Monkey off my Back!

I read that expression recently, and thought, Bingo!

I find this process of looking inside myself, of trying to see who I am, very interesting. I'm very confident with my values, and yet I find it hard to stand up for myself.

That's why I get so angry, sometimes I am even perceived as aggressive, when inside I am feeling pushed around.

I am so idealistic that it has caused me to end friendships. I have no regrets there, of course my life is better without those monkeys on my back. Yet, I am sad. I am hurt, personally, by these sad excuses for humanity. It's not the lying, the cheating, the selfishness in the specific that causes me pain, it's the knowledge that that is the very best that person can offer the world. And shock of course at the affront to my values. (Maybe a bit sanctimonious, but doing the right thing isn't easy... it's just right. Stop being lazy and grow up.)

And what I need to do is work on being ok from walking away from those people. I am so idealistic, I want to help them. But it really is trying to teach an old dog new tricks. Only the old dog died a while ago!

I guess Bing Crosby was right, all the monkeys aren't in the zoo, every day you meet quite a few! But whether the monkey is on my back or talking behind my back, I guess I'm a step ahead.

Thanks, but no thanks

I really like people to know me, see me, understand me. But not everyone can, nor does everyone want to. Shock!

There are a few people in my life that I don't want to have close at all anymore. For whatever reason, I just don't admire or respect them the way I want to admire and respect the people I keep close. So I'd like to just let go.

But they won't go.

Some of them I'm related to, some of them are friends of family, some of them have just been around for a long time. And all of them I'll most likely see or hear from again. I've actually just come to realize that people rarely disappear, they just go into hiding. Sometimes when they reappear it's a joy, other times I just have to figure out how to negotiate those social occasions without getting involved.

Anyway, so these people that won't go away... I don't want to behave unkindly, even though I have nothing kind to say to them. I have nothing to gain by being honest or open with them, by telling them how I feel, what I want from them or for them. Well, except that they might be so irritated they would go away... but then I'd have to see them again. And be confronted with my lack of gentleness with them.

But I don't want to molly-coddle people I just don't like. I just want to figure out the bare minimum required to reduce contact as much as possible.

So I will say, "thank you" to reply to nice things said and done, but "no thanks" to any suggestion that I want to connect. I'm busy that day.

All is Forgiven

What a relief! All the drama that has gradually been ebbing away from those two former friends is finally 99% gone! That 1% can linger as long as it needs to, it doesn't hurt at all.

I somehow just realized that nothing bad happened anyways.

I didn't like how either of them behaved, that's why I chose to no longer be friends. At the time what really caught my attention was how surprised (and hurt) I was that they behaved in hurtful ways. And that was the trigger for me to seek out learning about myself and what I value through my life coaching. So ultimately, I'm grateful for those two floozys* (floozies?) for helping me to see who I am more clearly. In a way, it was just a super-mean version of when Alex visited - I got confronted with an alternative image of myself and chose whether it fit or not.

And the image that now fits me is one of confidence and grace. I forgive those two so ultimately and completely because I see that they were just being themselves. The behaviour I didn't like I'd previously seen time and time again. The last time was just the last time for me, not the last time for them. Of course the kind of person I am is going to have run-ins with people I think behave selfishly, irresponsibly, dishonestly, or unkindly - especially those who backbite!!! And since I'd seen it with these two before, it was just a sign of my growth that I wasn't willing to have it in my life anymore. It was still surprising how hurt I was, but that's what sent me off to learn more, so no regrets!

I think now that I was looking at my friendships through rose-tinted glasses - I saw those qualities I didn't like, but thought it'll never happen to me. And then when it did, I was totally shocked, even though it was predictable. Of course I expected too much, there wasn't much that they had to give. What I find joyful about this experience is feeling excited about letting that rose-tint fade away until I have more clarity about the people around me. And what a delight to know there's nothing wrong with me! I just prefer to be close to people whose values are more compatible.

*As I read this post now, I feel that I've painted a very black-and-white picture. This is not intended as a good-evil polemic but to express my confidence and satisfaction these days and my lack thereof back then.... if that makes sense! And yup, floozy means exactly what I intend to convey!

Life Coaching Developments

I have been finding the process of life coaching (I am the coachee, not the coacher) very interesting and valuable. I realized I wasn't happy and wanted to make the changes necessary to become happier, but was stuck. In the past I have made a variety of choices, some good, some bad, to help me through a sticky patch. In general, the best choice has been counselling. However, I recognized a limitation for me. Therapy is primarily an intellectual exercise. I am good at intellectual exercises. I can learn, no problem. But I wasn't facing a challenge based on lack of information or insight, at least not a challenge that could be overcome through thought experiments.

Hence my choice to explore life coaching. So far I have found it a good balance between practical and theoretical development. One of the things we have been working on is recognizing defense mechanisms. For that I have learned about a theory of development that claims that many of us spend a lot of time and energy in our adult lives trying to meet needs that were unmet as children. The result is often a reaction to certain situations that is out of proportion to current events, but makes sense when seen as a continuation of childhood drama and trauma.

I can accept this theory and work with it for two main reasons. First, there is no condition that I, as the adult-child in this story, have any knowledge or appreciation of events that may have been harmful to me as a child. Second, there is no way for a child to escape childhood without having unmet needs, so I don't have to either identify unmet needs or blame my parents for my unhappiness as an adult in order to move forward.

My life coach is basing the assignments she gives me on Ingeborg Bosch's therapy called Past Reality Integration. The assignments are designed to help me learn to recognize my feelings, and why I feel what I do when I do.

In my reading pile currently lies Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child, which contains some wonderful parallels. I'm not sure to what extent Bosch is influenced by Miller, but certainly reading Miller is giving me the intellectual background to understand myself. I also feel reassured in my decision to pursue life coaching, because the intellectual effort alone seems useful, but in itself can effect no changes.

And change is what it is all about.

Choices

In my last post I talked about how much better I felt choosing to make someone who hurt me less important (among other things).

I am so delighted to be learning about choices! I feel a lot of pressure, often, because of what I think is expected of me. I know it's really just me expecting too much of myself, but that doesn't solve the problem. Feeling that I can choose to think about this or that, or feel a certain feeling, or take a particular action - now that's new!

Crazy, huh!

I have often felt I am the gatekeeper of the world. I have a very big responsibility, obviously, to keep everyone safe and happy. I think it is my job to protect people from pain, to save them from their hurt, and to please them. Maybe that comes from stuff in my childhood - of course stuff from my past informs my now. But right now I want to focus on choices.

I can choose. Other people can choose. There might be right and wrong, and maybe I believe in a right or wrong more than some others. I am afraid of getting hurt, and I have made a lot of choices to protect myself, and people around me, from getting hurt. But getting hurt is not that big a deal anymore. It used to be, when I was a child, but now I'm grown up. I can choose to be ok with getting hurt.

I don't have to carry around hurt feelings forever. Or anger or unforgiveness. I can feel hurt, angry, and unforgiving, but it's not a commitment. I am committed, instead, to being happy.

I have all the things I need, and I am getting guidance and support to learn how to give myself this wonderful gift.

And I have heard a million times that people choose to be happy, or not. But I thought it was a moment, a beat where you felt sad or angry and told yourself to snap out of it. Now I think differently.

Now I think choosing to be happy is recognizing that choices lie everywhere, making the ones that take care of me, and letting others make their own. I can let others take their own path, even the wrong path, because it's their choice to make. And whatever path I choose to walk, it is my choice. Mine. So I want to spend my time and my energy doing what makes me happy, not what I think will protect me or someone else from hurt, or what will please someone else.

This is my life to live. And that is yours. Enjoy it.

What's Important

The biggest problem with tough choices is that I'm pulled in so many directions.

I want to be happy. I want to do what is right. I want to be a loving person. I want to be a good friend. And I want to learn to think differently about what's bothering me, so that it doesn't bother me so much.

J says that he just makes people who hurt him less important. But I've had a habit of making people who hurt me MORE important. For me that's because I was hurt a lot when I was young, by my parents, and when you're a kid, of course your parents are very important. But I'm an adult now, and I can change that habit. I will never be hurt again like I was when I was a kid, because I'll never be that vulnerable again. So I don't have to protect myself from getting hurt.

So the situation I'm facing is my friend's new girlfriend, who is that former friend of mine who was unpleasant to me when I was going through a tough time and then refused to return my keys and bank pass for a couple of months. That got resolved after I called her mother and asked her to intervene. She's now moved from Canada to Holland, and is living with him.

I recently saw my friend for the first time since his girlfriend arrived here. We were able to arrange that because she went out of town for a few days.

He told me a few things that she told him about what happened, sort of letting me in on what he understands her perspective to be.

She told him that she was hurt that I didn't trust her to return my things. She told him that she had made several attempts to return the keys and bank pass but that my cousins hadn't responded to her. She told him that she didn't care if I visited him, but she didn't want to be friends with me because I hurt her so much.

I was very surprised to hear this. At first, I resented that she had told him about how she felt about me, and not me. And I felt really sad that I had hurt her. But you know, I tend to believe what people say, even when their actions say otherwise.

Her actions were to not reply to my emails for months. I sent her 5 or 6 emails over the course of about 3 months. Not only was I trying to heal our friendship, but I also asked her to please confirm that she had my keys and bank pass and that she would give them to my cousins. She told my friend/her boyfriend that she was just deleting my emails unread. If that's true, she only knew that she was supposed to return the keys and bank pass to my cousins as soon as possible.

She and her mother know my cousins. They both know the mom and the dad and the three adult children living at home. So she knew five different people she could contact to return my keys and bank pass. I hadn't told any of them the problems I was having with her, or that she just was refusing to reply to my emails. After all, it's none of their business. So they would have been just as loving and kind with her as they have always been over the years.

It would indeed surprise me if my cousins had ignored her requests to meet, since I was also in contact with my cousins who knew this was important to me. My cousins were replying to my emails and letting me know what was happening. And my cousins told me that she had made a couple of vague appointments but then just never showed up. So if this is a test of who-is-more-likely-to-be-telling-the-truth, then based on these facts, the believability lies slightly more with my cousins, if for no other reason than that they provided me with this information at the time.

I knew my former friend very well. She has lots of great qualities, but she isn't the most honest person. I have no idea if she's lied to me directly, but she told me many things about herself that began with, "So-and-so still thinks that this happened, because I lied about it. Really, something else happened." Now, that's her business, and she has the right to shape what people think about her in this way if that's what she wants to do. But back to the test of truth-telling: based on her character, she is less believable than my cousins.

So my conclusions are:

1. I think she probably was hurt by something I said or did.
   Now, she had the chance to make things right between us, but didn't. She could have read my emails and learned what I was thinking and feeling. She could have told me what she was thinking and feeling. She didn't do those things, and I suspect that there are two reasons behind that. The first is, friendship isn't (or at least my friendship wasn't) that important to her, so when she got hurt, she just moved on. The second is that she did value my friendship, but when she got hurt she decided that the effort to talk about it with me was too much work for her, and moved on.
2. I think she is shaping what her new boyfriend thinks of her by saying what she thinks will make him think better of her.
   I don't believe she really made the efforts she claimed to contact my cousins about the keys and bank pass. I don't think my apparent lack of trust in her was hurtful to her, or if so, that's really odd. If she didn't reply to her colleagues at work asking about a project she was handling, would she be hurt that her boss no longer assumed she was working on the assignement? She knew she had a responsibility to fulfil, and didn't make it happen - for months.

I really valued her friendship, and loved her how I imagine people love a sister. She really mattered to me. But now I can see that her hurting me wasn't a mistake or an accident, it was something that she did deliberately, (although not likely with hurting me as a goal). I did everything I could to try to heal our friendship, but she didn't. That is really sad.

I notice that my anger and hurt is gone, as I realize that of course I need friends who are less likely to hurt me. I can't befriend everyone, and like financial investments, there are some friendships that depreciate in value over time. It's sad, but also like a financial investment, there is a point at which you need to move on.

And in order for me to do that, I have to recognize and accept that I tried to make this friendship work. I placed a high value on what was there, and made every effort to breathe life into it. But a friendship is a team effort, and I can't do it on my own. She had the opportunity to know how I felt, what I thought, and that I asked her to forgive me for whatever happened that made her angry or hurt. But she chose not to know those things, and I have to respect that. She had the choice to make this friendship work or not. I think she made the wrong choice, but it is her choice to make.

So what I need to do now is realize that she is not important in my life. She used to be, but not anymore. She's my friend's girlfriend, and when we visit him she might be around, but she doesn't matter. My friends and family matter, not people I used to know once upon a time.

Gak. I sure hope this is the end of this drama with her inside my head!

Success and Happiness

I've been thinking lately about success and happiness, and about some unhappiness, anger, and frustration that lingers in my life.

I think, for now, that I've got it figured out. (Spread the word, eh!)

It's about looking forward. A lot of inspirational quotes about success are about focusing on the future. For example:

"The successful always has a number of projects planned, to which he looks forward. Any one of them could change the course of his life overnight." ~ Mark Caine

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that's where you will find success." ~ Thomas J. Watson

And everyone's favourite:
"Success is a journey, not a destination." ~ Ben Sweetland

I am just lately realizing that thinking about the past makes me unhappy. I think about how people should have behaved differently, how I could have done or said something to change what happened, how disappointed I was in others. And I relive those feelings of frustration, anger or hurt.

But to achieve anything, I have to move forward. And I can't move forward while looking backwards. So I have to focus on what I want and move in that direction. This is a challenge for me, because I want some things in my past to just be different. So no wonder I've been focusing on what happened before, because my attention and energy was directed at trying to change the past (as fruitless as that is).

So now with my new focus on giving myself a good foundation for my future, it makes sense that I would start to notice that a lot of energy was misdirected, and interfered with my life and thus my future. It is too bad that some people I used to know behaved in ways I find ... wrongful. But it is their bad. I have strong values and a strong character, and I am learning that lots of people don't have either. I can't fix their lack of values or lack of character, and wishing things were different doesn't change anything. I am not responsible for their conduct, only they are. As I am responsible for mine.

And starting now, I resolve to do myself the honour of freeing myself from the chains of the past and focusing on what matters - the bright future lying in wait for me.

No Mo' Drama

As I've been moving along in my goal of putting myself first, I've realized how much I dislike conflict. I always knew I didn't like it, after all, who does? People who thrive on winning an argument often win nothing else, and like Dr. Phil says, "Do you wanna be right? Or do you wanna be happy?"

What I'm realizing most recently is that I also find it upsetting when my values conflict with another's. Perhaps because I see no resolution, after all, our values are central to how we engage in the world, so when I run into someone who has a fundamentally opposite approach to me, I don't really know where, or if, any middle ground might be.

I don't want to become someone who insists that everyone around me think as I do, that is so annoying! And boring, really. I love differences. But I suppose difference can go too far.

And when it comes right down to it, when I look at someone else's life and think it's just a soap opera, I don't want to be part of it.

Obviously, in most cases, how people raise their kids, relate to their spouses, or choose to spend their time and money, is none of my business. But most people don't cross my imaginary lines. From time to time, I feel trapped. I have had friends where, all of a sudden, I am shocked by what they set as a priority. It's not my place to say whether their priorities are right or wrong, but I guess I have to recognize that the friendship has shifted an awful lot for me to be shocked by them.

Perhaps the friend has gone through some changes recently, perhaps I just never noticed where their values lay. Perhaps the friendship was just never deep enough for me to know their character very well.

It's hard to love someone, to enjoy their company, and yet to find myself thinking, Hmmm... maybe I'm happier with you further away from my heart.

On the other hand, I do appreciate the growth I've made in this area. As sad as it is, it's still nice to recognize that I'm not wasting my time or energy, or hurting myself or my friend, by trying to make things different. I will honour the friendship by finding out more, and withholding judgement as much as I can. But if that friend's life is the soap opera I seem to have been seeing lately, I don't want to join the cast. I don't even want to watch. I'll just change the channel.

Let the Past Be

I recently got one of those forwarded emails from a friend, and glancing through it I was struck by something.

One of the lines says, "Don't worry about people from your past. There's a reason they didn't make it to your future."

This really touched me, as I was recently thinking about those two women who used to be good friends and are no longer part of my life. I was thinking I'd like to find some way to honour the good times, sort of like a funeral. At a funeral you're sad that someone you love or who had meaning for you is gone, but you remember what you liked and enjoyed about that person. And whether their death is sudden, expected, or figurative, I think it can be the same. And in the case of a figurative funeral, the only difference is that the person is still alive, wandering the earth somewhere. It's just by choice that their lives no longer touch yours.

So here, in alphabetical order, are eulogies for my two friends, A & S, who have recently passed on.

I loved how funny A was. I remember so many giggles and hilariously confusing conversations! I liked feeling like a bit of big sister, helping her with a few things when I could. I loved just hanging around, talking about this and that or making plans for something. I remember how thoughtful she was. If she wasn't sure, she always used to err on the side of pitching in, offering to help, or bringing home dinner in case I hadn't eaten yet. She was terrific. She was curious about so many things, had an obsession with British royal history, and said whatever came to her mind.... which was sometimes entirely appropos, and sometimes shocking! I will miss the friend she was very much indeed.

S was so much fun! I remember so many talks, about so many things, interrupted only by sleep, homework, and somebody making the tea. She taught me to cook. She was so smart, I loved how articulate she was. I never had to explain the words I used, because she used them too. I remember laughing to the point of tears for no good reason, just because we were having fun together. I tend to be a pretty conservative person, so I thought she could be reckless, but the good I got out of that was to be a bit more adventurous. She was very driven and was a really hard worker. She found bugs very interesting, and tried to explain their little body parts, or their life-cycle, or motivation to appear on the kitchen counter to me while I stood there screaming for her to KILL IT! She was always willing to try and to help. I miss that terrific woman very much.

Although I am grateful for what was, there is indeed a reason why those two people didn't make it to my future. I'm grateful for that too. And now this chapter is closed.

I am so thankful for my wonderful friends and family. To those of you who are part of my past and my future, I love you, I respect you, and most of all, I enjoy you. A future with you in it is a future I am going to enjoy!

Does My Life Need a Coach?

I am generally a happy person. I laugh and smile and joke and tease a lot. Even during the happiest days of my life, there are always down moments, but they were generally short-lived. So, I was unpleasantly surprised when I found myself not happy for several months. From about August until just after Christmas, I was sad, angry, frustrated, and impatient.

Why I felt that way was situational, as I've mentioned in previous blogs. Basically, two women I had thought were tried-and-true, friends-for-life grew into people I didn't like anymore. I felt confused and disappointed that they were no longer who I expected them to be. I've also changed as well, and now I don't put up with conduct that I feel is dishonourable, selfish or unkind. So that meant, for these two women, that I had to stop all contact.

But it seemed to really trigger something in me. Those women have genuinely changed, and who they are now is disappointing, with values and conduct that I find weak and vain. Yet, although I found this whole experience distasteful, I was surprised that I found it so upsetting. That's why I felt it was a trigger of some sort. After all, I have 'lost' friends before, but it was never so bitter or unpleasant. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't so... painful.

People come and go in our lives, and people change. I expect that. I don't always like it, but I expect it. So for these two to change, and make their noisy exit, well, it's sad in some ways, but it's also an expected part of life. So what was so upsetting for me??

I couldn't figure it out. Part of it is definitely that I felt taken advantage of, that my kindness and generosity was accepted, but not my friendship. A little bit like in my dating days, if I was out with a new fella and knew it was not going to progress beyond dinner... I always paid for myself. I just never thought it was fair to let a man pay my way if I was just getting a free dinner out of it. If it was part of the getting-to-know-each-other process, part of developing a relationship, or part of an ongoing relationship, sure. But if I realized I was in it only for the meal, I would never let someone pay for dinner when I can pay for myself. So in a way, I guess I feel that I was that poor guy, thinking he's in a relationship and paying for his girl, when the girl is thinking, you better be paying, sucker, and I'm ordering five courses!

And the more I thought about that, the more I realized that I have become more and more someone who is caring towards others, but less and less someone that puts myself first. I love to be caring. I love to help people if I can. I don't want to lose that. But man, I gotta put myself first. I want to learn how to see my own needs more clearly, and to go out and take care of them.

So my MIL suggested I check into a workshop on self-confidence. I asked for a bit more help, and she sent me a couple of links that she found and told me what to search for. (Keep in mind I live in Holland, and even though I am officially fluent in Dutch there are a lot of specific words or phrases or expressions that I don't know. So knowing what to look for was pretty handy!) I checked a couple out, most were quite expensive or inconvenient to get to. I emailed a couple with a few questions.

Later that day, Marloes Elbrink from Stekker Coaching called me in response to my email. I was on my way out so we made an appointment to speak the next day. The next afternoon, she asked me some pretty specific questions to find out what it was I was looking for. She told me that Stekker Coaching wasn't offering any workshops for a couple of months, but she thought that working with a Life Coach might be effective. She invited me to an intake-appointment to see if Life Coaching might have meaning for me.

I decided to take her up on her offer. I'll tell you all about it later!

Forgive Me

This is the prayer I am studying to help me love myself. I am already perking up, but to keep the trend going I'm going to try to read this prayer at least once per week. I love how it makes me feel inside and out.

O my God! There is no one but Thee to allay the anguish of my soul, and Thou art my highest aspiration, O my God. My heart is wedded to none save Thee and such as Thou dost love. I solemnly declare that my life and death are both for Thee. Verily Thou art incomparable and hast no partner.

O my Lord! I beg Thee to forgive me for shutting myself out from Thee. By Thy glory and majesty, I have failed to befittingly recognize Thee and to worship Thee, while Thou dost make Thyself known unto me and callest me to remembrance as beseemeth Thy station. Grievous woe would betide me, O my Lord, wert Thou to take hold of me by reason of my misdeeds and trespasses. No helper do I know of other than Thee. No refuge do I have to flee to save Thee. None among Thy creatures can dare to intercede with Thyself without Thy leave. I hold fast to Thy love before Thy court, and, according to Thy bidding, I earnestly pray unto Thee as befitteth Thy glory. I beg Thee to heed my call as Thou hast promised me. Verily Thou art God; no God is there but Thee. Alone and unaided, Thou art independent of all created things. Neither can the devotion of Thy lovers profit Thee, nor the evil doings of the faithless harm Thee. Verily Thou art my God, He Who will never fail in His promise.

O my God! I beseech Thee by the evidences of Thy favor, to let me draw nigh to the sublime heights of Thy holy presence, and protect me from inclining myself toward the subtle allusions of aught else but Thee. Guide my steps, O my God, unto that which is acceptable and pleasing to Thee. Shield me, through Thy might, from the fury of Thy wrath and chastisement, and hold me back from entering habitations not desired by Thee.

The Báb

Feeling Blue

I got my period today. After quite some goings-on last night, which included another night of not enough sleep. So with the cramps and the hormones and the cravings, I've had better days.

I'm feeling quite lonely. I have made a couple of real friends here, and have reconnected with a great friend back in Canada. I have a wonderful husband whose company I enjoy. But I miss how easy life was - or at least, how easy it appears in my memories.

I wish life was less complicated. I wish that former-friend who has stopped talking to me would have first returned the keys to my apartment to my family members. I feel a lot of pressure to try to figure out how to deal with her odd behaviour so that my family gets the keys. I need to have someone a bit more *ahem* mature available to handle anything that comes up regarding my apartment back in Canada.

I wish I knew where to go to do the things I like to do. I wish I was just a tidge more enthusiastic about trying things on my own. I wish I knew more people who like to do stuff I can just tag along with, as then I don't have to figure stuff out or try things on my own.

I wish I had a large steak and several bars of chocolate in the house.

I wish I knew how to change my attitude, and just enjoy myself!!

Finding Forgiveness

I wrote an email the other day, to one of my former friends. It doesn't matter that I sent it, or if she gets it, or responds... but it does matter that I could find a way to make tangible how I feel about her and what happened.

I miss her. Maybe the friendship was a bit one-sided, maybe it is absolutely fine that we make our ways separately now. But I was so angry, and that kept me stalled, unable to let go inside my head.

I was angry because I was frustrated. I needed someone to blame, but there was no one. I did my best as I always do... and I'm sure that she valued my friendship as well and didn't want to trash it completely either. But even if one or the other of us did something that became the 'last straw', the real problem was that neither of us are perfect, and both of us were intolerant of that.

I am happy with who I am, but I am still learning to love myself. I let the fact that someone was not happy with me affect me quite deeply. I think that's because I put pressure on myself to be perfect. If I were perfect, then everyone will always love me, and everything will always be fine. I somehow overlook that I have yet to meet a perfect person, and I love a whole bunch of them anyway!

And of course, the problem with perfect is that it is no definition at all. Even if I were what I thought was objectively perfect, there would be other, non-perfect people, who would not find me perfect at all. So, the objective part is crap! And once objectivity is out the window, it seems a lot easier to just let people go.

It is too bad that I've had such a difficult time these past few months. It is too bad that some people that I expected to be there to add joy and kindness and support to my life slammed the door in my face instead. It is too bad that I thought I had to be different in order to earn their love and kindness, when all I had to do was accept that they were not who I expected them to be.

And forgive them, and myself, for just being.

Time for Me

Just before Christmas, J and I were visiting my MIL and SIL for his birthday, and I had a bit of a meltdown. I'm so blessed to have married into such a wonderful, loving family, and even though I went through a couple of kleenexes, it still was totally ok!

I was telling them, and J as well, how tough the last few months had been, and how I was fed up with feeling so unimportant and unloved. Being loving and treating my friends and family as important really matters to me, and to feel that I was being taken advantage of, that no one was to be trusted, well... that was a real shock to me.

My MIL suggested that I spend some time putting myself first. She suggested taking classes or a workshop that focus on changing your attitudes or awareness. She and my SIL told me how they really understood how I felt, and that people you love can disappoint you in ways that mean the relationship is forever scarred. And they reminded me that I am not scarred or damaged, that I am wonderful and that it is my job to go out and live a wonderful life.

I plan to. I'm just not sure how... yet.