’m so blessed … so why am I depressed?” (Hey, that rhymes! blessed and depressed … cool!)

I’ve been reframing my ass off today.
We had a nice trip to Iowa over Labor Day. The little angel saw her heroes (her cousins) and scored a brand-new plastic tube of fake lipstick for the six-hour car ride. (I know, I know, I’m going to rot in feminist hell. I happen to think lipstick’s not a sign of my declining mind.)

We got home. We went to the zoo with the little angel’s best friends from The Emerald City, S. and J. It was fabulous. The kids had a great time. We had a great time. We really like S. and J.’s parents. And that, dear readers, is a beautiful thing – when you can stand those who produced your child’s friends.
I know that we have a great life. I have a fabulous, I’ll-cook-clean-and-bring-you-finding-Nemo-flowers-when-you-cry-in-front-of-the-child husband. I have a beautiful, intelligent and amiable daughter. We (sort of) own This Old House. (Well, we own a larger, yet still small, percentage than we used to.) We own two cars (again with the sort of). I have an intelligent contract, a mentally-stimulating job, for which I was able to hire four intelligent and life-bettering women to work with me (even though I only know for sure that it lasts until January). I live in America.
So why have I felt like hell for the past month?
It might be the lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is a scary thing. They use it to torture people. It’s even harder to digest when it’s caused by one of the most important people in your life, one that you love with all of your heart, even though sometimes you wish she would just go stay in a hotel already for a few nights.

It might be the constant travel. Even though I like to travel, I do not always like to travel with a toddler. Especially a toddler with a two-hour car shelf-life that we have to perpetually take on six-hour-each-way car trips. I’m tired of having to pull off all the stickers and hand them to her. I’m tired of playing “Who likes peanut butter sandwiches? I do, I do!” I’m tired of listening to that damn Elmo.
It might be the fact that I do everything half-assed. I try to focus on drawing triangles with bathtub crayons. I try to focus on my editorial guidelines. I try to focus on asking my husband about his day. But lately, I’ve had escape fantasies. I keep remembering that scene in The Hours when the mother hands her kids to a neighbor and checks into a hotel just to be alone. She’s also contemplating suicide, of course, and I wouldn’t go that far – but that peace, that quiet, that time alone. I miss it.
And then I feel guilty. What are the alternatives? No husband? No daughter? Just me and Sybil again, alone in the world? I hated it then, right? I focused on all the wrong things when I lived alone. I spent all my time cleaning, because there wasn’t anyone to tell me I was overdoing it a bit. I worried I was getting fat. I smoked a pack a day. It wasn’t pretty.

So I reframe and reframe and reframe. I rush from activity to activity, constantly late and feeling that churning in my stomach that comes from almost but not quite right. I put off going to the bathroom because I’m not sure I can squeeze it in between meetings. Today I had to hop off a conference call before I wet myself because I honestly let it go that long. Then I cashed in all my parent points to go to the gym, because I was that desperate for an hour to myself, just an hour, to do something that was all about me, me, me, ME.
See? This is bad. I’ve got it bad. What is wrong with me? There is NOTHING wrong.
That’s precisely why I feel so wrong about it.