dream

Musing Moment 102: The First Dream Back

Standard

I had a dream last night. It was the first night being home from my trip to Ohio. The first night where I can start processing through everything that happened while I was there.

I woke up after it happened. Groggy. Fuzzy. I should have gotten up and written then, but I didn’t. Instead, I went back to sleep. I should have written as soon as I woke up again instead of showering or having coffee. But I didn’t.

I’m ok with that because I still remember the feelings at the end and the conclusions I have come to.

In the dream, my dad and I were in school together. I think it was high school. I don’t remember all of the details anymore but there was a group project going on. I think there were a lot of people in our group. I think it was more than just me and dad, but that detail I’m honestly not sure on, either.

I remember just like most of the projects I’ve ever had to work on, school or otherwise, I was the one doing most of the work. I was making sure things were done properly and that nothing slipped through the cracks. I remember feeling frustrated and used and continuing to work despite the tears running down my face. It felt like no one cared about what I was doing.

No one cared that I was tired or that I wanted a break. No one cared that I wanted, needed, help to get it all done in time. No one was there to make me feel like what I was doing was worth it.

I wasn’t doing the work because I wanted to. I was doing it because I cared, about them, about their grades, but no one cared back.

I was just a background drone, working away while everyone else did whatever they wanted to do, whatever they felt was more important and offering me help.

It sucked. I remember feeling like that a lot in high school, in my relationships, in college. I’ve felt that feeling a lot in life and in the past I would silently accept it like I had in the dream. I would keep doing what I was doing hoping one day someone would care enough to see me. To see my effort and to let me know it meant something to them.

I’m not sure what happened in the dream. I don’t know if there was an event I can’t recall but somehow dad noticed I was doing all the work. He looked at me from where he was across the room and saw I was alone and he wasn’t ok with that.

I think he came over and started helping but that detail I’m fuzzy on, too. I do remember his acknowledgment of the situation, his dislike for it, and his resolve to change it so it became fairer.

I remember there was another scene. Maybe another dream since there’s really no connection to the first one. I was in a hallway. It felt like I was younger. Teenage maybe.

My dad was at the end of the hallway in a large room. I was huddled against the wall because I was scared. I was next to a picture frame though I don’t remember what was in the frame. I don’t think I ever looked at it. I was too worried about leaving the hall. It was dark, sort of shadowed. Dad was in the lit room. He wanted me to come to him but I was scared.

I don’t know if I understood the fear in the dream, but being awake and conscious I can say it was probably fear of rejection. What if I left the hall and he didn’t want me there? What if he didn’t hug me or he told me to go away. It was safer in the dark hall, alone. It was safer to not put myself in that situation. It was safer to not know.

I looked at him. I looked down as I searched within myself, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I bit my lip as I thought because I have a habit of doing that. I looked back at him as I pushed myself closer against the wall. The wall was solid, real, safe. I wanted to be part of the wall and not have to make this decision.

I knew deep down, really deep down, wanted to be with my dad, though. I didn’t want to be alone with the cold wall that wouldn’t hug me back. I wanted to be with my Superman who always hugged me, who carried me home when I fell off my bike and scraped both of my knees so bad I couldn’t walk, who used to braid my hair, who taught me how to put puzzles together, who taught me how to color inside the lines.

I wanted to be with my dad even if it was scary. I wanted to be with him even if it meant I had to leave the safety of the dark hall and the solid wall.

So I pushed away from the wall. I walked past the picture with my arms wrapped around myself. I walked each painful step while looking at the ground because I was terrified of what I would see if I looked at my dad. I didn’t know how I would survive if I saw anger or disappointment or rejection.

It was already hard enough to breathe through the emotions I was feeling. I already had those infamous silent tears on my cheeks. I was already terrified what I was doing was wrong. How would I be able to keep going if I had confirmation, if I knew, that I was wrong? That I had always been wrong? That I would ALWAYS be wrong?

I stopped when I saw his shoes in front of mine. I stood in front of him, still holding myself, still too terrified to look up. I just wanted all of it to go away. All the thoughts. All the fear. Everything. I just wanted him to hug me and for things to be ok.

And he did. He wrapped his arms around me and I hugged him back as I cried into his shoulder. I cried as I felt love and forgiveness and acceptance and sorrow for all of the past hurts that we had caused each other.

That’s when I woke up. I woke up feeling love and acceptance and I really don’t care what happens in the future. I’m grateful I had my dream. I’m grateful for the time I spent alone with him this trip in the basement where we played darts and talked. I’m grateful for the conversations he had with Jon and me while we drank Not Your Father’s Rootbeer while everyone else was asleep.

I’m grateful that he hugged me goodbye at the airport and that he said he loved me.

I think the picture in the dream represents the past. That’s what pictures are. Past moments. Things we look back on. Moments that have happened and can’t be changed.

I feel like the picture reaffirms my realization from last week. The one about mom’s death and that it’s ok to not want to trade the life I have now to have her back.

We can’t go backward. Life doesn’t work like that.

We can only forward.

I have to leave the past where it is. The hurt, the pain, the fear and uncertainty of my teenage and young adult years… I have to walk through and away from all of it if I’m going to move forward and have any sort of relationship with my dad and half sisters.

This trip made me realize I want to be there for them. I want to be the mentor and role model I wish I had had while trying to navigate life. I want them to be able to talk to me when things are scary and uncertain, or when they need advice but don’t want to talk to their parents about it. I want to be a safe person for them.

And I want my dad and me to move forward from where we are. We can’t go back and change events. We can’t undo the divorce. We can’t undo the hurt. But we can understand this is where we’re at and that we still love each other and that I’m still his daughter and he’s still my dad.

I’m happy I had my dream. It makes me feel like I did the right thing. It makes me feel like I’m headed in the right direction.

Daily Post 146: The Aftermath of Thanksgiving

Standard

I try to start my mornings with a cup of coffee, sitting on my doorstep in the shade of my apartment. It’s quiet. Most everyone is at work. The parking lot is mostly empty. There’s a fairly busy road running next to me, a few hundred feet away, so it’s not too close, but I’m able to hear the cars passing and I like to sit and think about all of the people going about their lives.

I wasn’t able to do that the past four days.

The past four days have been hard. Heavy. After doing small tasks I was exhausted. Thursday wasn’t hard until the evening. The darkness of night, the end of the day, signaling that there really wouldn’t be a phone call from mom. I slept most of Friday because the weight of reality was heavy. Heavier than normal. Different somehow than what it’s been though I don’t know   how to better describe it than that.

It’s not like anything has changed. But somehow it has. Inside my head, all of these days are different. In a way, they’re more real.

Saturday was a bit better, but I still took a nap and went to bed early. Sunday Warren and I went out to lunch. We sat outside because it was a nice day, still cool as far as Florida goes, but not cold. After eating we went to the park where I had spent time with Big Bad. We walked the loop a few times before sitting on a hill in the shade and talking.

I was still hurting from Thursday. I’m still fearing my birthday because I know, out of all of the days coming up, that day is going to be the hardest. Maybe out of all of them so far. Out of the six-month mark, out of mom’s birthday, out of flying to South Carolina with mom’s urn in my backpack, out of placing her urn on my kitchen table the night I received it from the funeral home…

Out of all of the hard days I have faced I am terrified of this one day and I know there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

It will come.

One of the things Warren let me talk about was how I get frustrated with myself. Still. How it’s hard to be patient and understanding. How it’s hard not to feel like the past four days have been regression.

I was doing so well. I genuinely felt happiness for a while, and now I’m back to not feeling it at all. I’m back to being flatlined. I’m proud of being awake, much less showered. I’m back to my “zero-fucks” mentality and wishing the rest of the world would figure its own shit out, which really, it has for the most part. Very few things have needed my attention the last four days and I think that’s helped.

I’ve had the ability to sleep and do nothing other than focus on recovery. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the space I have been given, intended or not. I feel it’s what I’ve needed and I haven’t had to fight to get it.

Warren mentioned something that I feel I lose sight of sometimes. If someone breaks their leg, you don’t tell them to “walk it off.” They aren’t weak for wanting painkillers or a cast to make sure the bone heals properly.

Just because my emotional wounds aren’t visible, doesn’t mean they’re not there. I can feel them, like slash marks from the outside of my elbow to the inside of my wrist, slowly bleeding me out.

It’s interesting actually. The pain of mom’s loss, my grief, used to feel like a taloned fist inside of my chest, squeezing my heart, trying to crush it. It made it hard to breathe, to think, to move. I didn’t understand how to do any of that with the pain in my chest consuming my mind. My heart didn’t understand how to beat against the pressure trying to destroy it.

Now, there’s just the feeling of slowly being drained. Like old wounds that have reopened and I now I must wait to heal again so the bleeding stops. If I don’t move as much, if I rest, then I won’t drain as fast. I have a better chance of being ok.

I wish I was better at resting. I wish I didn’t give myself shit for being hurt. And underneath all of that, there’s the wish that I wasn’t hurt in the first place. That I didn’t have to go through this. There’s the wish that things were different and that wish is the one that hurts the most. I’m supposed to be accepting my reality but on some level, I still rage and strain against it and so there’s pain.

There’s the thought that maybe I’m doing all of this to myself, but I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to keep that part of my brain from wishing for things to be different. Not yet at least.

The past days have been hard, but they’ve gotten progressively better.

This morning I did have my coffee. I sat outside and have already gotten a bit of sunlight. I have gone through and caught up on my emails. I have renewed my Vimeo subscription and taken care of some bill stuff I’ve been avoiding. I have jujitsu in a little bit that I want to go to, but I’m worried about. I don’t know who the instructor will be. I don’t know how many people will be there. I don’t know a lot of the moves still. I don’t know if emotionally I’ll be able to keep it together because I’ll have to take my ring and necklace off again.

But I want to go. I want to keep making myself better. I want to keep working through the things that are hard and that hurt so they hurt less. Like physical therapy. It hurts, but it’s worth it in the end, right?

I wish I knew. I think that would make a lot of this easier. If I knew that, in the end, it would be ok then I wouldn’t be so worried about everything. If I knew the things I’m doing now “paid off” in the end and that I eventually get to where I’m “supposed” to be then I wouldn’t fret about messing up or being a slacker. But I don’t know where that is. I don’t have any answers for myself. I don’t have any advice other than “do what you need to do for yourself.”

If only I knew what that really was. I feel like I’m back to haphazardly going through life, trying not to mess things up any more than they already are. Maybe that’s all I can do for now. Maybe I’m back to doing things one day at a time, one hour at a time until I make it through this next disaster of a storm. Until I make it through December.

I had two dreams the night before last.

In one of them I was looking for a mat to go with a cross stitch I was trying to frame. I couldn’t find one the right size which was a little frustrating, but that wasn’t the main point of the dream.

For whatever reason, I looked down at my phone and saw the message “No Service Available” on the screen. I had a sinking, cold, dread feeling in my stomach because I knew the message was because Zane had done something. I woke up feeling exposed and vulnerable. I wasn’t able to go back to sleep for a few hours.

I couldn’t figure out why the dream bothered me so much. I honestly don’t care about my phone. It’s a point of frustration, not dread, for me since I’m having to pay for not only mine but his as well.

I had the realization that maybe it’s not about the phone itself. Maybe it’s about what the phone represents, which is connection. Connection to my friends and family. To my support structure. When I need someone I call them, or message them through Facebook, or text message. I usually send those messages when I’m in bed, or hiding somewhere. I’m usually on my phone, so if I don’t have my phone, in theory, I don’t have a way to contact the people I want when I need them.

Maybe I feel like Zane will cut me off from the people I love and care about. Or some force in general will. It’s something to meditate on.

The other dream started out as me essentially seducing a cute blond girl. No one I’ve ever met. I didn’t see her face. It was a pretty hazy dream, fuzzy and unclear like I couldn’t get it in focus properly.

What I do remember is that I was standing behind her, my arms wrapped around her in a hug, her hands were resting on my forearms. We were just standing here, holding each other. My cheek was resting against her hair, eyes closed, enjoying the moment as we stood in our embrace. I had the thought that I hadn’t seen mom in a while, which was odd. Even with her working, I should have seen her at least once during the day. But it felt like it had been days, weeks, since I had seen her. Something wasn’t right with that, but I couldn’t place what it was.

My brows furrowed as I tried to figure out why I hadn’t seen mom in so long.

That’s when I remembered that mom was dead and that I wouldn’t see her ever again and that I was dreaming. Realizing it was a dream made me not want to be there anymore. The girl wasn’t real. None of it was real. I wanted to wake up and be part of my reality, even if it hurt, so I opened my eyes and woke up.

Zane’s dream bothered me more than mom’s.

I think today is going to be hard. I have a birthday thing to go to for Nicole, but I don’t think I’m going to stay very long.

I have a list of things I would like to do, but I’m not going to sweat over it if some / most of it doesn’t get done. I’ve already completed the time sensitive things so I think I’m doing ok. I’m staying afloat after this latest wave and still riding out the aftermath.

This is my reality , and in my reality I’m still recovering.

Daily Post 123: First Adult Decision of Unemployment

Standard

I am now part of the ranks of the unemployed.

 

I finished up wiping my laptop yesterday morning. I went to school to print out emails. I used to have a folder on my laptop. “Good Stuff”. It was where I kept all of the good emails I had received over the four years I worked there. Thank you emails for something I had done. The nominations I got for the PROPS award. Congratulations emails for different things I achieved. You know… good stuff that made me feel warm and fuzzy.

 

I printed out all of those emails so I could keep them. I got to see Donna while I was upstairs printing things out. And Steve. I got to say goodbye to them.

 

I had hoped to get to the gym after printing my emails out, but I didn’t have time. Instead I had to go over to the HR department and do my exit interview. It was pretty painless. They explained how my benefits would work. They explained my 401k. I filled out a survey and then, at the  very end, she gave me a sheet and said if I wanted to, no obligation, I could write about my time at Full Sail.

 

I thought about it for a minute. I thought about not writing and just leaving things as they are / were. But I ended up taking the piece of paper and I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote.

 

“People are not cogs.” Was the very first line.

 

I wrote about how I spent two weeks sleeping in a hospital room being grateful that my mom woke up each morning, breathing. I wrote how I was lucky enough to have had two weeks of vacation time to cover my absence. I wrote about how mom died and I had to spend a week waiting for her ashes. A week I had to use sick time to cover for. I wrote about how I had to fly on a plane with mom’s ashes to South Carolina where I spent another week visiting people, consoling them, and setting up the memorial service. A week I was given bereavement time for.

 

I wrote about how when I finally got back home that I took a week off to begin my grieving and to try to figure out my life. A week I wasn’t paid for. A week my supervisor wrote a personal check to cover for me so I could pay my expenses. A check I paid back using my inheritance money.

 

I wrote how it didn’t matter that I was a PROPS recipient, or that I worked, unpaid, after hours to help my students. It didn’t matter that while being a full-time employee I was also working on a Digital Graphics degree. The only thing the school had cared about was that I wasn’t being a diligent cog and grinding away in the machine. Because I was being human I didn’t deserve to get paid.

 

I wrote how I wouldn’t be coming back to the school. That during this event that I deserved to not have to worry about how I was going to pay rent. I deserved to not have to worry about losing my home  after just having lost my mom. I shouldn’t have had to choose between my family, my well being, and my pay check.

 

I signed and dated my paper, placed my pencil down with most likely too much force, and slid the paper to the woman.

 

Her: “You wrote a lot.”

Me: “Yeah. It’s not the happiest letter.”

Her: “That’s ok. It doesn’t have to be.”

 

It was cathartic. It was my “fuck you” to the school. I’m not leaving because of my boss. I’m leaving because the school did nothing to support me, help me, care for me. All of the things I had done in the past to prove that I was a worthwhile employee, a worthwhile person, meant nothing.

 

Fine. I don’t have to stay. I don’t  have to chain myself to a place that disregards my input and treats me like a number, like an inanimate object. I’m a human. I deserve to be treated like a human. With love. Compassion. Understanding. Respect. And I refuse to accept anything less than that.

 

So that was done. After the interview I went to lab, which was the longest lab I have ever sat through. Clavan came in and asked if I wanted to do dinner afterward. I said yes. At least getting dinner would let me get a drink. It would give me something to mark my last day. An act of clousre.

 

After lab was done I walked out of the building, turned around, and took a picture of the doors that I have walked in and out of for the last six years of my life. I posted the picture on Facebook  saying thank you for an amazing six years. Even with all of the BS that happened during my time at the school I still feel like I grew a lot as a person. I have met life long friends that I’m not going to lose touch with. I don’t want to undo or change any of my time. I’m sad for it to be ending, but I’m happy that it happened and there are several moments I will cherish.

 

I walked over to Clavan’s office. I saw Joe while I was leaving, my boss’s boss.  We said our farewells and that was it. Clavan and I ended up going to my sports bar. I had an Angry Orchard. It helped me relax. It was  nice to have someone to share a drink with because I didn’t want to have a drink alone, but I really wanted a drink. It was only one. I was fine to drive. I wasn’t smashed or anything.

 

When we were leaving he gave me another hug. He, too, said I was a beautiful soul and that he knew I would do well. Queue mini cry session in my car. What is it with people telling me I’m a beautiful soul? I guess that’s going to be one of my truths.

 

I’m Jennifer Conley and I am a beautiful soul.

 

I need to meditate more on that one. Just like I need to meditate more on “I really will be ok”. In general I need to meditate.

 

Anyway…

 

I came back to my room and felt lonely. Sad. I was beginning to process through everything. I had also been messaging Warren #1 for most of the day, explaining my feelings about V. That’s another thing I’m having to process through.

 

I messaged V the other night and the conversation ended up turning to goodbyes and I said how he was going to be one of the people I miss. He said, “It’ll be ok.” And the weird thing is… I believe him. One way or another it will work out however it’s supposed to work out.

 

That mentality is reinforced by a dream I had last night. I don’t remember much about it. The details are already fading. But I was me. I was thin, healthy, the me I picture after a few months at the dojang and conditioning like I want. I was walking towards a building. I don’t remember what it was for. I remember I was  dressed nice. In heels I think. I remember something happening at the building and walking away from it. The more I think about it the more I think it was school for some reason. Maybe that’s just me filling in details that I shouldn’t be.

 

Anyway I was walking away from the building. I think there were people around. Like, it was an audition or something. And people were outside waiting. I remember walking by a person. There was a table with shoes on it. It might have only been one shoe. I only remember one being important, but it would have been silly to not have at least a pair…

 

The person was crying. They were overweight. They were sad and nervous. What if they didn’t make it? What if they weren’t good enough? Self-doubt. Insecurity. All things I feel and face daily. I think this person, too, was me, though I wasn’t playing her role in the dream.

 

Thin me stood by the table. I remember picking up a shoe. It was a high heel. Red. There was an ankle strap with feathers or some sort of fluff around it. It wasn’t a shoe I would wear, but I held it and sort of played with it  while I talked to the other women.

 

“It’s about trying. It doesn’t matter if you win. It matters that you tried and did your best. Be happy with you and it will be ok.”

 

I woke up knowing that the dream was about V and myself. I don’t know why or how I know, but I do. I feel a bit more secure, but it’s still something I need to meditate on. I’m really slacking off on the whole meditation, figuring my shit out, thing. I guess that’s why I’m taking a year off. To figure it all out.

 

Last night ended up being alright. I eventually got up, ordered a pizza, went to the store and got booze, then came home and played Witcher III for about 30 minutes before going to sleep. Chill night. Nothing major happened. I would have rather spent it as a blanket burrito being hugged by someone, but alas, I don’t have that option. Instead I ordered a brownie with my pizza because for once I actually did want some chocolate in my life.

 

First Adult Decision of Unemployment

Pizza and Strong Bow
with a brownie
followed by gaming

 

Seems like a legit adult decision.

 

Today feels like a low day. Like a sad day. We’ll see how it turns out.

 

Musing Moments 092: The Airport Dream

Standard

I had a dream that I was at an airport. I don’t remember it being extremely busy. I remember there was a line that went to somewhere but I didn’t have to stand in it. The part I remember the clearest was when I got to the security check point.

 

I didn’t have a bag with me so there was nothing for me to put on the conveyer belt. There really wasn’t a conveyer belt anyway. It was more like a really tall reception desk instead with the security person standing behind it. I should see their upper chest but that was about it. I think it was a girl but I’m not sure. I don’t think it really mattered.

 

I placed my wallet and cell phone on the counter and started to walk up to the scanner. While I was doing that the security person started making some sort of announcement about passenger items and what we needed to do with them. I don’t remember what was said, but I picked up my wallet and cell phone as I walked through the scanner and nothing went off. No alarms, no SWAT team repelling from the ceilings and tackling me to the ground.

 

The anxiety I had been feeling in the dream eased. I had made it through. I was ok.

 

I remember thinking that I didn’t have my car keys because if I had the alarm would have gone off. I remember feeling panicky about that. I remember thinking about the time I had gone with mom to pick up Jason from the airport and locking my keys in my car, sitting on the driver’s seat in plain view.

 

I was so worried and full of dread until I remembered that I had left my keys in the car on purpose. I had left the car unlocked so I could still get into it. I was still ok. I had everything I needed with me, and the things I didn’t I would still be able to have access to when the time was right.

 

I don’t remember having a destination. I don’t remember having to meet anyone, or having any real reason to be at the airport. But I remember that I made it through security so things would be ok.

 

I have a date on Wednesday. Maybe date isn’t the right word. Maybe meeting would be better since I’m still moving to Vegas. I don’t really know what counts as a date and what doesn’t, but maybe that’s because I’m socially awkward and I’ve never really been part of the “dating” scene.

 

Regardless of words and terms, I’m meeting a person that I’ve talked to for a few months now. It’s someone I was chatting with before mom’s hospitalization. We talked about games, and free lance, and blacksmithing and all sorts of random things.

 

As things got worse between Zane and me I stopped messaging. And then everything happened with mom. While I was in Vegas he reached out to me through email to see if things were ok. I told him about what happened. He has been open and understanding and kind and the line that affected me the most was, “Take your time.” His message was the first message I had received from anyone at the time. The first message after mom’s death. “Take your time,” gave me the permission I hadn’t realized I needed to breathe.

 

I think I replied with a thank you message, but didn’t really say much else. It wasn’t until I had gotten back to Orlando I reached out to him again and even then it wasn’t very much. Not until last weekend while I was in the hotel room alone. I couldn’t sleep so I got on Skype and sent a message. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to let him know that I wasn’t ok. That at the moment it was really dark for me.

 

He has been open, understanding, and kind, and his messages have helped me when I’ve felt alone. There’s a lot of people who have helped me and I’m grateful for all of them even if I haven’t written about them or mentioned them in some way.

 

Currently I have never met V. I know it might seem silly but that’s how I think of him. He’s V from “V for Vendetta” for me.

 

I’ve never met him. I haven’t seen his picture yet, which may seem sort of weird in an Internet creeper sort of way. He’s this amazingly compassionate person in a Guy Fox mask to me, and I want to be able to see him in person. I want to say thank you face to face for the support and understanding he has given me. I want to give him a hug and personally express how much his kindness during this situation has meant to me. And I want to be able to do that before I leave.

 

So yeah… we’ve agreed to meet. We’re going to have dinner at a sushi place. I don’t know what’s going to happen past that. I don’t know if that’s a date or a meeting and really I don’t care. It’s going to be whatever it is and I’m looking forward to it in a nervous, “What if he doesn’t like me,” sort of school girl way. Yay insecurities I suppose.

 

I think the dream was about the meeting.

 

It wasn’t a bad dream. I made it through something that normally gives me anxiety while still holding onto the things that were important to me.

 

I’m going to keep looking forward to my meeting. I’m going to keep looking forward to dressing relatively nice and going out for good food and amazing conversation since for the past nights we’ve talked on the phone as he drives to work.

 

I still smile when I think about it. Our second conversation Saturday night.

 

V: Do you want to talk?

Me: Yes and no. I don’t want you to feel obligated to talk to me, and I don’t want to darken your day.

V: I work at night… you can’t darken my day. 😉

 

I don’t think I have laughed and smiled and enjoyed myself so much since months before the hospital. Zane and I had been doing poorly for so long.

 

It’s nice to feel girly. It’s nice to have something to look forward to.

Musing Moment 090: There and Back Again – A Warrior’s Tale

Standard

I threw away my pack of cigarettes this evening (please don’t kill me Mother Earth, I love you <3 ). I talked to John after he got to the air port and wished him a safe trip back to Germany today. I talked with Zane again about the car this evening. He’s going to be biking to work instead of using the car. The car is mine he said. He’s not going to try to get a loan or take it from me. I have a permanent place to stay while I’m here in Orlando for the next two months. I don’t have to worry about the phones, either.

 

I got the urn necklace yesterday. Today I filled it.

 

Today I talked with Sir about our breakup. We have closure for that part of life. And I know I’ve tried writing his name differently. RB. SirRandius. I’ve tried to call him by his real name because “Sir” means something, but I can’t think of him as anything else. I’m Freya, and he’s Sir. And even though we aren’t going to get back together or have any sort of BDSM / relationshipy relationship, I still, in my head, refer to him as Sir, and so instead of having to constantly backspace over my writing, I’m just going to go with it.

 

He has been so supportive through all of this. So many people have. Mother Earth. Sir. My dad. My friends. My boss. My brothers. Strangers. My blogging buddies.

 

I have no idea how I have made it almost a whole month. I have no idea how I have made it past mom’s death. Not only her death but the end of my relationship in the same breath. The end of my current career. Mind you, I chose to end that, but it’s still a pretty intense change in life. And the choice to move three time zones away, though that is now going to be a few months down the road.

 

It’s a lot of change in a short period of time. That’s like… all of my life, beaten, bloody, bruised, and yet here I am. Still writing, still breathing.

 

Somehow I haven’t self-harmed. And the few times I did feel those feelings were because of the relationship stress. The few times I have wanted to manifest my emotional pain into a physical form I haven’t because I know mom wouldn’t want that. And after my therapy session on Thursday those urges went away. After talking and admitting and having an outside perspective on only a handful of my issues I felt more stable, more solid, more like myself than I have in what seems like forever.

 

Somehow I’ve made it through what I think are the hardest parts of this chapter. Honestly I feel like I have started a whole new book. I’ve survived. I have crawled, clawed, and fought my way through everything. Right now I’m in the epilogue before starting something new in Vegas.

 

I had a dream while I was in Vegas. After mom had died. It was about a black widow. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I was in mom’s bedroom, in the bed, and I saw this spider. I wasn’t scared of her, just aware, watching, seeing what she would do. As I watched I saw baby spiders spawning, morphing, growing on her back.

 

They weren’t widows. They were just spiders. Normal icky spiders, but the more I looked the more there were. Hundreds, thousands, millions of baby spiders squirming all over the widow’s back until they started falling off of her in waves, infesting the room.

 

While the widow herself didn’t bother me, the baby spiders did. My dream self saw the widow as ok, but the baby spiders were bad. Really bad. I had to get rid of them. They were growing, too. Getting bigger. Countless spiders growing and growing and I had to do something.

 

I remembered seeing bug spray under the kitchen sink while I had been cleaning out mom’s things. I ran to the kitchen and got it, then ran back to the room. I sprayed the spiders. Over and over. Each time the spray touched them they would shrivel up and die, turning into a dried up brown husk. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed, trying to kill all of the spiders.

 

The widow was no where to be seen, but all of the baby spiders twitched and cringed and I mercilessly destroyed their attempts to take over my room. My mom’s room. They weren’t allowed to have it. It was mine, my space, my haven.

 

I remember waking up tired, as if I had fought a war, but I wasn’t scared or sickened by my dream. I felt solid. I wouldn’t let the spiders win.

 

I feel like the widow was me, which I know is hard to see. Spiders are normally thought of as bad things, but they’re actually symbols of power. Black widows are specifically female power.

 

I feel like the baby spiders represented issues and problems. Things that were in some way connected to me. I had created them, or taken them on. Arranging things for mom with the funeral home. Packing up the apartment. Figuring out how to keep people informed. My work situation. The issues with Zane and everything that went with him seeing another person. Processing the fact that mom had died and that the future I had in my head wasn’t going to happen.

 

Millions of thoughts, things, issues, chores, problems. Millions of things that were consuming my life, infesting and overwhelming me.

 

Sitting here today, in front of my computer for the first time, writing, truly writing and not just updating, I feel like I have mercilessly killed most if not all of the spiders that were trying to invade my life.

 

And at the moment I want to cry with relief even though I know there are still things I need to take care of.

 

Sir has been kind enough to let me stay with him and his girlfriend. I have my own room. Sort of. It’s their office, but it’s a room, with a door, and it’s own bathroom, and I have an air mattress to sleep on instead of sleeping on the floor. I have a place to stay and that act of kindness, of opening their home to me, brings me to tears because even after all of this time I feel I do not deserve his friendship.

 

Zane, though he said hurtful things today while we discussed the car, is just as tired of fighting as I am, and let the issue go. Because of that I don’t have to worry about finding a place closer to school. I was looking at staying with Ari, but I’m not sure how much more comfortable I would be there than staying with Zane. And now that I have the car it’s not an issue. I can stay here with Sir, a 20 minute drive from work, and still be able to make it there.

 

Zane says it is my choice to not stay at the apartment, but has agreed to let me pay less in rent. He said once he is able to he will remove me from the lease. He said he wants to mend our friendship. He understands that there’s no longer a place for me in the apartment. And maybe all of that is lip service. Maybe it’s silly of me to feel relief from that, but I do. I feel like the fighting is over. That he will find a way to make life work for him, just like I’m having to find a way to make life work for me in the wake of my entire world changing.

 

I have an arrangement with Clavan. I will be staying for the next two months. By then the life insurance money should be paid so I won’t have to borrow money to move my things to Vegas. I’ll be able to earn a bit more money by continuing to work. I can say goodbye to all of my friends here. I can have closure and do this “properly” rather than rushed. I can earn a few more paychecks and not leave my coworkers screwed, which I really don’t want to do because they have been so supportive and understanding.

 

Frank wants to do one last card night. Clavan wants to do dinner at Chewy’s. I know other people will want to have a final farewell with me, and I know that I will miss them all, so much. So incredibly much.

 

But at the same time I am looking forward to being back with Jason and Lio. I’m looking forward to going to the dojang I found and truly beginning my year. My year of mourning. My year of training. My year of “learning to me”. I’m totally stealing that from you Mamma Spike. <3

 

I wrote before how I was no longer a teacher, or a student, or a daughter, or a girlfriend. I wrote how I didn’t know who I was because I was none of the things I used to be. And I had so many people write to me and say that those things did not define who I am. I was still me.

 

And they are right. I am still myself.

 

I am still Freya. I am still Jennifer. I am still a warrior. And I am still all of the things I thought I wasn’t.

 

I will always be a student because I learn something new every day. I will continue to learn about myself, the world, and how things work. I will still try new recipes, and find better ways, more efficient ways, to do things. I will still Google stuff that fascinates me, and I will continue to keep an open mind.

 

I am still a teacher, and not just because I’m staying at my job a bit longer. I taught Em, Sir’s girlfriend, how to play Magic the Gathering the other night. I am teaching Hannah how to keep going through life even when it sucks by showing her it’s possible. I’m showing Em that even after a break up it’s possible to still be really good friends with someone. It doesn’t have to be a horrible, “I’m never going to talk to you again” situation, even if it feels like it at the time. I’m teaching myself how to be kind and patient with my emotions because collected as I may sound through my writing, my emotions are seriously all over the place still.

 

I’m still a daughter because my mom is still with me. She’s in me. In my actions, in my laugh, in my eyes, in my soul, and that’s never going to change. I’m a daughter because even though my dad wasn’t around for band competitions, or to hear my speech at my college graduation, or any number of other events in my life that might have meant a lot to me at the time, he was here when I needed him the most.

 

He answered the phone every time I called to update about mom. He let me cry when I told him she had passed away. He flew out to be there for the service, and even though those three days were really hard, they are currently the best days in my mind because for those days I didn’t have to be an adult, at least not often.

 

Dad was there. I wasn’t the oldest. I wasn’t the most responsible. It was ok to admit that it hurt and that I was sad and scared and angry. He let me drink and made sure I was still ok. It was the first time we ever had drinks together.

 

My dad wasn’t around for a lot of things. But he was there when I legitimately needed him to be there, and I didn’t have to ask it of him. He stepped up and was the parent I needed him to be. The support. The friend. And it’s another thing that may be silly, our relationship may never be anything other than those three days, but I am so grateful for them. I am still a daughter because I still have a dad, and even if I don’t understand his way of showing it all the time, I know, unquestionably, that he still loves me, because when mom couldn’t be there, he was.

 

As for the girlfriend thing. I don’t know. Maybe I was never a girlfriend. Maybe I was silly through the whole thing because I don’t understand how it was able to become such a negative relationship. Sir and I talked about it for a little bit and I mentioned how I felt like a frog in my relationships.

 

If you put frogs in a pot of cool water they won’t try to get away. You can turn the burner on and the water will slowly kill them, and the frogs won’t do anything because they don’t notice the water slowly heating up until it’s too late.

 

I said that I felt it was like that. The things that should be warning signs are so small, so unnoticeable, that I don’t realize how negative the relationship is until I’m boiling and there’s nothing that can save it.

 

I need to stop being a frog and be the earth dragon that I know I am. I should have stopped letting myself feel unloved and unappreciated. I should have done something more after I voiced my concerns and realized that nothing was changing.

 

April 4th 2016 I added two new labels to my collection. Two new identifiers for who I am.

 

Matriarch.

 

I am a warrior. I am a survivor. I am a writer, artist, and creative. I am intelligent, strong, and honest. I am a daughter, sister, and aunt.

 

And on April 4th, 2016 I became the matriarch of my family tree.

 

I also became an adult. For the first time in my life I stood before people and understood what that word meant. It’s not something that I can explain I don’t think but I’m going to try anyway.

 

Mom was my sun. She was the soft glow that made everything seem warm and happy and good and right. When it was dark, she was there lighting my way and helping me to not stumble.

 

It’s like there was a color shift in my world. It’s not that things are gray and lifeless. But I see things as they are, rather than tinted with the yellow warmth of mom’s light.

 

I guess it can be compared to rose tinted glasses.

 

Instead of mom’s light being outside, guiding me, in front of me, it became internal. I am the light now. I’m the one guiding others. Because the light is inside me I see things differently, they look different, feel different.

 

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that different doesn’t mean bad. But eventually I do remember that fact. Things are different, and I’m still not used to these differences, but I’m getting better. I’m not used to this “adult” feeling. I’m not used to these new mantles. One mantle I wasn’t expecting to receive for years to come, and the other I never realized I hadn’t actually attained.

 

They’re new, and each are heavy in their own way, but I’m learning how to shoulder these new weights, and even though I still stumble, after all it hasn’t even been a full month yet, somehow I am still going, and I fully believe it is because there are so many supportive, caring, loving people in my life who are determined to not let me fall.

 

There are so many people helping me, who take my calls when I randomly need to hear about someone else’s day so I don’t get lost inside my own head, or who message me out of nowhere saying they are thinking of me, or who randomly come in while I’m fighting with an air mattress and say how even after all this time, after everything that has happened between us in the past, that I’m still beautiful.

 

Yes, I’m girly, and hearing that I’m beautiful while I’m icky and sweaty and worried about my pride being beaten by an inanimate object after a horrific breakup is almost as amazing and being given a container of Talenti salted caramel ice cream and being told to change into comfy pjs because we’re about to binge watch Game of Thrones. Which, by the way, I’m totally content with the first episode of the new season, because my opinion of the new episode is totally relevant information right now.

 

I still have a ton of things to take care of, but things like filing my taxes seems so ridiculously easy in comparison to everything else that I’ve had to take care of this year, and it’s not even May yet. And yes, I know my taxes are late, and if that’s the only thing that I’ve dropped the ball on then I think I’m doing pretty well and anyone who doesn’t think I’m a total BAMF can go get punched in the face… with love… tough love… I promise I’m not a violent person…

 

Anyway, I’m all written out, and I didn’t even really get into how my therapy session went, or any of the stuff going on with the estate, or other lame things that I can’t think of because they’re lame and unimportant.

 

Life has been really hard. Parts of it have sucked. Hard core. And other parts of it have been amazing and healing and given me the closure that I needed. I have had mountains and valleys, demons and angels alike.

 

I have made it there and back again, and I am all the stronger for it.

 

Here’s to closing out tonight, and to tomorrow. Another new day.

 

 

Daily Post 088: Sushi, Dishes, and the Dream

Standard

I ended up biking to the store after writing my blog. I got a bunch of stuff done around the apartment too, including vacuuming. Woo. I went to work where I continued to work on my homework. Frank and I talked for a while. He asked how my race went. He said I looked stoned in my pictures which makes me more self conscious about taking them. I actually asked Zane about it, if he thought I looked stoned. Blah…

 

Anyway. Zane picked me up from work so we could do sushi with Hannah. She wanted to hang out. After eating she wanted us to come over to her apartment since her roommate moved out over the weekend. I wasn’t up for it though. I was still burnt out from the weekend, all of the biking I had done earlier in the day, which helped my muscles relax actually, and from being at work. I just wanted to go home and shower. So we said out goodbyes and Zane and I came home.

 

Yesterday ended up being my day off, and it was a much-needed day. One that started with a minor blow up about the kitchen, which seems to be a reoccurring thing now. That actually ties in later during the day.

 

But yeah, not an overly fun morning. I had to clean up everything, wiping down the counters which still had dried up spills of alcohol from the party on Sunday. Gross, much? Only then was I able to start making breakfast. I made the tuna after that so I would have food for lunches, while still having to do laundry and homework at some point. Plus actual grocery shopping which didn’t get done the night before…

 

Begin feelings of being overwhelmed and it’s only 9am.

 

Can I have a day off that’s actually a day off?

 

I know that’s not really fair of me, but I didn’t get one this past weekend. I wrote about how the previous week was really rough from the start. So bad week + race day Saturday + Social Sunday + busy week so far means I really would rather the world catch on fire than have to talk to another human or make decisions or take care of shit for other people.

 

Zane and I talked about it. He said I should talk to Trevor specifically about him taking over washing his dishes since it’s really only him and Danielle making a mess in the kitchen and leaving it. After a while I agreed I would talk to him at some point.

 

I also talked about a dream that I had. I don’t remember the beginning of it. I know Warren #2 was there. I remember we talked about something, and then started walking, him following behind me. I don’t remember where we were going. There was another segment or two that I can’t recall, and then the end.

 

We were leaving Ari’s apartment, heading towards the gate at the exit. There’s a tall, wooden fence that separates the apartment complex from the parking lot of a shopping plaza. In the dream the fence was covered with foliage. Thick vines and leaves. All a lush, vibrant green. There were butterflies everywhere. So many colors, all different types.

 

I made a comment as the car drove past them, “You know, butterflies are attracted to dead things.”

 

As I said it the car pulled up to the gate, which opened for us. As we drove past I looked out the window and saw an owl. A barn owl, white with tannish, orange-ish markings, wings spread out on the ground. It looked like road kill. Its head was bloody and butterflies were all over it. I knew, even being far away, that the butterflies were eating the flesh of the owl. I watched as we drove past. Detached.

 

And then the owl lifted its head ever so slightly, eyes shut, but I could see it, I could feel it. The pain and desperation to survive and there was a sickening, icy weight in my stomach. It was alive. It was dying. The butterflies were eating it alive.

 

And then I woke up.

 

Zane and I talked about the dream. I hadn’t realized it had bothered me so much. But it did.

 

Zane had taken the day off because he had felt sick on Tuesday, which meant we actually got to spend the day together, alone. Something we haven’t been able to do for a while. It was a good day.

 

I finished off one of my assignments for school and submitted it. So that leaves only one thing to do. I plan to start work on it today. I wrote but never posted since I didn’t feel like proof reading nine pages. My mom called, but I didn’t really feel like talking, so I said I would call her back. That’s going to happen today. I chatted with my younger brother for a bit on Facebook. He’s helping me out in Dragonvale, which I’m still obsessing over. Zane says I don’t play the game right. It’s not supposed to be a second job, but what did he expect from an MMO gamer? Doesn’t help that I’m a completionist. I have to get everything or else I’ve failed.

 

I’m working on getting some of the rarer dragons that are only available for this month. I may have gotten the Carnival dragon, but it has the same incubation time as the Moss dragon, so I won’t know which one it is for another 12 hours. Lame.

 

The bike had been left at school Tuesday night since Zane picked me up for sushi. I didn’t want to be at work for 12 hours today, so Wednesday afternoon he took me to school so I could bike back home. It was super cold and windy, and the ride wasn’t all that awesome, but I did it and I’m glad I did. While I was out Zane got Chinese for dinner. We watched an episode of The Flash. It was the Christmas episode. I enjoyed it.

 

After the episode Zane told me to talk to Trevor, which made me feel put on the spot, and as an introvert that was a no go. Long story short, instead of letting me talk to Trevor when I was ready, Zane talked to Trevor about stepping up in the kitchen and taking care of his stuff for me.

 

I know Zane had good intentions. He was trying to make the environment less stressful for me, especially since it was affecting how we interact with each other. But it made me feel like less of an adult. I didn’t understand how he could have respect for me if he thought I wasn’t capable of handling my own issues. It hurt and made me angry at the same time.

 

I was going to do it, but I hadn’t been given the chance to is what it felt like.

 

We talked about it.

 

Zane: What do you need me to say to make this right?

Me: That you love me and that you don’t think I’m a bad person.

Zane: Silly girl. That goes without saying. I love you and I don’t think you’re a bad person.

 

Maybe it is silly, but I felt like I lost face with Trevor for not talking to him myself, and there’s no way to go back and change that. I’m pretty sure I’ve let most of it go. It doesn’t feel all that awesome, but it’s not like it was last night either. And the kitchen was mostly clean when I went to make breakfast this morning, which was awesome, so maybe in the end it wasn’t a bad as it felt like in my head.

 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all.

 

So that was yesterday. Fairly low key. Still got an alright workout in, and made progress on the homework front. The soreness from race day is pretty much all gone.

 

Laundry still needs to get done, but Zane said he would take care of that when he got home if I put money on the laundry card. I don’t go into work until 5pm today, so I might do it myself, using the machines here at the complex instead of going to a Laundromat. I’m not sure yet. I’m going to finish my coffee before making any solid plans.

 

It looks like a nice day outside. Lots of sun. I’m not sure how cold it is, but the wind hasn’t picked up yet, so maybe it will be a fairly warm day. That would be nice. I could use some summer vibes right now.

 

Zane snipped at me this morning but I know it was grouchy-ness and he’s already apologized for it. He feels worse today than he did on Tuesday. I hope he’s not getting sick. I hope it’s from maybe not sleeping well. We haven’t talked much this morning, so I’m not sure. He might stay home tomorrow if he can. Yay sick time. I know a bunch of people at his work have been out due to being sick. Maybe it’s his turn.

 

I haven’t gone back to the dojo yet. I had planned to do that Monday but was still too sore from my race. So that’s been pushed back a week. Or maybe I’ll go Saturday and train with Juan and Beata. It would be fantastic if my first class back was with them. We’ll see.

 

That’s pretty much it though. Nothing super crazy. Just a lax day with an unsettling dream.

 

I think the owl was Athena, which is a very disturbing thought. Athena was dying, suffering. I don’t want that.

Daily Post 069: More Rain

Standard

I’m back to feeling meh again. Every day this week, the week which was supposed to be my actual vacation, I have had some sort of work related thing to take care of. I have had messages to reply to, misunderstandings to clear up, paper work to sign, people to reassure… It hasn’t been relaxing… at all. It’s been annoying and frustrating, which I think is adding to my “meh” feeling right now.

 

I still haven’t been sleeping well. There was a dream a few days ago about doing pull ups. I was able to do five of them. I know there was more to the dream then that, but I can’t remember what.

 

There was a dream of Jarrett. I saw him in passing, saw his profile as we passed each other, his hat covering his hair. He didn’t see me and kept walking. It was as if I wasn’t there to him at all.

 

The dream from last night was about ice skating again. I was competing but before I could I had to have my height measured against a wall, much the way children are measured against a door frame when they’re young. I also had to skate around the rink picking up pieces of paper that were frozen to the ice. Some of it was important I think, but other things were trash like the paper wrappers of straws. Again, one that I can’t clearly remember the over all message for, though I believe the ice skating was representing aikido for me.

 

Zane and I had sex for first time in weeks last night so it’s even more frustrating that I feel so disconnected after an amazing night.

 

In general I think I’m in a mood and I don’t like it. Zane is sort of in one too. Today hasn’t been bad, but we both want away from the world, and aren’t getting one.

 

I have 15 emails to go through in my inbox. Most of them need replies. There are veggies to cut up in the kitchen because there’s so little space in the fridge that nothing will fit unless I am able to put it into containers.

 

The hookah tipped over last night and burnt Zane’s sheets, though nothing else was damaged. We wanted to replace them anyway, but it would have been nice if we weren’t replacing them because the old ones were destroyed.

 

I’m able to remember all of these things that are wrong, or bad. It’s still rainy and icky outside. It’s still cold.

 

It’s annoying. I’m annoying. To myself, much less to anyone reading my “woe is me” trains of thought.

 

I don’t even know what to write about. What would make me begin to feel better. I’ve cross stitched a bit today, but honestly I need to seriously begin work on my homework which is due Wednesday. I have an idea for doing the entire set of face cards for the assignment. I think it will work out well once I get the base file started. I also think I’m going to go with a digital median rather than a traditional one.

 

I got the car taken care of, everything for free, so that was awesome.

 

I’ve had a handful of donations to my St. Jude fund, which gives me motivation. It helps me feel like other people believe in me and support me. It some ways it may be selfish to feel that way, but it does mean a lot.

 

Arg. I want to get over this trapped feeling.

 

Another factor may be that the apartment is a disaster, and none of the mess is mine. The kitchen table is covered in tools and scrap metal because Zane and Trevor are working on a project. Christmas paper and boxes are still strung about because Trevor hasn’t put them away and I have no idea where they go. There isn’t space in the freezer for Zane and I to put food because John’s stuff is still taking up over half of it. Stuff that has been in there for literally two months and hasn’t been touched, plus to bottles of some sort of alcohol, which the whole point of me keeping the mini-fridge was to have a “sin fridge” where all of that stuff is kept. But there’s so much in there, that once again, hasn’t been touched or even looked at, that it has to take up room in the normal freezer too. Let’s not forget about the pile of bottles on the floor in the pantry that also, are alcohol and not being used.

 

Honestly… How can someone buy so much crap and not use it? I don’t get it. And it’s annoying because I want to throw it away so there’s space for the stuff we do actually, legitimately need, like trash bags, or paper towels. But it’s not my stuff so I can’t.

 

Cleaning would make me feel better, but I can’t touch any of the things that need to be cleaned because they’re not mine. I feel like I don’t belong at the moment and that’s a driving factor in my discontent. And the more I focus on it the more it’s going to bother me, but the more I’m here the more it’s glaringly obvious that this space isn’t mine.

 

Zane and I have done part of our grocery trip. He plans to do the rest later tonight. He said he would buy a pair of sneakers as well, but I’m not sure if he actually will. He keeps mentioning his budget. He thinks that being more active will help his sex drive, and I want to believe that. I know it affects mine. It would give us something to do other than stay at home.

 

I want change. I want things to be different. I want to be able to act on the plans we’ve hashed out. And I can’t. I have to sit here. I have to wait. I have to do things I don’t want to do and I can’t cover up or hide the fact that it makes me unhappy. I can’t pretend that I like the situation, because I don’t.

 

I want it to be sunny. I want it to be warm. I want to feel alive when I wake up in the morning rather than half dead like the day. Gray, overcast, only half real.

 

I feel like the next two months are going to be long. I feel like they’re going to drag by. And right now, in my gloomy, dreary, downer of a mood, I feel like I’m wasting my time and life again.

 

I was sick Thursday. Wednesday when I had to bike to school it started raining on me. Only after I had been biking for five minutes already. To far to go back to the apartment and grab a change of clothes without being late to sign my paper work. So I had to spend the whole day in lab, soaked, with wet shoes, and then bike back home. I was freezing. And so Thursday I woke up feeling feverish and spent the whole day feeling icky. I had to cancel training with Terri.

 

Friday was the car thing. Zane took us out to breakfast at Waffle House since I was taking him to work that morning. After dropping him off I came back and slept until 12:30 since I had slept so poorly the night before. I made it to my appointment by the skin of my teeth. Afterwards I went to Jo Anns because I needed more of the blue thread I’m using for my cross stitch. I also got more fabric while I was there. The 50% off coupon was still on the website, so I made it out of the store with $5 left on the gift card from my mom.

 

By then I had enough time to go back to the apartment and sit on my hands. I didn’t have enough time to go to the gym before picking up Zane. He wanted me to dress nice. He wanted to take me out to dinner and have a date night. Which actually turned out fantastic.

 

See, good things did happen.

 

So why does today feel chalked full of so much lame?

 

Where as yesterday I really didn’t have time for the gym, today was an active choice to not go. I didn’t want to deal with it. With life. With anything. And really I still don’t. I’ve been listening to my audio book while cross stitching in the living room. Me in the chair, turned so it faces Zane while he watches iZombie on Netflix, his headphones plugged into the controller so the sounds don’t clash with my book.

 

We just ordered pizza from Papa John’s for dinner since the grocery isn’t done and we’re missing elements for all of the meals we have planned.

 

We’ve gotten really good at justifying eating out. Which isn’t good. It might be yet another factor into feeling sort of lame. You are what you eat, and I’m sick of French fries. I’ve never really had a thing for them, but they’re convenient. Apparently more convenient than feeling good.

 

Maybe a really big factor is the fact that I’ve been trying to avoid work and it seems no matter what I do, where I try to hide, somehow it finds me. Someone messages me on Facebook, or texts my phone, or I stupidly check my work email to see the messages I have. Even on Saturday, SATURDAY, and actual day off, I’m bothered by shit that was agreed upon before the winter break. A month before it actually, to which everyone was sent an email, and everyone knew about. But suddenly, after the break, I’m supposed to go back to working six days a week. It’s not happening. Not even a little. Not even for one week because, no. Just straight up no. Maybe if I hadn’t done it for a year and a half believing people when I was told it was temporary. Maybe if I didn’t feel like my trust was betrayed, or that people are a bunch of liars.

 

Maybe if I wasn’t overly sensitive to it because I never get a break from it like now when I use vacation time to try to recover and unplug and get away, and I can’t because it’s like a cancer.

 

I guess I have a lot of frustration over this. More than I realized. I don’t think that’s the only thing spurring on this angst, but maybe it’s a larger factor than I realize. Maybe it’s the apartment and work together. I hate being in an environment that’s messy. Like, it drives me bat-shit insane to not be able to clean.

 

I feel like a restless dragon that needs to chew on something until the blood rage goes away. How hard is it to put your stuff away when your done using it? Especially in a public room? Or to not buy more alcohol? How hard it is to be considerate of other people and not encroach upon their space?

 

I need to find an outlet, a different one, because at the moment writing isn’t helping. At the moment it’s just adding fuel to the fire which is already a mildly uncontainable inferno.

Daily Post 007: Canceled Plans and Grading

Standard

I’m not sure how I feel about today. Right now I’m restless and agitated because the projects I just finished grading made me frustrated, and I don’t know what to do about the frustration. It’s sitting within my chest like an icky, stagnant pool of water. I wish it would wash away because the rest of the day was actually pretty decent.

I slept well, though I know the dream I had would / should be classified as a nightmare.

I don’t remember all that much about it. But there was a group of people, students, I think something like junior detective type people. They were looking for someone, chasing someone, and they had to go into this institute to find their suspect. It was like an old boarding school, only the door to the building didn’t open. It was more like a portal, so you had to try to walk through the closed door, and if you were “eligible” to attend the school you were able to make it to the other side.

One of the detective guys chased the suspect into the school, but once he was on the other side of the door he wasn’t sure where to go. I remember he talked to an instructor, but I don’t remember what was said, if it was advice or a warning. I just remember it was an important figure, but someone who was not directly involved.

The room had a library feel to it. I remember the room was lit with oil lamps and the walls were lined with books. Tons of books. And there were other people, dressed like the instructor, standing around reading, others sitting at tables leaning in close to each other in hushed conversation.

The detective guy ended up getting into a fight of some sort. He ended up in a dark corridor alone, I think he was scared.

I remember he was caught by surprise by an evil spirit with the face of a skull and eye sockets which were like black holes, pockets of infinite blackness, and bits of blood and flesh still clinging to the facial bone structure. It was a dirty, yellowed and grimy skull. Not a clean white one.

I remember that it was a female spirit, with I think white, stringy hair which floated behind her head, spread out sort of like a fan, so she seemed to take up more space than she actually did.

I remember that the detective became injured. He was “found out” and expelled from the building. The scene changed suddenly to the front of the building where the other detectives were waiting. They hadn’t entered yet. The original detective was suddenly thrown from the portal, his limp body arching through the air and hitting the ground, rolling down the steps of the building until stopping at the feet of the other detectives.

They gathered around the body, confused, unsure of what had happened or what to do. Red splatters hit the ground after a few seconds, catching their attention. They looked up, following the splatters. Their eyes trailed up above the door where they saw a statute of an angle her arms outstretched, which had begun to cry tears of blood. Bright, fresh red.

The other detectives became extremely alarmed at this, and charged through the portal door themselves, leaving the limp body of the original detective alone. I’m not sure if he was dead or not. He wasn’t moving. I couldn’t see if he was breathing.

I wasn’t part of the story. I was watching it happen. I woke up then. I don’t know who they were after, or why. I don’t know what happened to any of them. I don’t know why the angle was important. I don’t know why it was crying tears of blood, or why she was crying at all.

It left me more curious than anything, though the detail in the dream was extremely graphic.

I ended up stitching for a little bit this morning while I drank water. I had half a breakfast shake with half an apple again before going to the gym where I ran. My time was a little slower, only by 30 seconds, and I feel that happened because I ran a few longer intervals and a slower pace. I figured I should work on endurance a little bit.

Once I was done with the gym I came back home. Zane was awake by then. He had sent me the address for the assessment appointment and mentioned how he wanted to leave around 11 just to make sure we didn’t get snagged in the lunch traffic. Since it was located downtown it was a good idea to leave early anyway because we didn’t know what parking was going to be like, and since neither of use had been there previously, getting lost was also a possibility.

So after showering we headed out to the location, which we found fine. We ended up being 30 minutes early, were seen 20 minutes early, and done 10 ‘til 12. Talk about being on top of it.

Since that was done we went to my sports bar where we had lunch.

Afterwards we came home where I started the laundry. I had wanted to go to kickboxing later in the day and needed clean workout stuff. After starting the wash I decided to take a nap. My body was tired more than my mind, and it took me a bit to fall asleep. I don’t remember any dreams from my nap.

When I woke up I realized that going to the gym most likely wasn’t going to happen. I was still tired. Muscle tired. So instead I poked around online for a little bit, stitched another thread, then started my grading. Zane had switched the wash and brought it back inside, so currently it needs to be put away. I’m not thinking that’s going to happen tonight, though there’s no real reason for me not to do it other than laziness.

It sucks that out of everything that could have messed the day up that I’m letting work do it. I really should just let it go. If people don’t want to ask questions, or have their work checked before submitting it, or if they don’t want to check it themselves, that’s their priority.

I know as a student myself that I have knowingly gone against a project’s requirements because I was happy with my work the way it was, and I accepted that I was going to be docked points for the missing criteria.

When looking at it from the perspective a a student, maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh with my guys.

On the flip side, none of my projects have been continuations. The file my class works on has to meet certain marks because the file will be used in the second project for the class. So if the things we check for are wrong or missing you’re going to have to go back and add / fix them before you can move forward. And I feel the first project is so easy compared to when I went through as a student myself. I feel like there really isn’t a reason to not get a 100, especially when we offer to essentially pre-grade the file while the students are in lab.

There’s two sides to everything, and I should focus more on the fact that three students did extremely well. It’s discouraging when over half of the files seem to be half-assed, though.

Other than that not much has gone on. Because Clavan wanted the grading done tonight I messaged Ari in the morning to see about rescheduling our hang out time for Sunday afternoon. She won’t be free during that time frame, so at the moment we’re going to have to rain check our time for another week. I feel like a large burden has been lifted in that regard.

One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday was a pretty amusing conversation I had with Zane via Facebook. While I was in lab I received a message from him.

Zane: Guess what I found?
Me: Dignity?
Zane: … I’m done with you…

It burned so good! XD

I was proud of myself for that one.

That’s the type of playful banter we have with each other. He picked on me for the rest of the night for it, but it was so worth it.

Right now I’m in the room typing this up while he plays Assassin’s Creed. I think it’s the Black Flag game? Not sure if that’s what it’s actually called. It’s the one where you’re a pirate. I watched it for a little bit, but with all of the agitation inside me I didn’t want to sit still all that much. I didn’t want to watch a show, or smoke hookah, or go out for anything.

I mildly want something sweet to eat which frustrates me more. I am not a sweets person. At least I haven’t been until moving into the apartment. I don’t think I actually want it, it’s just habit now. Not a cool habit, bro.

I didn’t have my coffee this morning though, so I might use that as a remedy for this sweet tooth I seem to be developing. I’m super, uber not ok with it, so it will be remedied. Even if that means being a bit of a jerk and not buying sweet stuff anymore. Zane will soon have his own paycheck that he can spend on whatever he wants.

I think I’m going to shower again, and then have my coffee while listening to more of Dragonquest. I’m almost done with the audio book I’m pretty sure. I’ve been doing really well with drinking water both yesterday and today, but for some reason I’m running a little warm at the moment. Maybe a shower will help with that as well as relaxing from the frustration of work.

Then I can amp myself up on caffeine and stay awake all night. But that’s ok because I don’t work tomorrow. Woohoo. : D

Daily Post 002: Friday Fail

Standard

Lab just ended. Another month over. I’m glad. I want to be done with it. I want it to be December. Which is sort of sad. I normally don’t get along very well with December even though it’s my birth month. There’s Christmas and the New Year and holiday vacation and all these other reasons which most people look forward to, but I usually don’t.

I enjoy seeing my family. I enjoy the vacation. But the winter season isn’t something I look forward to. And so it’s odd that I want the month to be here already. And I want it simply for the fact that I plan to taking the whole month off.

Which, I realized the other day that I have had a mini-vacation already. The time I was supposed to have off for Mother Earth’s wedding. I still took that time away from work. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that when I was having the conversation with Zane.

Anyway. Next month is 1pm to 9pm. Monday I plan to talk to Clavan about having Saturdays off. I’ve already talked to Frank and he supported my decision. He said he would be fine running those labs on his own, and that I deserved to have two full days away from work.

The testing center still hasn’t gotten back to me with answers to my questions. That’s frustrating. So I guess I’ll have to look into that on Monday as well. Zane has one last meeting thing he needs to do, which will be either Tuesday or Thursday. I don’t think he’s set a date yet.

Friday started off well enough. I went to yoga again and enjoyed it. My core was super sore, but the stretching helps, and I can feel my legs loosening. My whole body really.

I didn’t have a lot of time after the gym. I needed to shower and I wanted to go to the bank and the gas station, and doing all of that didn’t leave much time to get to the sports bar for lunch. Because I didn’t want to be rushed I opted to skip out on my routine lunch and took care of the other things instead.

I got the money order for rent this month. Two of my games sold on eBay, which was an extra $100. I wish they had sold for more. I let Trevor and Zane take care of everything in that regard because 1) Trevor has eBay all set up and 2) I thought they would ask for fair prices.

One of the collectors editions sold for $30. The book alone was worth that much, if not more. And what I sold was the entire box in pretty awesome condition. It shouldn’t have sold for anything less than $50.

There’s a part of me who’s frustrated. If I had known it was going to sell for so little, I wouldn’t have let them mess with it. In a way I feel betrayed even though the logic side of me says that I don’t really have a right to. I didn’t tell them a price range. I just assumed, and so now I look like an ass for being upset. They only did what I wanted them to do.

The other game sold for $70, which is pretty alright in my book. Not super fantastic, but decent.

There’s not much I can do about it now, and that is $100 that Zane and I didn’t have before. I wish I could get over the frustration of it. Either way, I got the money order for rent with the deduction factored into it. After that I went ot the gas station where I finally put air into my tires.

I’ve gone through the process before. I shouldn’t be intimidated by the thought of doing it. I shouldn’t feel this aversion to such a simple task. But I do. Thinking about having to do pretty much anything with the car other than starting it makes my arms feel as if they have steel bars in them. Movement is hard, almost impossible. There’s so much resistance to overcome, and all I can think of is what if I do something silly? Then everyone will think I’m “that chick” who can’t take care of her car, who doesn’t know anything and has to have other people do it for her.

I don’t know why there is so much anxiety for me when it comes to mechanical things, but there is, and I’ve been driving around in my car with the low tire pressure light on for about three weeks now.

Screw you, Yellow Warning Light. You’re not the boss of me.

Well… going two weeks and only driving about 170 miles, but using all of my gas… that sucked…

Fine… I’ll put air in the stupid tires… /sulks because that’s better than hyperventilating

It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The gas station I went to had a fairly new machine. You set a digital display to the psi you want and then attach the nozzle to the tire. The machine fills the tire, checking the pressure every so often, and then beeps at you to let you know when the tire is full.

My tires are now A ok. Pretty painless and I didn’t have to ask anyone for help. All I had to do was read some labels on the machine and feed it a dollar.

Once I took care of the tires and filled up the gas tank I went to work. I cleaned out my email spam and trash folders. I cleaned up my desktop and downloads folder. I transferred a bunch of stuff to Dropbox, and went through most of my folders on there as well. Then I set my trashcan to empty so my computer would be squeaky clean.

I set up my calendar for the coming month. I took at look at my mom’s resume since she’s looking to apply to hospitals in Vegas once she moves there. I critiqued Huston’s demo reel since he’s graduating at the end of the month and wanted me to take a look at his work. I paid bills. I worked on my homework since I got feedback from my instructor.

I was a pretty awesome badass during those four hours.

Since I’ve had a few commission requests I bought MacStitch, which is software for creating custom cross stitch patterns. That’s a bit of a story actually. Clavan gave me money for the software about a year ago as a way to kick start my endevours to create an Etsy store. That was while I was living with Jarrett. That month Jarrett ended up not having enough money to cover his half of the rent, so I ended up using the money from Clavan to make ends meet. And I’ve never gone back and purchased the software because other things kept getting in the way.

Well… I don’t know if it was the “right” choice financially, but I bought the software, along with the lifetime updates, so that was roughly $80. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. I used the software tonight to figure out the backstitch lettering on my new project and it was so much easier and faster than using Photoshop. I think it will be a positive thing to have, but right now I’m holding my breath on it, waiting to se if it comes back to bite me.

After lab ended I packed up and headed out to the craft store. I needed to buy mounting board for the next few projects I have planned out. The mounting board makes it easier to frame the stitchings once they’re completed. So that was a bit of a trip, if only because it was rush hour on a Friday afternoon.

I made it home a little after 6pm. In the middle of torrential rain might I add.

Zane and I had plans. Since I had opted out of my sports bar for lunch we were going to go out to Pitta Pit for dinner, and then since we were so close to down town Winter Park, we were going to go to a Haagen Dazs shop for ice cream.

The dinner was fantastic. The conversation was wonderful, even with the weather being icky. By the time we were done eating the rain had stopped. We weren’t going to be able to leave the car in the parking lot since there was a 30 minute limit on parking, and that’s were things started getting dicey.

I’ve never been to Park Avenue, so I didn’t really know where we were going, which isn’t cool in my book. It makes me edgy. Zane knew where we were and directed me to where there should have been public parking, only all of the spots were taken. We circled around a few times, almost getting hit once, which didn’t help my level of frustration. We ended up going to the train station and parking there.

We sat in the car, him hugging me, for a few minutes. The streets looked busy, crowed. Of course it would be though. It’s a Friday night. Everyone wants to go out and do something.

Once I was settled a bit from the driving we got out of the car and started walking back towards the main streets. We passed by a fountain which was gorgeous, and I mentioned it to Zane.

Zane: Oh, yeah. This is the park that Nic and I went to.

Awesome… so now I feel like I’m intruding on a special place for you. This is Nic’s spot. I shouldn’t be here.

I mentioned how I felt. But Zane said it was fine. As long as we didn’t walk around the park talking for hours, it wouldn’t be encroaching on Nic. I still didn’t feel ok though. The further into down town we went, the more I wanted to go home.

We made it to the ice cream shop. Haagen Dazs cookie dough ice cream has crack cocaine in it. Best ice cream ever. I wasn’t able to finish all of mine. I got the smallest size in a waffle bowl and still had to have Zane finish it off for me.

We had a bit of a spat before we left.

The other week while we were doing grocery shopping there was a special on Talenti ice cream, so we got two. One for him and one for me. I hadn’t liked mine all that much, so Zane ate most of it instead. When we went out to the grocery store on Wednesday the deal was still going on, so we got two different flavors. Mint and a raspberry.

I guess Zane doesn’t care for either of those flavors.

While we were at Haagen Dazs he noticed that they had his ultimate, uber, bestest flavor ever, flavor. He wanted to get a pint of it to take home. When I wasn’t all that enthused about it he said he had thought that was why we had come to the shop in the first place. To get flavors we couldn’t get at the normal grocery store.

In my head I was thinking about the dinner I had already paid for and the two ice cream cones we had eaten, and the ice cream we still had at home. I also started thinking about how all of this ice cream stuff isn’t really lining up with wanting to lose weight.

We talked for a while about it. There wasn’t really a way to win, though. I could either buy the ice cream and feel bad about spending the money, or I could not buy it and feel bad because I would be disappointing Zane.

I could buy the ice cream and have Zane feel bad that I was spending more money. Or I could not buy it and he could not have ice cream at home, while I have two containers that will most likely last for the next forever because I really don’t eat sweets all that much, despite that my recent posts have been saying.

Like… there was just no way for both of us to be ok with the situation.

So we got the ice cream.

He said he had felt like he didn’t have a choice when we were at the store on Wednesday. That I had just picked out two flavors. I felt that wasn’t fair. Every other time we have gone, he has picked out what he wanted. He let me know if he didn’t like something or not. Then all of a sudden he doesn’t do that. WTF dude?

I’m still bothered by it I guess.

That wasn’t the thing that made the night so awful, though. It was while we were driving back home.

He mentioned something about needing help with an eyebrow hair. He said since I have nails it would be easier for me to get it. I asked what if I hurt him? I’ve had to pluck my own eyebrows, and I know that sometimes it sucks. I guess I was looking for reassurance that he wouldn’t get upset at me.

Instead he said I wouldn’t hurt him. I asked, ok, but what if I do? We went back and forth on that for a few minutes with me asking him to just entertain the idea. Instead he got frustrated with me. To the point that he didn’t wait for me to get out of the car before walking to the apartment. There was so much distance between us.

When we got inside he want to the room and started typing on his laptop. He had mentioned earlier wanting to write down story ideas for some things he wants to write. I poked around trying to find my tweezers, but couldn’t. I honestly have no idea where they are, which is something else to add to my to-do list I suppose.

With that mission failed for the moment, I sat in the computer chair in front of my desk for about 30 seconds. Zane kept typing away. I asked if the eyebrow thing would happen later. His reply was he had already take care of it.

That was it.

I felt dismissed. I felt like a failure. I had tried to make last night a good night and this was how it was going to end. I said ok and went to the living room where I fell asleep. I didn’t want to be in the room.

At 5 I woke up. I didn’t want to feel alone. I didn’t want to be alone. So I went back to the room. Zane didn’t wake up. If he did he didn’t show it. I ended up falling asleep eventually, but it was hard to sleep next to him with so much discord inside myself.

I don’t remember waking up again until noon. I had awful dreams. In one of them my room was infested with spiders. Big spiders, like banana spiders with long thin bodies with long legs. The were colored like black widows, though. Dark, menacing black with red marks that were bright.

I was on my bed, curled up on my side and one of them fell on me. I wanted to freak out so much, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to move and have it bite me. They were super poisonous. I had to wait. I had to let it crawl on me until it move to the blanket where I could kill it. But when I did I couldn’t find the body. I didn’t know where it went.

They were all over the ceiling. There was a nest there and I knew there were more inside it. I went to the living room where there was a can on bug spray, but I couldn’t find the name of the spiders on there. I didn’t know if it would work on them. I took it back to the room anyway and sprayed it on the nest. Spiders came pouring out. They would twitch and then fall to the floor, but I didn’t know if they were dead or not. I kept spraying the new spiders as the came out, trying to kill them. I couldn’t let them get to the doorframe. They were only in my room and I couldn’t let them get into the rest of the house.

That’s all I remember about that one.

There was another dream where I was an investigator and I had a partner with me. We were investigating a house that either Randy or Jarrett owned. I don’t know why it’s unclear about who it was, but it was one of them.

My partner told me there was something strange about the house. How anyone who got close to it always had to turn back. There was something that kept them from getting close, some force.

When we got to a certain point I could feel it. Theis feeling of foreboding. I didn’t want to go further, but I did. I could see where there were stumps along the front of the house. I knew that there had been rose bushes there. Beautiful bushes, but that Randy/Jarrett had destroyed them. Burned them. Killed them. And that was part of the foreboding feeling. The roses had been murdered and their death left the house tainted.

I don’t remember anything further with that dream.

I woke up not ok.

I woke up with the broken pieces of yesterday. I woke up feeling like the day was pointless and ruined before it even began. I didn’t wake up early enough for kickboxing and there was no way to recover that. There wasn’t a second class that I could go to.

Zane was fine. He said he had been really upset with me, but that it was in the past and that today was going to be a good day.

No. It wasn’t. Today was going to be awful because no matter what I do there’s always something that screws it up. There’s no point in trying to have a good day because somewhere along the way I’m going to do something, so I’m just not going to try.

Needless to say, this morning sucked. Zane wouldn’t let me stay in bed and kept poking at me. To his credit he didn’t give me a hard time or question why I was angry when he told me to get out of bed. He kept wiping away my tears, which was also frustrating. I wanted him to go away. I wanted him to leave me alone and he wouldn’t.

Me: Why are you doing that?
Zane: Because it’s my job
Me: It’s just water.
Zane: It’s not just water.
Me: What? It’s salty water?
Zane: Well, actually, on a biological level. Yes

I wanted to stab him so hard, but at the same time I couldn’t help but give a frustrated smile.

I don’t know why I ended up starting to feel better. But I did. We went out for lunch. We went to a Mexican market for part of our groceries. We went to a smoke shop to get coals and more mint shisha because we were out.

In about an hour I dropped another $100. On top of the software I bought the previous day. On top of the failed date night.

None of it made me feel better. In fact, it did the opposite.

I had a depressed nap on the couch for a bit. When I woke up I went back to the room. I told Zane that I wasn’t ok. That I felt unclean on the inside. That I felt like I was trapped in my own skin and that I wanted to claw it off. At the moment I didn’t like being me.

I ended up running. The first time in about a month. I ran outside because I didn’t want to be around anyone. It felt good to sweat that intensely. After eating so much junk, and not drinking any water, it felt good, like I was getting ride of the toxic mess inside myself. My run time wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be either, so there was that.

Zane was in the middle of doing the laundry when I got back home.

I felt better in a physical since. I didn’t feel as unclean as I had before. But I’m still unsettled, more now that I’ve written than before. Most likely because I’m bring up emotions and memories that I haven’t come to terms with yet.

I’m not ok with Friday night. And that’s factored into all of today. I’ve let myself not enjoy today. I don’t want to eat as a way to get back at myself for eating the ice cream Friday night, and the fries earlier today. And I know that’s the stupidest thing I could do to myself. That’s just going to slow my metabolism down as my body goes into starvation mode.

I want to be hugged and at the same time I want to be angry. Wasn’t getting dinner and dessert enough? And why couldn’t we have a hypothetical conversation where in another universe, because it couldn’t happen in this one, it did hurt when I plucked the eyebrow hair?

Why did Friday night have to suck so much? Why did I have to feel alone?

Why do I still feel alone? And why can’t I pick an emotion and stick with it? Why do I have to swing between sad and angry?

This past week has been so good in relation to everything else. And now I’m back to feeling like I can’t do anything right. It’s beyond annoying. It sucks. It sucks a lot. And what makes it worse is that I don’t know how to fix it because I honestly don’t know what’s wrong.

Musing Moment 0055: Days 12 and 13

Standard

Day 12 of the challenge is always a little rough. It’s the day where we admit to some of the awful things we say to ourselves in our head. Lately I’ve had more negative thoughts and conversations with myself than I have in a while.

One of the biggest things I find myself saying is:

I’m failing at life.

I use my incomplete tasks and unreached goals as proof that I’m a failure. That I’ll never move forward. That my dreams are stupid and childish and unattainable. I should give up and accept where I am because everything I want is futile.

Yeah…

Those are only some of the thought I lash myself with on the bad days.

But you know what?

I’m not failing at life. I’m doing amazingly well. I am successful and I will reach all of my dreams, because the only difference between a dream and reality is hard work. I will get the things I want, even if the Universe ends up making me adhere to a different time table that what I want.

It’s not pointless. It’s not futile, and the only way I’m a failure is if I say I am. So, I’m going to stop saying it. I’m not a failure. I’m amazing. I kick ass. I’m awesome. Look at me being an adult and shit and holding everything together like MacGyver. Duct tape and super glue all the way. : D

Day 13 is about relationships, another potentially hard day. This one is actually sort of interesting for me. Who should I be spending more, or less, time with?

I do not feel I have any negative relationships in my life. And I honestly feel that I need to spend more time with myself, alone, reflecting, than investing more time into the relationships I have. Except maybe Zane, John, and Tre.

My brother, John, I haven’t seriously chatted with in a while. Same for Tre. It would be good to foster those relationships a bit more.

And since it recently came up that Zane feels like we do not spend time ‘together’ I should make more time for that aspect of our relationship so we both can feel fulfilled.

Other than that, I feel I need to give myself more ‘me’ time, and not feel bad about requiring it. Zane is able to have time to himself, I should be able to have my own down / recharge time. And it is something that we are both aware of and working on.

So I think in all honestly, that this area will be ok. The take-away from these past two days is “Stop being a jerk to yourself.”

I’m actually going to start writing that on my to-do list every day. Right under my “Workout Everyday” reminder.