Running on Empty

I am running on empty these days. My thoughts are telling me to "Stop this thing I want to get off!". I knew that being a mom and working would be hard. I just never thought it would be this hard. I feel pulled in so many directions and stretched so thin that I don't feel like I do any of my jobs or roles very well, that of wife, mother, and employee. I feel like I do the bare minimum at all of these roles, not because I don't care and want to do the bare minimum, but that there isn't enough of me to go around and so this is what you get. And I feel bad about it. I want to do better at my job and being a mom, but most of the time I feel like I am doing what I can to keep my head above water.

I don't think stay-at-home moms have it easy, I really don't. I think all moms are "working moms". I do sometimes play with the fantasy of not working. But when I do that I find myself in a panic. I have worked since I was 15. I like having my own money. Plus it's what I was raised to do, it's what I went to school for all of those years: to work. Financially it is not even a possiblity for me to not work, and sometimes I resent not having a choice. I guess that's what it boils down to, not feeling like I have a choice and having to do something because it's what I have to do to support myself and my family. But boy does it suck sometimes. It really does.