New Year, New Outlook?

Honestly I couldn't care less about New Years, it's always been a rough night for me full of pretty bad things and overinflated expectations. My whole family almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning one year, we had our car stolen another year, and for the last 10 years have worked every New Years Eve.

This year for the first time in our relationship Steve and I were both home, and we had a nice, low-key night. Brie and apples with Kaisers for dinner, Brave and American Reunion on the TV, it was nice.

Because it was the first year though it felt like it needed to be marked in some way, so we talked and decided to set a goal to go to Mexico in October. I think it might be a goal we both actually work towards, and I know for me I always do better with something to plan and look forward to.

I really want to go ziplining, and I'm in terrible shape. Like, atrocious. So with 9 full months ahead of me, I'm going to get in better shape. I have no delusions of losing 100 lbs, and hiking giant mountains. I just am going to do some interval training of some sort every day until it gets easier, and then I'm going to do a bit more until that gets easier. I only need to lose about 20 lbs to not worry about weight limits so that's only about 2 lbs a month, and honestly if I'm moving more and eating just a bit better that shouldn't be an insurmountable task. It's always been the exercise that gets me, but I've always started to big and then gotten discouraged.

So Mexico, I'm going to take you on!

Time is passing very strangely.

I honestly and truly didn't think it had been that long between blog posts. The work days drag to no end with the craziness that has ensued. The weekends are spent reacclimating myself with reading, and I have definitely been enjoying that. I had forgotten the rush of anticipation, the disappointment of having to put the book down, and the lives of the characters becoming real and 3 dimensional.

My husband sort of gets it, and for that I'm eternally grateful. I can't imagine marrying someone who doesn't share at least a small affinity for the written word, and he definitely does. While not a voracious reader, he does invest himself in the characters and become a part of their world.

On a husband note: he had a bad dream the other day. I was laying on the couch reading, and suddenly he came down the stairs stark naked and in a daze, knelt before me, and hugged tightly and for a long time. He had been starting a cold the night before so I though he was just sick, but when he finally sat up he had tears pouring down his face!! I asked him what was wrong and he had dreamed that I had died, and he had to go clean out my desk at work!!! There have been many a time over the last couple of years that I have accused him of being so emotionally withdrawn that even my death would barely rattle him, and I think on some level he may have been concerned that may have some truth.  But the first thing he said to me after, "You're alive!" is, "See, your death would affect me!!!!!".

Good to know!

On my way

Well, I've read 2 books so far in the New Year, started Visalus and lost 2.8 lbs. and am blogging for the second time. Not too shabby so far!

We're going to see "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" this evening at the local theatre with my 2 year old niece - this should be interesting but I think she'll be good.

DH has been working both jobs and almost seems happier doing it, I think actually feeling like he's doing something above and beyond to contribute has been good for his self-esteem. We also had a bit of a breakthrough talking about punishments and comparing what he had put me through to a situation we had run across. Maybe he got it, just for a second? Don't know, but we've been doing pretty good this week.

Is that a Reflection I see?

Depends on who you ask I guess. I'm not really reflected in his river very often, though I do believe that he is finally aware of this fact and is at least rudimentarily distressed by the notion.

But I am my own river too. I have chosen to stay in the same waters, to follow the same path, and be dragged through the same sediment, but I am my own water, my own twig spinning hopelessly in the current, and there is no reason I can't choose to enjoy the scenery.

And so I will begin a Project 365 of my own making. I will attempt to create the one in photos on my phone, but I'm not going to worry about that every day. Same thing with this blog. I'm not going to commit to writing my thoughts every day. I AM going to commit to writing at least once a week, with updates as to my progress and endeavors. And I'm going to read 50 books this year, since I love to read and can't seem to bother making time for it.

1. Project 365 on my phone.
2. Blog at least once a week to keep myself updated on my progress.
3. Read 50 books this year.
4. Lose weight. Mean it this time.
5. Have a different outlook on my own life by next New Years (if we make it that far).

Here I go!

The Medication Conundrum or

"how I became an automaton".

The problem with how we experience life is that it is filled with oxymorons that go against everything instinctual (and that has served us just fine over the last few thousand millenia or so).

Emotions are scary, intense, aggravating, intrusive, obnoxious, intolerable, - there seems to be a million adjectives and still they only touch the surface. Is there anything as all-prevalent as emotion? And yet is there anything quite so oppressed?

Every medication, every narcotic, every distillery, every form of entertainment, every single ingenuity of mankind is designed to fulfill an emotional need. Gadgets are created to make us happy or amused or more relaxed. Narcotics are designed to create a sense of security or a euphoric sense of disassociation. Space exploration was even designed to make us feel less lonely and facilitate the feeling of power supported by exploration.

And yet every self-help novel or guru, every pharmaceutical, and even pop culture is designed to repress, annihilate, moderate, and pervert our natural responses.

Emotional Intelligence? A transcendent ideal, surely. A Utopian quest, absolutely. But until the average human is using more than a mere iota of their reasoning capabilities it remains an amusing flight of fancy that most don't have the capacity to grieve.

Am I bitter? Who knows. I'm on anti-depressants. That means I am as level and stifled as your average glass of water that has been sitting on your nightstand for a month. Great potential, so misused that something that shouldn't be capable of spoiling still manages to collect dust and a funky taste that makes you want to chew every so slightly on your tongue after consumption.

What makes me wake up

and immediately want to pick a fight?

It may have something to do with the feeling of not having any control over the situation.

It may have something to do with the lack of physical outlet I have, and I may or may not take up kickboxing. 

It may have something to do with the fact that I know 99.99999% of the time there is a fight waiting there with baited breath for me to pick it.

Mostly it has something to do with the fact that we really, to this point, haven't communicated in the last 3 years unless it has been a fight. I'm trying very hard to resist the urge most of the time, but I will freely admit that some days even an iron will isn't enough to let something go.

I just want to talk to my husband. Just a conversation like we used to have years ago, about why we were together and where we want to go in life. Looking back on those conversations I realize that there was never any real talk about HOW we were going to get to those places or how he truly FELT about them, but the conversations really did happen.

Now I'm just trying to realize that he is aware of the lack of feelings involved in the way he deals with me and is trying to add more of himself into conversations, and that I'm being very impatient. It's just very hard when I never quite know if he will quit anything progress that is made the next day.

All I wanna do,

is have some fun (Sheryl Crow). Not really, but it popped into my head and thought I should go with it. Actually, scratch that, I DO really want to have some fun! But most of all I want to be able to follow my heart without feeling like I will have to crucify myself after.

It's Saturday afternoon, once again spent watching TV and playing on the computer while he sleeps after his graveyard shift at the restaurant. This particular Saturday I am watching Dawson's Creek, Season 3 and reliving a lot of my teen years through their uber-optimistic angst. And all I want to do is go crawl in bed with him. I want to feel his arms around me, I want to feel safe and warm and loved. And I know that if I do that I will get my hopes up to stratospheric proportions, only to have them burnt up to a crisp upon the inevitable reentry.

The worst part isn't the knowledge that my cries and pleas will fall upon deaf ears, and I'm reasonably sure that I wouldn't be rejected out of hand. The worst part is that I would hold myself as weak and vulnerable after. My heart wants to take over and fulfill itself, and yet my head will not allow it without recrimination.

Why am I in the situation to have to lynch myself for wanting my husbands touch, his kiss, his expression of physical intimacy? I have certainly put myself into this situation, and rallying in the name of fairness is a fools quest. But it just isn't fair.

There is no difference between living and learning...it is impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being separate.

- John Holt, author

This quote rings so true. I complain that I'm not livng my life, I'm just letting it pass me by. But of course I'm living my life, I'm just not necessarily learning from it, or at least applying my learnings to my actions.  

Vindication? Trepidation? Finalization?

I have a whole lot of 'tions, and not a whole lot of answers. Here's a few more: Facilitation, hesitation, desperation, agitation, cohabitation. I could go on, but these are the most important right now I think.

Vindication: the act of upholding or justifing by argument or evidence: to vindicate a claim.

I feel vindicated now that the psychologist has ordered him to get a psychiatric referral for a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. My fears are not only in my head or a result of my own overreactions - there really is a problem. (Not that I thought I was wrong, but in the dark and loneliness of the wee hours of the morning I would begin to doubt my own convictions - coincidentally another tion word)

Trepidation: tremulous fear, alarm, or agitation; perturbation.

Full of more 'tions, and this one both speaks for itself and is full of so much I could never begin to put into words. About our future, my future, his recovery, our marriage, our communication, you name it!

Finalization: to put into final  form; complete all the details of.

Is this what we should do to our marriage?

Facilitation: to make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action, a process, etc.).

Is the simple act of me staying actually putting the final nail in the coffin, and by its very nature confirming that he will never truly escape my enabling? If I facilitate all of his negative behaviors by choosing to remain in this marriage, has hope been lost before it's even been found?

Hesitation, desperation, agitation: need I really look up the definition for you? I think these pretty much speak for themselves. 

Cohabitation: to live together in an intimate relationship.

Once again, should I stay or should I go? That really is the question isn't it. Or rather, it goes one step further. Should I stay and choose to stick to my marriage vows regardless, since I chose to enter them freely and with no reservations, or should I leave with the knowledge that staying may have actually caused significant mental harm and caused both of us to stagnate in unused and unexplored potential?

 

History

I find it funny that the letters in history for all intents and purposes spell out 'his story'. It really is his story, with my experiences, reactions, and feelings inconsequential in large part. It's not that he doesn't know that I have feelings, nor is it that he maliciously acts against them. It's that they just don't register to him in any way that affects his actions or intentions. He doesn't have the capacity to put my feelings above his, or to take the time to figure out if my requests are for the benefit of both of us together.

True realization started for me last March, 2010. This was when a feeling just kicked in about all of the suspicions I had when he would come home smelling of smoke, or with a lighter in his pocket, or a fingernail that looked more yellow than the others. He vehemently denied smoking, and always had a perfectly plausible excuse. He would spend entire days never leaving my sight, and especially at Disneyland in 2008 wasn't away from us and certainly didn't have a noticeable mood change to suggest he was craving. And yet that day I was convinced in my head, and so went to confront him at the school.

Yup, he was smoking. At that time, he admitted to doing it since school had started again, some time in September. I was crushed. He had been quit the same amount of time that I had, I thought almost 4 years!! There was a sullen, tearful, sometimes raging discussion, and then he had to go back to school. That night we didn't speak, and I didn't wake him up to start work so he was very late. The next morning he comes home and WWIII starts, and I discover that he had lied yet again and had been smoking for over 2 years already and was hiding it.

The hiding had led to a gradual but complete downturn in our marriage that I had been feeling for a long time but couldn't pinpoint a reason. Communication faded, teamwork disappeared, intimacy became less frequent and more forced. It was slipping through my fingers propelled by unseen forces. The only benefit I could find from all of this was I finally had a reason, something tangible that I could blame.

And blame I did. All the pent-up anger, resentment, frustration, and dejection had an outlet, and I alternately raged, cried, pouted, and demanded. I insisted that he quit again, laid out in detail apology actions, and demanded reparations. I extolled my virtues, insisted on respect, and pointed out in great detail and with great anguish the huge range of emotions that I had encountered over the last 3 years and since The Day of Awareness, or DOA. Ironic, eh?

Except he didn't care. It didn't register with him in any sort of significant way. Don't get me wrong, he certainly got upset, but it absolutely was in no way upset for me. He was distraught that his wants had been encroached upon and was happily spiralling into a shame cycle that he could milk into martyrdom. OH, how unpleasant HIS life had become with a sad, nagging wife and sleeping in the room next to the litter boxes. This was a favorite of his actually, telling everyone that would listen how appropriate it was for him to sleep next to sh!t when he was a piece of sh!t. Sounds very contrite right? Yup, SOUNDS contrite.

He did finally agree to quit again, but begged to set the date as the day after classes ended. I reluctantly agreed, realizing it would be very difficult to cut out a 2 year habit during finals, but asked that he figure out how many he typically smoked in a day and then reduce that number by one. Fair? I thought so, though I guess fair is in the eye of the beholder. My intention was to glean if he could set a limit for himself at all, and also to feel a sense of accomplishment if he met his goal. His response was completely positive, his intentions during our talk noble. And then he went out and smoked more than ever before. 


More later....

My world is a river...

And much to my chagrin, pain, loneliness, broken heart, and terrible anger, when my own husband looks into the river I am drowning in all he sees is Narcissus. All he sees is himself. That is a very bad thing when I am drowning in the undertow and all he can see is his reflection. I am being swept away by the current.