How to Be Me

I’ve been struggling with this for a while.  With some aspects, I’m all me.  I’m stubborn to a fault with some things and will not change for anybody or anything.  But other things, I tend to hide, fade away, not show my true feelings.  Usually those things come at the expense of rocking a boat I do not want to rock.

I have found myself holding back a lot lately – not making my voice heard, and not doing what I want.  There are reasons, which I won’t go into here, but mainly it’s to keep the peace.  Whether or not me doing what I want or making my voice heard will break the peace is unknown – but it’s a possibility, so that’s what scares me from doing so.

But lately, I’ve been bored, sad and scared.  And that’s no way to live my life.

I’m bored with my normal routine.  I don’t see or interact with a lot of people during the day, except for my young son.  I do work, but I work from home so all my correspondence is pretty much via email.  And my daily routine, while efficient and typically flies by, does not excite me or bring me joy.

I’m sad because of all this.  I crave friendship – companionship – understanding, and I don’t get that during my day to day life.  I want to be challenge – both physically and mentally.  Right now with my injury, physical challenge is not to be had.  But mentally even that’s a bit dulled down.  I’m alone and bored, and that makes me sad.

And I’m scared.  Scared to step out of my comfort zone.  Scared to “rock the boat” and have to face the consequences.  Scared to fail.  Scared to upset someone.  Scared that my life will be this sad and boring for the rest of my life.

I feel like I need a personal coach sometimes – someone to tell me to get up, get going and stop sulking.  Someone to say – do this now.  It’s the right time.  Live your life.  Be happy.  Find joy.  Forget about your fears.  Do what you want to do.  See that vision you have for yourself – go out and make it happen.

I’m trying to be that for myself now.  Among the responsibilities and so forth, of course.  But trying to think of ways I can be joyful and do what I want – make my visions a reality.  It’s hard to think this way without bringing up fears.  It’s hard to set those aside and unleash the dream wagon.  But it’s time.  If not now, when?

And now that I’ve covered many clichés in this post, I’m off to try to think of a vision, and make it happen!

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Fear & Sadness

I’m hesitant to put this out there but I feel the need to write about it.  I’ll try to steer away from specifics as to not hurt feelings and make a mess.  Because that’s not the intention.  The intention is self healing.

There are people in my life I’ve always had a bad relationship with, and they are people that I must have a relationship with.  The how’s and whys of how it got bad are not needed – but it’s not healthy in any kind of way.

Lately the words that have been said by certain people have gotten harsher, bolder and just plain mean and hurtful.  And while I’m one of the parties being hurt, I also feel stuck in the middle.  How can I keep having a relationship with someone who consistently says mean things about me?  I haven’t found an answer to that.  And that brings about a lot of fear and sadness.

I’m scared.  I’m scared this is just going to ruin my beautiful little family.  I have so many blessings and an intense love for my little family.  And the anxiety and anger this unhealthy relationship brings about threatens the happiness of my little family.  And I’m scared for the beautiful visions of the future I have for my family.  Will they happen?  I hope so – but I feel it’s not certain.  And that scares me.

I’m scared because I’ve tried.  Whether people realize it or not – I have tried a lot and I have tried very, very hard.  I’ve done everything someone else has suggested to me, and it doesn’t help – ignoring it, seeing it from the other person’s point of view, even counseling.  Nothing has helped.

I’m not the type of person who deals with negativity well.  And I can’t ignore it when it’s in my face.  I have accepted this flaw about myself.  I can’t make something that is personal, not personal.  That’s not my nature.

I’m sad.  I’m sad that I can’t make this work.  I feel like I’m less of a person since I can’t seem to handle the stress of this bad relationship.  Even though I know I’ve tried, I still feel like a failure because I can’t ignore it.  The problem is not going away – I just have to find a way to deal with it.  And it hurts me too much for me to do that.  And that makes me sad.

And I’m sad that this is happening.  It doesn’t make sense to me.  Of course, none of us really think it makes sense for someone to mistreat us.  But I just don’t get it.  I mean, I do understand the root issue of it, because, as I’ve said before, I did put myself in the other persons shoes.  But the root issue is not something to mistreat me over – and frankly it’s not even about me.  Though I doubt the other person has thought deep enough to realize it’s not personally about me – so they make it personal.  It’s just sad that this is happening because there is no need, no use, no true reason for it.  Things could be happy for ALL of us, but one person decided that it can’t be.  That’s not fair.  And my life may be torn apart because of it.  And that makes me sad.

Social Comfort Zones

I’m an introvert.  Totally.  I can talk to anyone about subjects I’m comfortable with, and I can talk to those I’m comfortable with about any subject.  But new people and new subjects, I’m a little lost.

Being an introvert brings about lots of loneliness.  For several reasons.  The most obvious, it’s hard to make friends when you are quiet and don’t like to put yourself out there.  Some of the less obvious.  It’s hard to keep friends you make because social situations drain you.  Literally – I have to recover from social situations, even with my favorite people – because the amount of energy I have to put into being social is high.  It’s not that I don’t want to be social – it’s just that it’s like running a marathon for me.  So it’s not something I do as often as most outgoing people do.  Therefore, maintaining friendships is really difficult when you don’t want to be social too much.  Third, learning about new subjects or talking to people who are different from what you are used to is like doing an ironman – so it’s really, really hard to meet new people.  Talking about things I’m not used to talking about is crazy hard.  So if you put yourself out there, and you have nothing in common, but still like the person, it’s really hard for me to get to know them just out of the shear overwhelmingness I feel when I have to come up with unfamiliar conversation.

Most people think if you are an introvert, you don’t want to be around people and you never feel loneliness.  And this is simply not true.  It’s like we are fighting an internal battle over our own nature of being an introvert versus the human nature of needing to be around other people.  It’s a rough ride – but we do need people in our lives.

So this past weekend I tried out a Moms Book Club.  I was greeted by some very bold personalities while I was there.  I guess my internal picture of the book club was of less boisterous people, but boy was I wrong.  And being an introvert surrounded by extroverts – well, can you say awkward?  While they were all very pleasant and friendly, I maybe said 2 sentences the 1 hour and 15 minutes I was there.  It got so awkward I had to leave early.  I just felt like I was sitting in on other people’s conversations.

But you know what, even if I didn’t find my soul sister there, at least I tried.  I have to say I’m a little disappointed it didn’t go as I hoped, but I’m more proud of myself for going.  And I am even more proud of myself that I haven’t ruled out going again.  So yay for stepping out of your comfort zones – sometimes it doesn’t go as planned or thought, but you still can learn so much from just taking the step.

The google spiral

I have to say, anxiety and google do not mix.

I’ve always had a bit of anxiety.  When I was a kid, it was more of a social anxiety.  As I’ve aged, I’ve learned techniques to deal with social anxiety.  But as I learn to deal with one type of anxiety, another one rears it’s ugly head.  After social anxiety came choosing a career path anxiety, after that came living on my own anxiety, etc. etc. so and so on.

Lately, as I’m settled in my job and my personal life, a new anxiety has popped up.  Anxiety of strange medical conditions.

Let me preface this by saying I am the person who has weird things happen to them – whether personally or medically.

Just as an example, I have a rare food allergy – it’s a dietary nickel allergy.  Yes, I am very allergic to the metal nickel and can not wear jewelry, watches, etc with nickel in it.  And that has turned into a food allergy.  Nickel is a natural compound found in the soil, and so it is absorbed by food that grows in the soil.  Those foods with a naturally high nickel content cause me to have an allergic reaction.  It’s crazy – it’s rare – and I have it.

So when you have a kid, your anxiety naturally raises for the health and wellbeing of your child.  Add that on to an already anxiety-prone personality, and things can get a little out of control.

I’ve been spending a ton of time googling things that I’m worried about with my son.  I won’t go into specifics, because it’s just a worry of mine.  No medical professional has said anything about it – and when I talk to others they don’t agree with me.  So most likely (and hopefully) it’s just my anxious mind.

The other day, I was “multi-tasking” as many people do.  I was cooking some food for my son for the week – which is a lot of boiling frozen veggies – while googling away on the topic of my concern.  While in the throws of my vicious google circle – a plastic slotted spoon had fallen into the flame on my gas stove.  And I was so caught up in my obsession that I didn’t notice until most of the spoon had melted away on the stove, the pot, the pot lid, etc.

I had a mini-breakdown as I was taking all the melted plastic covered kitchen supplies outside to get the fumes/smell out of my home.  I called my husband and lost it.  Not my finest moment at all.

So since then I’ve sworn off google for this topic.  Because really – is google going to help me solve this problem (if it is one)?  Is google going to prevent this from being a problem (if it is?)  No.  Is google going to make me miss out on some precious moments with my son?  Is google going to make my life more chaotic than it needs to be?  Yes.

So from now on, Google is off limits for topics that can send me into a worry-spiral.  It is to be used for research for work, shopping, email and fun items only!

 

Changes and Dreams

I used to pride myself on being able to handle change well – even craving change.  But these past several months have challenged that thought.

I have had a lot of change.  Like, if you ever take one of those life stressor polls, I’d rate pretty darn high.  I actually just took a quiz (the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory) and scored well above the high rating and they predict I have an 80% chance of having a major health incidence in the next 2 years.  So…um…

Every little change is now effecting me in a negative way.  For instance, our neighbors moved.  We weren’t close.  I knew their names and would wave if we saw each other – but that’s about it.  But now at night, when I’m washing the baby bottles, I look out our kitchen window and don’t see the familiar view of our neighbor sitting on her couch working on her laptop.  And it makes me sad.  I feel out of control.  And I hate that.

In order to make myself feel more in control over all these out of my hands changes, I tend to dream about my life in the future.  I don’t dream too far in advance, maybe 6 months to 2 years.  And I’m not unrealistic.  I don’t envision myself winning the lottery or moving to France.  I envision real-life possibilities.  And it helps.  It gives me a sense of calm and control, even if the control is just an illusion.

But I don’t tell anyone my future life visions.  I think it’s because I’ve had goals I’ve shared in the past, and didn’t make them, and felt horrible about myself.  It was embarrassing.  So I stopped voicing my dreams.  Which is sad.  I kind of need to voice these, right?  I mean, how can I make my life more of what I want, and make sure my husband and I are both seeing the same, or close to same, things – unless I share these.

It’s hard to find time to talk seriously with him now.  In depth conversations are a thing of the past.  We now talk about poopy diapers, what we can scrounge out of the fridge for dinner, and our deep desire for more sleep.  Nothing serious.  But that’s my goal for the weekend.  To voice my dreams.  I may have to give a dream disclaimer.  Something along the lines of “is this doesn’t happen, it’s OK.”  Give myself a little out in case I change my mind, lose my way, etc.  Maybe that will make the conversation a little easier.

Once I share them with him, I’ll share them with you.  So stay tuned…

What day is it?

I’m having difficulty remembering what day it is.  Days tend to all blur together – one bleeding into the next.  We actually still have a notebook we keep logging our son’s diaper changes, feedings, naps, etc.  Otherwise we won’t remember.  Parenthood definitely takes away some of your brain power.

So it’s already Wednesday.  Wow.

I am happy to report I did good on my workout goal for last week.  I did every workout except for Sunday’s yoga DVD.  It’s probably the one I need to most, but the one I feel least guilty about skipping.  Odd, right?  But there were days I had to force myself to do my 15 minute exercise  – and I did it.  So yay!  Small victory dance.

My goal this week is 30 minutes.  Yesterday that didn’t happen.  Yesterday was chaotic.  My sitter didn’t show up and I had an early morning meeting with my boss – so my husband had to stay with the baby.  And from then on, craziness ensued.  You know how when your day starts off crazy, it just stays crazy.  Unexpected trip to the pediatricians office, ridiculously long lines at the grocery store for 11am on a Tuesday, all that happened.  So no, I didn’t workout then.  But I did my 30 minutes on Monday and today, so I’m just picking up where I left off.  No guilt.  Things happen.  No quitting – that’s the more important thing!

On a totally unrelated note, while I’m happy I’ve started this exercise regime, I still can’t help looking towards next year for me to finally have some happiness.  I don’t know why – I’ve never been a New Year’s person.  January 1 is just the same as December 31st in my book.  But for some reason I feel like all the hurt and stress I have buried deep down in me will disappear with the changing of the year.  It doesn’t work that way, I know.  I just don’t have the time or the means to release it, and it will stay with me until I do.  That’s a scary thought.  But I just have to keep powering on.  When the feelings overcome me, I let them.  I don’t judge myself.  You can’t wish away sadness anymore than you can wish for more money.  So I just feel it.  And hope that one day I won’t be so sad anymore.

But that’s my update.  Nothing overwhelming.  Just thought I’d throw this out there.