The Perfect Mother?!?!?

IT's been a while since I have felt like writing. In fact, its been a while since I have felt like doing anything. Today I came across this blog( I am working on posting a link give me some time please) and It SCREAMED at me. I read almost in tears thinking, FINALLY someone relates to me. Someone out there understands. I mean really understands! Then I came across this book (Desperate, Hope for the mom who needs to breath)literally within an hour of each and I wasn't even looking for parenting books. I just wanted a good read. You see lately that's how I have been "dealing" with life- by slipping away into someone else's reality to keep from facing my own. I'm still reading and in the very early pages of the book but again it screams at me and while I find comfort in knowing that again I am NOT alone, it makes me sad that so many of us moms feel like this. Its always a stress to be the perfect mom. To keep the house tidy, the kids and husband happy, everyone healthy and still find time for school, peace, socialization and everything else that life offers up. What happened to that beautiful vision we had when we first held our babies at the hospital. What happen to those promises we made ourselves? You know the ones I am talking about. Come on get real with me. Who out there said, I'll never yell at my kids. I'll never plop my kids in front of the TV or give them a video game unattended. You expect me to let them eat that junk at school? No I'll make every one of their lunches with love and cute cut out sandwiches all balanced with all 4 meal groups. Now years down the road we look back and don't even recognize the moms that we have become and these kids that are yelling at us simply cant be because of our lack of perfect parenting. It cant be. We did everything right so right in fact that we forgot why were doing it to begin with. I for one have just simply shut down. We forgot that God entrusted us with these lives because HE trusted us. Because He knows that we can do it. Because He has a plan for us. I lost site of that to the point that I cringe at the thought of waking up at the dawn of light when the kids do. I just want to crawl under the covers and not even deal anymore. The kids are spending more and more time away and I call myself trying to clean or find myself but truth of the matter is that I am so wore out that on those days they are away I do absolutely nothing.... and then feel the bounds of regret for it the day they come home. What happened? Where did I go wrong? Where did I miss the mark? We each are going to have our own stories to tell and each will be different. Mine starts with my thinking that I can do it all alone. I've never been popular, never had more than a handful of friends, and I like it like that. As I get older though I see that we are not made to be alone. Even with just our spouses. We need interaction. I haven't yet discovered how to go about doing that though. When I am around people my heart beats so fast that I literally have to focus on breathing to keep from hyperventilating. I do much better with words in writing. You ask me to speak in a group and its just to much for me to handle. Even one on one sometimes, I cant do it. SO I gave up and here I am. Even though now my kids are in school and I should have time to myself I feel just as lost today as I did 4 years ago when all of the kids were in diapers.... In fact some days it was better back then. You know when they didn't have as many opinions. I am going to try and keep this updated as I work REALLY hard on venturing out of this funk and through this journey and if nothing else just writing to make me feel better. Please feel free to share your own stories and words of wisdom. God Bless...