I just want to put my head down and cry

I have felt like this all day. I just want to put my head down and cry. I am so tired of ... everything. Every day we battle with the 4-year old to get her ready for school in the morning. Every morning she nags us about wanting more toys and not wanting to go to school. Every morning it is the same old battle. Yesterday she was on my case because I was trying to do some exercises while she was talking to me. I'm sorry kid, but I am trying to lose weight and I barely have time to go to the bathroom by myself, much less workout. I have to do this stuff sometime. Geez....

My husband's birthday is approaching and not every day, but often I hear about the things he would like to get for his birthday. None of them are cheap. Every day I look at the yard that is a mess. Every day I look at the bathroom that is "not quite finished". Every day I hold my tongue and try not to voice all that is inside me about how I feel about these things. Then he says "Maybe I could build a doll house for Christmas..." Um... honey? Seriously? When would she get that? 2011??? I can't say that though. I just nod and smile for now. When we get closer I can see what he is really thinking.

My mother called yesterday and she never leaves just one message, she always leaves 2. I was reaching for something to eat before the second message even began. Dumb! I stopped myself. After all these years she still drives me to eat, even a message on the machine. My own doing I know, but still it gets to me.

We have a busy weekend ahead, and possibly a busy week beyond that. Meanwhile my 40 free hours on Pandora have run out, and I am having trouble finding music I like to fill the last hour of my Friday afternoon at work. Bureaucracy has left me many times feeling like I should be slamming my head against a wall lately. How am I going to survive the next 20 years here??? I don't know. I can only hope to hang on, somehow, some way.

Sigh. Even though I sleep when I should, and exercise, I still feel like just putting my head down and crying myself to sleep. I can't though. It's only 4:15pm.

Be well bloggerville.

Tari

Courage to Change, memories of Step 5

This morning my "Courage to Change" book fell off the table as I was reaching for my hairbrush. I flipped it open to today's reading and saw the page about Step 5, admitting our faults.

I remember doing this many years ago. I had a boyfriend who felt he had been wronged. In an effort to "make things right" I gave him access to my journals and diaries. Big Mistake!! Instead of seeing me as an honest person he seemed to get more paranoid and more upset. I'm not sure why, but in hindsight it was probably the drugs he was on. Nothing I could have done back then could have saved that relationship, but I tried anyway.

I think Step 5 needs to come with it's own manual. Admitting your faults and mistakes to an addict can really backfire. It's not like they are going to reciprocate the favor and do their own Step 5. Instead the addict might take that information and hold it against you for a long, long time. I have learned this a couple of times in my life. I have tried to do Step 5 with my mother, admitting when I was rude or could have treated her better. It does me no good though. She only uses it against me later. "You said yourself you are lousy at...." sigh.

Step 5 is good for keeping me responsible for my actions now though. If I make a mistake at work I try not to cover it up. I try to own up to it "I tried really hard on this but I still screwed it up". "Oh that? Yeah I did that. Sorry.".


So go do your step 5s, but do them with caution. It's dangerous stuff if you've got an active addict on your list.
Also remember there is nothing on there that says you have to admit "the exact nature of our wrongs" to the person we have wronged. You can admit them to anyone, even a stranger on the street.  :-)

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

a week already??

Sigh. A week has gone by and I haven't posted. How sad. I did have a couple of brief interactions with my mother this week. Also my brother dropped his Facebook account (again), effectively cutting me out of his life. The only way I have to keep tabs on him is through FB. Oh well. I don't know if it was my fault or not that he dropped it. I might have been the cause. My mother called me in an effort to reach him (supposedly) and I sent him a message on FB saying she was trying to reach him. Then I told her that he was alive at least since he had updated his status at some point over the weekend. Then he pulled the plug on his account. His loss and mine. We aren't close but I like knowing what's going on in his life even if it's just a message that says "I'm all alone and drinking, come on by...". Now I won't even have that for a while.








On a more personal note, as I posted before I am trying to lose weight. I am surprised (or not surprised) to see some commonalities between the weight-loss and Al-Anon. The website I am using is very much of the "take what you like and leave the rest" approach. Everything you do is really up to you to do it. There is a lot of middle ground. Don't want the diet, then leave it and eat what you want. Want to track what you eat? Great, here's how to do that. Community, health, nutrition, fitness, etc... it's all there if you want it. Message boards, teams, challenges, friends... take it or leave it. This is good for me. I'm not "failing". I can go at my own pace and take what I like and leave the rest without spending a dime. So far I'm liking a lot of it, but I'm doing my own food. I'm leaving their diet alone because it doesn't work for me. The pounds are coming off though, at least for now. Here's hoping I can keep it going because it's a long, long road. I want to be healthy by the time I'm 40.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

independence

Not sure if that is the right title for this. I'm still kind of working on it. "Freedom" is not what I'm looking for either. Someone might say "Selfish" fits.

Today is 9/11 and I could say a lot about that, and the history of 9/11/01. Or I could talk about 9/11/2009, the day I buried my grandmother. I'm not going to talk about that.

Live in the moment. Live in today. You can't change the past. Today. Today I had a plan. I refused to let my plan be taken from me. I refused to stay home and miss the fun. Instead I left my husband at his friend's house and I took our daughter to the fair. Then I did the unthinkable. I LEFT THE CELL PHONE IN THE CAR for nearly 6 hours while we had fun at the fair. I didn't do it on purpose initially, but when I realized what I had done I didn't go back for it. If I needed to know what time it was I simply looked for someone with a watch. I knew my husband was on-call and his beeper could go off and he might need the car. I also knew he had friends with cars and he was with them. So I relaxed and my daughter had a blast I think. She told me she loved all of it, and she really wants to go back tomorrow. I think my husband wants to go tomorrow too. I think he's curious about what he missed. I might just indulge them. I had fun too.  :-)

There was a certain freedom, a certain independence in leaving that phone behind. No email, no phone, no one could reach us, and yet we weren't alone. If WE had an emergency we were absolutely covered being in a crowded place with lots of emergency staff on hand if need be, etc and I could always get back to the car if I had to. When we were done at the fair and got back to the car I called my husband and went to get him (he wasn't where I had left him) and the three of us had dinner together and came home. So I didn't ditch him permanently, just in case you are wondering. ;-)  But wow, a whole afternoon having fun with my daughter and no one could reach us and make us do something different. We did what we wanted to, and mostly we agreed on what to do. Only a few arguments, but that is typical with a 4 year old. She was so happy when I told her at the end of the day that she had been a good kid and I'd had fun too.

Image by Nemo's great uncle via Flickr

for Teresa- my nightmare

I just read Teresa's blog here.  It brought back instant memories and nightmares. Recurring nightmares that I still have. In addition to the normal nightmares about being back in high school or back at an old job, I have nightmares about finding my way home. Often there are cats that need to fed. Sometimes in the nightmares I have been away for months or years. Sometimes I am living with my mother and my brother, and sometimes my daughter is part of the dream as well. It changes from time to time, but theme is the same. I'm lost and I'm trying to find where I belong. Doesn't take an expert to figure this stuff out for me. I'm hoping some day the nightmares go away, but for now I'm stuck with them, and the lack of sleep that goes with them.

happiness

I posted that Hazelden link as much for myself as anyone else. I stumbled on it at work and I wanted to make sure I had access to it from my computers at home and elsewhere. So I stuck it here.

It's good stuff I think. I saw a quote there today that I like it said:

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
  —Abraham Lincoln"

Reminds me of a book I saw called "You can choose to be happy", which is pretty much something my father has said to me from time to time. He says it mostly about other people, like when I'm worried about someone else's depression. He said it about my grandmother who was depressed after my grandfather passed away. He said again when my daughter was adjusting to new day care. I remember the first weeks of sending her there. It was so awful to leave her at the center and see her cry and know that she just sat on a bench all day watching the other kids play. I felt like the worst parent in the world, but I couldn't quit my job. My dad said "She'll be happy when she wants to be happy." He was right. One day she just got out of the car without having to be carried in. She put her stuff away and joined the group. She was like a different person, like someone had flipped a switch. She had chosen to be happy.

Today my husband, my daughter, and myself encountered my mother in the parking lot at the grocery store. My husband saw her first, and ducked his head back in the car and said "Your mother is 2 spots away, putting her groceries away." My daughter said "Quick! Let's hide from her." My husband whisked her out of the far side of the car and into the store. Meanwhile I stayed calm and went over and said "Hello". I told my mom that my daughter had an urgent potty mission. That wasn't a lie, but I left out the conversation that happened in the car. I chatted with my mom briefly and pleasantly and promised to buy her some flower bulbs that she can plant in the cemetery. That seemed to make her happy. Then I rejoined my husband and daughter in the store. A brief visit on neutral ground seemed to be about all I could handle of my mother. She wasn't mean this time, but that doesn't mean that she won't be awful next time. Focus on today though, and today was okay.

Thought for the Day -- Hazelden

Thought for the Day -- Hazelden

Just a quick post

So the big day of weight loss came and went. I read with sadness about the death of a married 29 year old woman with 2 kids who died. Once again she is/was a friend of an acquaintance. I did not know her personally, but reading her Facebook page I can tell that the death came suddenly and my suspicion is that it was a suicide or accidental overdose. Meanwhile memorial services were held today for the other woman who died. One of the services was right outside my window at work, in the courtyard garden. I watched but did not participate.

Next week will be the anniversary of my grandmother passing away. It's hard to believe that it's been a year already.

My husband and I are struggling to find... something that we've misplaced between us. I don't want to post about that. I feel like I've got a lot of negative inside me and it's my stuff and I need to work on it, but then at the same time I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and just get through my daily life. Really I'd like to withdraw from the world and have a good cry, a long drive maybe, or a long walk or something... it's not going to happen though. I need to be here. Now.

Lunch is over. My paperwork awaits me.

Image by LEMBOT via Flickr