Thanksgiving week has all the wind knocked out of me. Could just be my reaction to going down, down, down the rabbit hole. The Holidays are here.

Only thing I know is the only thing I want to do is curl up under my big old comforter and sleep. It’s the lack of time that has me feeling so defeated. My kids don’t have school all week and we don’t have childcare, don’t have the money for the extra child care, I should say, so what happens? I don’t have time to work.

We are caught right smack in the center exactly what I feared getting back into this. I have no time to work because we can’t afford to cover the business hours I need so jobs are left unfinished leaving me feeling further defeated and my pay further behind, which adds up to less childcare that we can afford and fewer things completed. It goes on like this until I’m right where I am now.

One big miserable puddle of blah. And I blame it on the marriage, when actually I should blame it on me.

My reasoning, skewed as it may be, is that when we were apart a couple things were absolute: I had several days every week to work because the kids were with Sam and I had to make it work because the alternatives were homelessness and starvatation.

This week, I’m giving thanks for my two beautiful, healthy girls, and the ability I have to back up, reconsider, and try it again. But I'm also questioning how much of my current situation is a self-fulfilling prophecy and why I can't have the structure to make room for work in the same way I did when I was separated.

Until now I had never had a comment on one of my blogs that elicited a definite "How dare you?" from me. I've been able to rationalize every comment one way or another, but a comment I recently received has me ticked off. I gave myself a week to see if I was still annoyed before sitting down to write a response just in case time made me feel better about it, but no...I'm still steaming.

"If you want to rescue this marriage, drop the writing until both kids are in school, and work at convincing your husband that he is #1."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's back up a minute here.

How many men are told to drop their careers in order to make their wives feel as though they are a priority? Would you tell a male doctor to stop practicing medicine in order to make his wife feel special? Would you tell a guy to stop going to the office everyday because he needs to work on his marriage? Probably not.

Maybe the problem isn't that I'm a woman, but that I'm a writer. You probably envision me lounging around the house during the day, sipping chamomile tea and leisurely composing The Great American Novel. Can I let you in on a little secret? I work hard. I have corporate clients and contractual deadlines. On any given day I'm writing for three or four different clients, and it isn't easy. I love it, but it's hard work.

I don't know what universe a person lives in when he thinks that it's okay to suggest that a woman simply drop her career in order to cater to her husband. Shall I simply stop paying bills? Maybe my mortgage company will allow me to skip some payments because I need to make my husband feel special. I'm sure preschool won't mind if my kids attend for free for a while. Oh, and the insurance companies? I'm sure they'll keep our policies active even though we're not paying because doggonit, my husband needs a foot rub.

Why didn't I think of that? 

I've changed a lot in the past few years. When my husband stopped paying attention to me I started writing professionally and the next thing I knew I was busy with a freelance writing career that became surprisingly profitable. At first I was making enough money to occasionally take the family out to dinner, but now I make almost as much as my husband does.

It's an interesting transition to go from stay-at-home mom to nearly-equal breadwinner, especially when it annoys my husband to no end. In the beginning he would tolerate my deadlines but roll his eyes and sigh about how I should really work more on keeping the house clean. For a while I managed to do both — I kept the house clean and met all my deadlines — but I got very little sleep and was really exhausted all the time.

Funny...he could have stepped up and helped me with the house and taken some of the burden off me, but he didn't. In fact, one time he blew up at me and said how unfair it was that I had agreed to be a stay-at-home mom but then went out and got myself a career. Damn that ambition of mine.

Fast forward to present day, with the economy going crazy and our money just not stretching like it once did. It's my income that allows us to meet our bills every month and for him to still have the niceties he craves. It's my income that pays for car repairs. My income pays for the preschool tuition for the kids and paid for our road trip to see my husband's parents last month. In other words, without my income we'd be in bad shape.

This doesn't change a thing. I'm still expected to do everything around the house. No matter how much money I bring in he still sees me as the same stay-at-home mom I was years ago. I guess it's what he wanted, and still wants to this day, so that's what I'm always going to be in his mind.

So I'm working like crazy and it feels great! I've really tapped into my creative side, and I’ve found an amazing outlet and it’s so fulfilling.

I was on the phone with a girlfriend the other day discussing all of my current projects. Her response was "Damn, girl, how many fires do you have burning at once?" The answer to that is: a lot.

I have so many ideas, so many things going at once, that I've actually started writing them down. Anyone who knows me knows that ordinarily I'm quite disorganized, and I don't write things down.

The point is, I'm proud of myself — I don't think I've ever felt really proud of myself before. I'm amazed with myself for having the ability, somewhere deep in there, to go through what I did with Levi, to make it to this point — to come out of it a few months later and still have a smile on my face.

I'm proud of myself for being such a great mom to Adrian, especially because I was so scared that I would never be able to do it by myself. I'm even kind of proud of myself for giving birth to such a beautiful amazing little boy.

I'm proud of myself for finally following my dream, for taking control of my life, for getting somewhere. I'm proud and amazed that I didn't give up.

I think it’s about time that we all start giving ourselves props. What about you? What makes you proud of yourself?

It started when I met a former boss for lunch. I hadn't seen him for years so when our paths happened to cross about a month ago, we agreed that we would meet for lunch just to catch up. While it was great catching up, my divorce naturally became a part, albeit a small part, of the conversation.

Then, when I returned to my office I ended up chatting with my current boss about various personal matters. The conversation ended up focusing on my ex and, before I knew it, I was telling her many details (though, not all!) about John's affair that I hadn't revealed to her previously.

Shortly after that, I was speaking with a co-worker about her pregnancy, as she is about eight months pregnant with her first child. Like most people in my office, she had no idea that I was divorced. She then started asking me if I was thinking about having a baby in the near future, if my husband wanted children, etc. I initially avoided the topic by just saying that I wasn't ready for children but she kept asking questions and I realized that it was best to inform her that I was divorced. I didn't tell her why, but I could tell she was fishing for some details. When she flat out asked me if John had been seeing someone else I said, "yes." Why lie?

By the end of the day I was mentally exhausted. It's almost impossible to imagine that one day my divorce will be so far in the past that it will sink to the bottom of my, and everyone else's, mind. I can't wait...