I have many, many thoughts about today, this weekend, life in general.
I am insanely more calm. I did my HS meditation this morning and even my anxious thoughts were calmer. I’m so much more mellow around the kids. I’m not careening between highs and lows. I’m having fun and also calm. It is quite, quite, quite charming and lovely.
Life keeps changing. We did this stuff with kids for years and years and years and then it changed. Now they have very independent lives with the same kind of bills we have, all that kind of stuff. They are living normal, calm lives with up’s and down’s, hopes and dreams. I’m so proud of each of them. KT was a zoo volunteer this morning and gave us a tour around. It was El’s bday so we spotlighted her and loved what people said: You’ve matured this year. You showed up for your sister’s wedding and bachelorette party. You helped us when we’ve been down. You’re tackling your body pains.
My mom-in-law is with us, and she’s a trooper. I’m grateful for all the values she’s demonstrated for years, over and over. She traveled with us for a solid fifteen years and then it also stopped. Life just keeps changing.
Overall, I’m just resting and reveling in feeling better and different. The kids are a trigger for me in the past. I feel like I have to squeeze all I can out of our times together, because it’s sort of all I’ve had. As a result, it just makes me super anxious and hypervigilant. I can’t believe how much work it’s been to heal. It’s been worth it, beyond, beyond.
Now, what’s next?
I’m still landing the planes on my pelvic pain and health. I need to keep exploring options for the future and what I want my next career to be.
Also, marriage.
I realized this week that I need regular time away from Jay. We need to have days off or something where if we’re both in town, we have breaks from each other. I feel I’m close to understanding something about marriage that’s important.
Mainly I feel like it’s impossible to find someone perfect for you all the time. I think those times you’re frustrated and ready to bail, you need to just find a way to do better in that situation. You should feel the right to be able to do that. You should be able to say, this is annoying to the kind of person I am. I need a break. Then get back in the game.
I just smoldered all these years and didn’t really give myself permission to get help and get away and have fun in other ways. Jay is very intense and focused in a way that’s often different than me. It’s not better or worse, but it’s significantly different. It can be super smothering. It can be very triggering.
But then we’re together other times, and it feels great.
One thing I’ve realized that feels significant is that some people don’t get as triggered by each other as we do. I think those people are probably less intense in general than we are. We’re BOTH intense and we also both have issues with body sensitivities, like textures, senses, temperatures, our bodies, etc. We can both be fussy.
I have worked hard not to project my fussiness onto others because of how I was raised and the trauma around all my Dad’s issues. It was one fussy thing after another, many unreasonable, that we had to adjust to with my Dad.
In the process of all this, it didn’t allow me to just accept the way I am. I’ve tried to downplay any specific ways of being or feeling that I have if they could be slightly fussy or unique from the group. I believe this has contributed in ways to me feeling like I don’t have an identity at all.
So I’m fussy. I have worn the same shirt all week long. I’ve got two of them now, I like them so much.
LIKE I USED TO DO WHEN I WAS A KID.
I used to do this. I remember it actually.
I used to get one or two outfits then just wear them all the time. All week long. The same clothes.
If I think a lot about this, it makes a lot of sense to me and how I am. I like it quite a bit actually.
I can tell even small things like this are calming me down significantly. It’s literally just how I am. It’s how I’ve always been. I have tried to adapt and change to be like other people and maybe I should just be myself.
So in our marriage, I just feel rubbed the wrong way by Jay at times and just need a break. I need to not have to accommodate someone else, especially someone else that has sensitivities, but that are different ones than mine. Sometimes all that rubbing feels like too much closeness and friction and not in a good way.
So I take breaks, but not the Big Break.
I find when I do that for myself, I come back to this person refreshed and also grateful that we’re together. I can more appreciate his amazing, unique qualities and values when I don’t feel we’re having to put up with each other regardless when we just need a break. I’m honoring myself, essentially.
And in honoring myself, that self-care/self-love thing, I can do a better job honoring our marriage and Jay as a person as well.
Amazing how love accepted can be love given back out.
Also in other news, I quit taking Prozac. It was nice to have as a placebo during my week of exams and intense pain. I’m glad I’m off it.
Montezuma Castle Nat’l Monument, AZ