Today's Report

Dear Cat,

I know I haven't kept up with the posting and it's been obvious that my heart's not in it. To make up for that, today all three areas are clean, and I'm sorry I haven't been more loyal to our goal.

The problem has been that every time I think about trying to keep the house clean, this feeling of despair and rage swells up in my gut. You know, the kind of rage that clots in the base of your throat and makes your voice a little raspy and shaky when you talk? The kind of rage that makes you want to smack someone but since you can't comes out in red-faced tears instead?

After all that time I spent cleaning the boys' playroom, and all the toys I took out of the room, you know what they did? They went in and dug all sorts of toys that they haven't even looked at for months out of their closet and threw them all over the room. It's not that they played with them and left them scattered, it's that they deliberately hurled them around the room to mess it up again.

It makes me feel like they're out to get me. And since I know that they're too young and sweet to truly be that malicious, it makes me think that they're just not that bright. I mean how stupid and incapable of structured, organized thought do you have to be to do something like that?

But I know that they're not stupid, which leaves me with no explanation at all, which makes me sit there sobbing and trying to dull my discouragement and anger by watching reality TV and eating bag after bag of chips and marshmallows.

And that's why I haven't been posting. What's the use? What's the (expletive redacted) use?

I don't know that there is any use, to be honest. I don't know that I'll ever gain any ground. I don't know that my life will ever stop being chiseled away by inanities and years of wasted time. But I can't quit, because, well, I can't.

So the rooms are clean, and I'm going to sign off so I can go downstairs and check on the boys. I can tell from the sounds I'm hearing that they've found some more things to throw around, despite the fact that I thought I had gotten all their toys out, and they're messing up the room again.