Thursday, April 20, 2017

Reboot

Today was a shit storm.  I woke up with really good intentions.  I even hopped in the tub before 9am (this NEVER happens, unless it's Sunday, and I have to be at church by 7:30....and let's be real.....7:45.  Sometimes 7:50.  A couple weeks ago, 7:58.  (Church starts at 8.). I admit, that might have been pushing it a little too close.  Father Parr (who NEVER gets mad) said, somewhat sternly, "Beth! You are making me very nervous...I thought you had forgotten about us!"  I winked at him, and assured him I would NEVER forget about him, and then sprinted to the piano, as my choir members gave me the "stink eye." 😜 Wow, it's so easy to go off on a tangent. Anyway....today.

I honestly don't even know how it started, but I suddenly found myself getting all defensive and upset with the last person on earth I want to fight with.  Texts were misinterpreted, I flew off the handle, then I had a mini-meltdown.  Just a typical morning around here. 🙄  Thankfully, we were able to talk it all out, as we always do, and everything was ok again.
Then, I went to the computer to pay some bills.  I tried typing in my user name, and it kept telling me that my name wasn't in their records.  I sent Mark a scathing text, asking him if he had changed the user name/password, because I couldn't log in and pay our %#,€,!.*!{ bills.  As he was replying with a definite "NO I DID NOT!!!" I realized that they had changed the website a bit, and rather than typing my info in the correct box (where it typically just defaults to) I was typing it in the search box. Oopsies.  Sorry Mark.  You just suffered from the aftermath of my morning meltdown. 😬

I had an appointment with my headache specialist today.  It really was more of a therapy session.  I love her.  She went through a rather similar situation, and is easy to talk to.  She asked me about my stress and anxiety and how that affected my headaches. Was it a result of the meds I am on....or my life? I assured her my life was to blame for everything, and she needed to drug me, and drug me WELL.  This is where she was SUPPOSED to write a big fat prescription for Prozac, and send me on my way.  Yeah, they never do what I want them to. 🙄  She just upped the dosage of one thing, and lowered the dosage of another.  I should "know in 2-3 weeks if it's helping."  Maybe I will just send her a note that says "SOS!!!! SEND PROZAC!!!!" 🤔

I came home and actually made dinner. (This is right up there with "took a bath before 9am") Clearly, I was an overachiever today.  I told Mark I wanted to discuss pushing back the idea of selling our house until next summer, after Sam graduates. (And I have a year to save money, get my shit together, and clean out this place, which is starting to resemble an episode of hoarders.)  I have been stressing out pretty hard about where I will live if we sell this place.  I have three strikes against me: very limited income, two dogs (that are literally the only things keeping me sane right now) and I teach voice and piano out of my home....so how do I find a place that can accommodate all of that?
Mark has a nice safety net, as his parents are there, and able to help as needed, as well as his siblings. The closest thing I have to a "net" is a bad hair net I had from working in some kitchen somewhere.
There ain't nothin' "safe" about that!!  Anyway, the talk didn't go as well as I had hoped, and melt down #2 followed.  Luckily, I have great friends, who happen to enjoy happy hour, and within 15 minutes of posting my woes on FB, I had a text informing me where I needed to go for a nice, big margarita, and girl talk.  It was just what I needed.

I came home, and had a nice talk with my son.  I haven't had a chance to really sit down with him alone to talk about how he is feeling.  I wanted to know what he wants, if he wants to stay here until he is done with high school, or if he doesn't care.  I asked him how he was feeling about everything.  I really lucked out, and ended up with two really great kids.

At that point, I realized that I need to just turn everything around.  I have been in this negative place for months now.  I try to pull myself out, but then my mind starts spinning, and all the crappy thoughts flood back in, and I am a ball of anxiety and sadness again.  I am the queen of quotes on Pinterest.  I must have had 300 of them saved in my photos on my phone.  You can really tell the kind of day I was having by looking through the quotes.  They used to be happy or funny...but over the past four months, they have become so sad and depressing.  I looked through them all tonight, and it was like reading through all of things I was feeling, or wanted to say, but was too afraid to.  Ironically, reading them makes me feel worse rather than better.  So, I started deleting them.  If it wasn't something positive or funny, I got rid of it.  My mind can conjure up enough dire crap all on its own.  I certainly don't need Pinterest to remind me that my life is currently a disaster.  And so, it is time to change my thinking.  To change my whole perspective.

I have been so worried about all of the "unknowns" that lie ahead of me.  "Where will I live" is probably one of the biggest sources of stress.  My two bff's said to me today that I need to trust that everything will work out.  I have not been allowing myself to be very hopeful, because I'm so afraid of being let down.  I made the mistake of trusting that things were going to work out the way I wanted them to.  I believed one thing, and got the opposite.  Once you get burned, it's hard to walk toward the fire again.  However, I truly believe that I have come to a crossroad.  I am not going to delude myself into believing there won't be set backs, or bad days ahead.  I do believe that if I am ever going to move forward, and feel GOOD again, I have to let myself trust, and believe and dream. I have to stop blocking the doorway and allow new light and energy to enter into my life.  I have to trust that everything WILL be ok, and that I deserve to be ok.

I have been stuck in this state of thinking that all the misery coming at me was some sort of punishment or bad karma for all the mistakes I have made in my life.  I convinced myself that I deserved every bad thing that was happening to me, and that believing I was worthy of happiness and a good life would only bring more pain and sadness my way.  I felt selfish wishing....hoping for my life to turn around and just be GOOD again.  Well, I'm getting over that.  I realized tonight after my not-very-productive conversation, that I have to stick up for myself.  I am my only advocate.  I don't have parents to fall back on.  My sisters are up to their necks in their busy lives.  For a long time, I have questioned my identity....my worth.  It was like I wasn't important because I didn't have an impressively job or title.  I didn't have a "normal" work schedule, so I was obviously not contributing much to the household.  (Even though I taught four nights a week, and work every weekend.)  I'm done feeling guilty about that.  It's time to set goals for myself.....some very small, some that might take a miracle to accomplish.....but at least I will have a plan of sorts in place.  I'm also going to try to stay away from anything that pulls me back into the black hole.  I am hoping if I keep flooding my mind with positive, inspirational material, it will eventually override all of the "stinking thinking."

I need to add a thank you, to all of you who have sent messages and texts.  I can't begin to tell you how amazing the love and support both Mark and I have received has been.  On the days when I feel so down and alone, I just read through those messages, and my heart swells over the thoughtfulness
 and compassion of friends, old and new.  I hope that someday I am able to repay your kindness. ❤️

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Looking for the Light

I am almost fully recovered from my marathon otherwise known as "Holy Week."   I tried really hard to stay awake all day on Sunday, but, alas, the couch won, and I crashed hard.  While it is one of the more stressful weeks of my year, as far as my job goes, there were some moments of "ahhhhh" that occurred, along with a lot of thought and contemplation.  The Catholic Church is known for its symbolism, and Holy Week is packed with it.  One thing I particularly love is at the Vigil on Saturday night, after the fire is blessed and the Easter candle is lit, each person then passes the flame throughout the darkened church until there are hundreds of tiny candles, shining brightly in the darkness.  I sat at the piano in silence, and watched as each individual candle was lit, and the tiny flicker of light quickly grew bigger than the darkness. 
 It made me think of my state of mind these past months.  There has been far too much darkness.  Winter always pulls me down into a place of sadness....but this year, I have been consumed by it, and have felt such a feeling of hopelessness.  
Things I thought were real and definite suddenly became uncertain and unstable.  Feelings of joy and excitement were replaced with fear and insecurity.  My future went from balanced to uncertain.  
And I have been living in a constant state of anxiousness and worry.  I hate not having a plan.  I hate it when things that directly affect my life are completely out of my control.  And what really sucks is that these feelings have brought back old issues that I have worked through....and should be over by now, yet they are resurfacing.  Crap like worrying about what people are saying/thinking about me.  Wondering why friends I have had for YEARS have suddenly slipped away.  Questioning my worth, in all areas of my life.  Stupid, self defeating thoughts that only drive you deeper into the darkness.

The ridiculous part is that I am 100% aware of all of it.  I'm not stupid.  I could list all of the dumb things I am doing, all of the reasons why I'm doing them, and all of the reasons it needs to change.  Funny how a person can be so aware, yet so incapable of getting their own shit together.
I am my own worse enemy.  I allow my mind to wander to places I know will hurt me.  When I don't have answers to fill in the blanks, my mind fills them in for me....and it's never good.  Why do we tend to gravitate toward "worse case" scenarios?  I tend to lean in the direction of the emotions that are most painful to me.  Jealousy is probably the worst one.  It eats me alive.  I can't think of a worse feeling....(other than grief, I suppose.) It makes me feel small and pathetic.  It makes me question myself, and wonder "am I not good enough?"  It just feels like a painful, sickening ache in my stomach that makes me wish we came with reset buttons, and could just either start over, or at least dial down these emotions that torment us.  

And so, I am searching for the light.  I have been pinning away on Pinterest, filling up my "self care" board, and my "Just Be" board, and "The Road to Happiness".  I'm reading again (currently the "Love Warrior" by Glennon Doyle Melton) I'm blogging again (I find this therapeutic.  If you feel that I use this blog as my place to whine or feel sorry for myself, please just don't read it anymore.  I won't be offended.  At. All. 😉)  I am trying to immerse myself in music again...not just at work.  And I am trying to figure out how to love myself.  That's a big one.  And a hard one.  

I am working on "forward motion".  I am SO sick of feeling stuck in one place.  So tired of waiting for something to happen.  So over feeling unsure about EVERYTHING.  I finally realized that I can only depend on myself for my own happiness.  I can only rely on myself when it comes to moving on and making things happen.  I think I have always given other people the power to control how happy I am, or what direction my life moves.  That is the perfect recipe for disappointment.  Having high expectations and trusting in anyone else to follow through with your vision of how you thought things would be is how you set yourself up for heartache.  It took me 45 years, but I think I have finally figured out (after being disappointed time and time again) that I am the only person who I can rely on completely.  Some days, that feels pretty damn lonely.  I think that is why God created dogs. 

I'm trying to start pulling my house apart.  We went through all of the paint cans we had laying around....Mark was going to make a run to the dump, and hazardous waste place. (Wherever that is.)
He said "maybe we should leave some of the paint for the new owners, in case they want to touch something up."  New owners.  This is MY house.  This was my DREAMHOUSE.  And now I need to start figuring out what to get rid of (because I have A LOT of stuff) and I can guarantee that it will not all fit in my van by the river.  Things are getting real....more real everyday.  Last weekend I had a moment of "wtf are we doing?!!!!"  I am sure everyone goes through that.  All I could think about was Sam, and his very cool bedroom that we turned into a mini bachelor pad for him.  He has the sweetest set up with his computer and keyboards, speakers, clavinova....everything he needs to write.
It breaks my heart to take that away from him, and move him to some shitty apartment, or fixer upper somewhere.  He doesn't deserve that.  He deserves a nice home, with his beautiful bedroom, where he is happy and comfortable.  That is what is hurting me the most.  I want my kids to have a nice home to come back to when they are on break from college, or visiting after they move away.  This keeps me up at night.

Mark just handed me a "Financial Disclosure Statement."  Five pages to fill out, full of information that I need to come up with.  Do lawyers think we just have this stuff floating around in our heads....or that I am actually organized enough to know how much money my furniture's estimated value is?  Do I even care?!  Anyone who is reading this, who is under 35 and still single.....GETTING MARRIED IS EASY.  GETTING DIVORCED IS NOT.  DO NOT RUSH INTO ANYTHING!!!! 😳

I fear my light for today has dimmed.  I'm going to try and light that damn candle again tomorrow.