Stress!!

I'm struggling to remember a time in my life when I've felt this stressed, for this long. I'm stressed about everything, and nothing. Right now there are only a handful of people in my life who are not stressing me out, one of whom is my ever amazing baby boy (not so much of a baby any more, he turned one last week!!). And if I'm totally honest, I feel like I just want to run away with him and hide out for a while and not have to deal with anybody else.

My adorable little booger turned one already!

There is a fairly substantial list of actual things that I feel stressed about, but then on top of that I feel like every little thing is then getting under my skin because I'm so on edge. Our living situation is definitely up there near the top of said list. We are still living with my sister, her partner and their baby who is 8 weeks younger than Beau. Don't get me wrong, this situation has it's benefits. HUGE benefits even. First and foremost it works out pretty cost effective with us all living together, and money is so incredibly tight at the moment, so this is definitely a help. It is also really nice to have had the company while off on maternity leave, as me and Becs have spent so much of that time together. We probably took it for granted but I know a lot of women who have felt incredibly lonely and isolated while staying at home taking care of their baby for months, without really seeing and interacting with other adults for long periods of time. I never ever felt like this, and so I definitely feel like our living situation was to thank for that. Another huge benefit is that there is nearly always another person (or two) on hand if I want to pop out without Beau, and it means I hardly ever have to ask other people over to babysit, as we just use each other.

But then, it has it's downsides too. The main problem we have is that we are actually so so different. Becs is OCD neat and tidy and frankly, I'm just not. I would love a perpetually neat and tidy home as much as the next person, believe me, but I just don't find it possible on a day to day basis. Especially with a baby to care for, I just feel like there are more pressing issues than having everything in it's place 24/7. Also, the house isn't the biggest, and between us all we do have A LOT of stuff. Now I'm just not prepared to live like I did when I still lived at home with parents when I had to have all of my belongings in my bedroom, I'm an adult for goodness sake. I pay rent and bills, and I will have my belongings all over the house because it is my home. Now to be fair to Becs, she has never SAID that she expects me to keep everything in our room, but I get this impression from her little piles of my stuff she will gather up and put by me from time to time.

All in, we all just feel that it's time to go our separate ways and get places of our own. All except James, that is. He seems content to stay here forever, and has a little freak out every time I mention moving out. Largely it's about money for him. He doesn't earn much, and we are pretty stretched to our limits as it is, but I'm looking into every option I can think of to make our financial situation a bit better. But money aside, I kind of feel like he doesn't actually want to have to live with me, without the cushion of having other people around most of the time. We haven't been getting on at all well recently, and I honestly think that he's only sticking around because of Beau. We might get on okay for a few days, maybe even a week (a whole week!!) but then we always end up arguing again and I'm so exhausted of going round on this repetitive little not-so-merry go round.

I'm so stressed. I need to get off this not-so-merry go round