what I know

Ok, so at my wise old age of 41 I am finally getting that the only way to be "happy" in this life is to take the very best care of myself that I can. I am finally beginning to know that I need to be good to myself, take time for myself, not wear myself out or waste myself away.
For me this means eating well and getting some exercise every day. It means quiet and solitude. It means a clean green space to be in everyday. It means order and pacing. It means connection and conversation with people. It means trying to be creative every day.
It means not allowing the fear of failure or ridicule to guide my choices. It means laughing and relaxing. It means not numbing myself with housework and television. it means not getting caught up in my kids moods. Or R's moods, or anyone's moods- (very hard. very important.) It means being hopeful.
I means not sitting around waiting for someone to love me so I can feel good. It means that my dreams are not contingent upon him loving me, or even being around me. It means that I cannot put my eggs into someone else's basket and expect to reap their rewards.

Easy to say, harder to live. But at least I know now.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I am about to start a new job, and as usual, I am feeling that same sense of fear and dread that I associate with change. The hours will suck and most of the dread/fear and guilt comes from getting home so late, almost bedtime and having to trust R to take care of things at home, which I seriously do not think he can handle. Typically it takes him 2 hours to cook even the simplest of meals and I am already freaking out about how hungry my kids are going to be, not to mention the thrill of coming home to kitchen disasters. R is a good guy, but structure and organization are not part of his world-just what that 4-7 pm period needs. Maybe I am just being negative, or condescending, maybe just making excuses for not trying something new out. I keep wanting to talk myself out of it. My friends-ever pragmatic just shrug and say, try it if you don't like it, just quit.
So I will start slowly, hopefully and get back into the swing of things. This job is a small (perhaps big) step in the direction I would like to go so I feel that I should just suck it up and go for it.

indian summer

I am tired of all of this negative depressing shit. It is a beautiful day today in my neck of the woods. I got to almost have a collision with a deer yesterday as I was jogging, the kids and R and I spent the evening exploring the creek 5 minutes away from our backyard, and it's justs uch perfect weather. I am going to visit a friend for a coffee and some inane talk about decorating or landscaping (which is what we seem to talk about in the suburbs) and I am so bloody content right now with this day that I am going to stop blathering now and go enjoy myself.

stepford wife

My older daughter has accused me of being crabby all the time. R treats me with contempt on a regular basis. Even the little one has a pretend mommy. I am trying very hard not to curl up into a ball and will myself into oblivion.
I am trying (despite the opinions of the people with whom I live) to be positive in my day-to-day life. I try to be present when they are talking to me. I try to say positive things to them and ask lots of questions. I try to smile and play good music. It only seems to annoy them.
I am not trying to be the victim but it seems clear to me that there is something wrong with my approach. Maybe I take my daughter's comments too seriously. Maybe R is right to be suspicious of my motives. The little one also has 3 pretend dogs that she takes for walks holding their leashes (for the record their names are Spot, Mr. Murphy and Furry).

Sometimes, I think that it would be easier to join the medicated legions of 50's wives who were supposed to be just so happy to serve without the obligations to self that we have. It strikes me that this traditional arrangement of man-at-work woman-at-home really can't work in our era of self-actualization, of the expectation of equality. I am an uppity woman, a woman who expects equality and fair treatment. I expect comradery and companionship with my partner, I expect him to take as much pride and care in the domestic as I do, and I expect him to take as much pride and care in the emotional as I do. I expect to take part in politics and commerce and decision making.
Would it make life easier if I didn't expect too much??

a sigh

So, on a lighter note we had a wicked screaming match in the car (complete with name calling and swearing) in front of the kids which resulted in the little one and me crying, the car being pulled over and the two of them going for a walk. The darker note is that the big one also witnessed the entire horrible thing and didn't react at all.

how not to communicate

I am beginning to really realize that any changes that I need to make, I need to make. Maybe it's a man thing but I am finding my man to be extremely resistant to any notion of working things out that goes beyond him saying we have some things to work out. I think it's the old thing about conflict and confrontation that makes him so very uncomfortable, unlike women who really like to get into the juice of things, the depth of things. Of course I have never been one to just let things lie, I have to force the issue every goddamn time. Yet, I am at a loss as to how to communicate with someone who just becomes stone-faced at any attempts I make to talk to him. Then we go around in the same circles -I get upset that he is so uncommunicative, he gets irritated that I am complaining, I get hurt that he's being cold, he feels attacked then overwhelmed. And then there is silence, back to where we started. It's fucking crazy.
It's so boring-even to me at this point but I just can't stop the desire, the need to feel some sort of response from him that is not angry or cold. I know that it may never come, he's got his own stuff to figure out and I suspect that he is just not ready to deal with it, may never be. I suspect that he is afraid of the depth of his frustration, just as I am afraid of the repercussions.
Which goes back to the beginning of taking care of my own life, my own happiness, my own shit. It is such a no-brainer I know but somehow I lost that. I am not moving out, not ending my relationship (which complicates things a hell of a lot I know) but I do need to figure out a way to be amazing within this context...feels like I've got my work cut out for me.

who to communicate with

With a few precious hours of free time on my hands thanks to the miracle of kindergarten, I sat down in my favourite cafe with a coffee and a notepad and proceeded to whip off about 10 pages of my life in about half an hour. I love that creativity flows through heartache although I wish it would flow easier through joy. I ended up walking about 8 kms yesterday, back home and was able to think things through a bit. He's been very nice to me lately so I am sure he's feeling pretty guilty about the whole situation. Maybe he thinks it's business as usual, I don't know. Anyone with small children knows just how difficult it is to actually conduct a relationship that involves adult conversation-add to that a man who is passed out by 10:00 pm and there seems to be a lot of days and nights that go by without ever having even the beginnings of a meaningful exchange. I find that excrutiating -the loneliness of being only casual with someone and longing to connect with them, to talk to them and feel them close to you spiritually and emotionally. Instead you get information about the day, about the next day, about the next day after that, about the weather.

planting seeds

Once you know and can begin to accept that your relationship will not continue on in its present form I think it's easier to communicate with one another. I think for the first time in a very long time we are beginnning to do that. I feel like I haven't got as much to lose by being open and honest and I am not as tied to what he has to say. I am trying very hard to just move forward into a more honest and open place with him and I do not want him to spend his life feeling trapped nor do I want him to live a life without passion-and that means that eventually we will have to go our separate ways. Not yet. But sometime in the future this thing will have run its course. I do feel as though we are not through yet-we have a lot of learning and growing to do with each other, a deepening of our life. Not sure yet how what why where but I think we may be planting some seeds. I hope.

accentuating the positive

I am at a loss as to how to move forward. I feel inert, wanting to wait for a more sure sign of fight or flight. I don't know how to stop the negative stuff from taking front and centre of my mind and heart. He asked me this morning to try and think loving thougths of him (said he would try to do the same for me). The trying aspect made me sad and I responded that I was going to try to think loving thoughts about myself.
I matter. My thoughts matter. My feelings matter.
(my first thought as I wrote this was how pathetic it sounded).
ok, so at least I have a sense of humour.

this is it

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak the truth. I will most likely regret it, but I am tired of the masquerade and if I can't be honest with you, then I can't be honest with anyone I suppose. We will stay together, but I know my partner of seven years does not love me. At least not in the way I want him to. He knows I know, he knows I've known since we met that he will never be "in love" with me whatever that means. I'm so in love with him. There's the rub, isn't it? Life is hard with him, often lonely, often sad. It's still great when he shines my way. But after years of trying I have finally realized that I can't make him love me, can't make him behave as if he does. It breaks my heart that in staying with me he may never have the opportunity to fall in love again, to find the one. Same for me, although I know that I have made my bed so to speak.

We have a family together, we live together and share our lives. There is always a BUT with us tho, you know? Even in the best of times there has always been an undercurrent of "what's is he missing?" "why doesn't he love me?"

I need to learn to love myself as deeply and honestly as I want to be loved by someone else. Only then can I create the life I dream of for me and my kids, and for him as well. This is the beginning of my journey.