Withering on the Vine

"The kind of life that makes one feel empty and shallow and superficial, that makes one dread to read and dread to think, cant be good for one, can it? It can't be the kind of life one was meant to live." — Willa Cather

I was done. I had reached my limit.

I rolled over to check the time — 1:26 a.m. — and then rolled back over to look at my husband. By the light of the waxing moon, I could just make out the shape of his body under the white matelasse quilt we shared; his eyes were closed, his head resting serenely on his pillow. As my eyes adjusted to the silver-blue light, I could also see that his cotton pillowcase had a dark smudge on it — the consequence of having three children who love to cuddle and having made chocolate no-bake cookies earlier in the day. Remember to strip the bed in the morning and put a load in the washer before you make breakfast, I instructed myself, knowing full well that I wouldn't.

I looked back at my husband who lay there facing me, although not seeing me. His entire body was relaxed, his arm draped across his bare chest, one hand extending in my direction and the other tucked beneath his head in an almost childlike posture. His breathing was heavy but unrushed, rhythmic and content. The breathing of a man at rest. The breathing of a man oblivious to the fact that he was sleeping on a chocolate-stained pillowcase.

This wasn't the first time I'd found myself wide awake while everyone else in the house was asleep. If anything, it seemed to be happening more and more often despite the fact that all my children were past the nighttime feedings of infancy and soaked sheets of the toddler years. When one of them did need me, they'd simply stumble into our bed, dragging their blankets and stuffed menagerie with them. There was little reason for me to be awake at 1:26 a.m.

But there I lay: restless while everyone else rested.

To make matters worse, I was finding that my agitation didn't limit itself to nighttime hours. During the day, my mind raced from one responsibility to the next, mentally calculating all the things I needed to accomplish before bed. It also kept track of how many calories I'd consumed, what chores I'd left undone, and my failures to be an appropriately invested mother, readily available friend, and consistently devoted wife. And all of it made me so very tired.

I was tired of feeling judged everywhere I turned — unfinished to-do lists, neglected friendships, unreturned voicemails, and looming deadlines. I was tired of feeling overworked, tired of being stressed out, tired from all the busyness. I was tired of being sensitive, fragile, and snippy. I was also tired of knowing that I had absolutely no right to feel the way I did.

Blessed?

Despite my restlessness, our family was in the middle of one of the most blessed, most productive times of our lives. For many years of our married life, we'd existed in crisis mode: young babies, un- and underemployment, issues at church, and multiple job transitions. But recently, Nathan had landed his dream job as a pastor of a small church in Appalachia, less than an hour from where he'd grown up. Like Edward Ferrars in the 1995 screen adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, my husband wanted nothing more than "a small parish where [he] might do some good. Keep chickens. Give very short sermons." So after eleven years of marriage — and almost as many moves — we returned to his home, to his Virginia, bought our first house, and started to put down roots. The move itself wasn't too difficult for me because I'd grown up in a similar community in the Pennsylvania foothills. I understood the cultural rhythms and loved the intimacy of smaller congregations. As a family, we were also moving into a new phase: Our children were quickly becoming self-reliant and nary a diaper, jar of baby food, or backward-facing car seat was in sight. To top it off, I'd just published a book. By anyone's standards, we were experiencing a new level of financial, physical, and professional freedom.

But still I felt weighed down.

For a while, I chalked it up to the stress of moving, the adjustment of living in yet another new place, meeting new people, and settling in.

It's a busy season ...

If we can just get through this week, next week will be easier ...

Maybe I need a girls' night out or a vacation ...

If everyone would stop asking me to do stuff, I'd be okay. ...

But eventually, like the excuse of motherhood, these excuses wore thin too. Time passed, we developed a routine, but I still felt overwhelmed. The work I accomplished each day never felt like enough, and I regularly crawled into bed feeling like a failure. Some nights, as I lay awake next to my husband, I wondered whether I really wanted to sleep after all: I'd simply have to wake up the next morning and start the cycle all over again.

Nathan, on the other hand, seemed to experience a natural (and infuriating) calm. He'd come home from the church, change out of his dress clothes, and work around the house. He'd play or do homework with the kids, putter in his garden, split firewood for the coming winter, and eventually, when it was time for bed, lay his head on his pillow and drift into an effortless eight hours of rest.

"How do you do that?" I asked him once. "How do you just go off to sleep the way you do?"

He looked at me with the same blank stare he might have offered if I'd asked him to stand on his head and recite the Etruscan alphabet. I persisted.

"I mean, how do you turn it all off? How do you just lie down and ... fall asleep?"

"It's not that complicated, really. I'm tired. I lay down. I close my eyes. I go to sleep."

"Well, I'm tired too, but my mind just keeps turning — I keep thinking about all the stuff I didn't get done and the stuff I'll have to do when I wake up and to remember to take the kids to piano lessons and email my editor and call Nancy to see how her surgery went —"

"That's because you're an A-plus kind of girl, Hannah," he interrupted. "Me? I'm content with a B-plus. Just go to sleep."

Was it that? Was I simply a perfectionist? I didn't feel like a perfectionist — my house certainly didn't scream "perfectionist." It screamed a lot of other things, but it didn't scream perfect. When I thought about the piles of clothes sitting next to the washer, I'd feel guilty. But when I began working through the piles, sorting them into darks and whites, heavy and light, I'd feel guilty over owning so much stuff. And then I'd feel guilty about feeling guilty.

No, I wasn't a perfectionist. I was simply losing my mind.

Age of Anxiety

But, of course, I wasn't. Losing my mind would have been a legitimate explanation for the level of angst I was experiencing;...