Cresting

Seriously, I am okay. My blogs in the past months are really damn depressing. Yikes. I will blame Seasonal Affective Disorder and move on from it.

Today...we need something light.

Zoe told me her favorite movie is Frozen. It used to be The Wizard of Oz, before that The Princess Bride. She might finally have one appropriate for her age group. ha.

She asked me what mine was...I always say the same thing, The English Patient. However, I have lots of movies that I put on constantly that are sort of like going home. I'm not saying they are uplifting...but I seem to lean toward the script. I love good dialogue. I love good conversation. I love movies that shed light on fucked up families. And some that have great scripts that just make me feel good.

In absolutely no particular order...I'm choosing the first ten that come to me, or I'll sit here for hours and do this.

The Big Chill
One True Thing
The Family Stone
Wonder Boys
Moonlight Mile
The Way We Were
The Four Seasons
When Harry Met Sally
You've Got Mail
Out of Africa

Okay, one more...because I can't leave out Tootsie. I really love Tootsie.

See! I made it without anything grim or whiny!!!

(The sun is out today...that helps.)

I made it through the rain! (I love Barry....)

I was going  to reread my post from last night and decided not to.

Today was a new day and I  unplugged my brain a bit. Yesterday I was desperately floundering. I will say that Jason said some things last night that helped put things into perspective. The heaviness is gone in my chest. I didn't give him enough credit. I don't normally talk to him when I'm feeling a bit crazy...worried that he'll be disappointed or annoyed for some reason. ?? Like I'm  his girlfriend and not his wife. WTF? I  have issues. Anyway, he kept seeing me sneak off and have phone conversations with friends and I think his feelings were a bit hurt. "You are talking to them about how you're feeling? Why aren't you talking to me?" I told him I really didn't think he'd understand. I told him a few thoughts and he whipped into "You are looking at this ALL WRONG!" mode. I won't go into the point by point discussion we had where he basically disproved everything negative feeling I had about myself...but I will say that I felt loved. Today, I just feel relieved. Relieved that I have people I can talk to when I'm whacked. Relieved that one of them is actually in Rochester! (that took a while) Relieved that Jason is on my side. I think I put him vs me for some reason. Yesterday, EVERYONE was VS ME.

I just watched a show I taped on OWN about women and aging. Sharon Stone was on. She is now 56 and said that she really didn't have peace with herself until she was 50. Oprah seemed to agree with that. That was a relief as well. I was looking at 40 like I had 5 mins to pack up my things and take off in a plane or something and my room looks like a tornado hit it. Where's my bag? What clothes? Where am I even going?? Like I was TOTALLY unprepared to be who I was supposed to be. As if there is an alarm and when it goes off you can't grow anymore. You can't learn...you are done. Put your pencils down. I felt like I had to be a complete person by a certain time. I'm not sure where that feeling comes from. More therapy questions.

Today...Z was sick (it wasn't pretty...ugh.) and I took care of her. She got her bath tonight. She drank fluids and ate her crackers and she didn't have an episode after noon. I had to break Harper of her pacifier cold turkey because the dentist told me that it was ruining the shape of her mouth. She said I still had time for it to "grow out" and she'd be fine, but NO MORE PACIFIER. (Z had hers until she was 2 1/2 or something crazy.) So, Harper cried (sort of all day) out of frustration. As if she was in detox...I held her and tried to be as soothing as I could. She went to bed tonight...without even a whimper.

It was a good day.

The Incredible Shrinking woman...

At 39, I feel no more put together than I did as a kid. I felt that my anxieties about family and friends would go away. That I would be stronger and more confident. That I would have built a life of my own and not feel as if I were so emotionally tied to my family....since I felt they were a source of stress for me. I know that many people feel this way about their families...but my chest still caves in at the thought of conflict. If I feel that people are upset or distant...I feel out of balance. I have anxiety attacks. I was co-dependent for such a long time...and although moving helped that...it didn't cure me of this feeling. My family (with the exception of my step sister) doesn't talk or really address their feelings. They tend to ignore major events that cause trauma and move on as if the mountain will look smaller the further they get from it. "See...it wasn't that big..." Time does not heal all wounds. With some people they become calloused and numb with time. With me, I feel as if things just fester, blister and cause a chronic, painful abscess.

Growing older has been great--with finding Jason and having the girls. It's been great to meet the friends I have and creating life long experiences that I can share with them. It's been nice to make some type of shape to my life. From the outside looking in, I think my life looks great. My facebook pictures portray a happy me.

And it isn't that I'm not. I guess I thought I'd be more secure. I thought I'd have more direction. I thought I'd be less insecure and full of anxiety about what others think. Inside, I feel as if I'm still in grade school. I feel as if I am still trying to get more love and attention from my parents. I feel as if my older sister and I are not close--thinking years would change that fact and it hasn't seem to. In a way, she and my dad are so similar. I feel they are both good people. They are kind to me...and they like me--but they find it difficult to be around me and don't have any desire to be close to me. My dad sees my girls once a year.

Okay, I did move away. And as I've felt a lot of times in  my life...I wonder if I moved away to see if anyone would come see me. That's a childish way of looking at it all. As if they only saw me because I was within reasonable reach...and now that it takes some effort...it's not worth it. Did I do all of this to prove myself right? To give myself a reason to feel left out of things and to confirm (unfairly) that my original feelings were correct? My family seems to think that since I moved away--I put the boundary in place. As if it was a tactical maneuver to live away from them--and therefore, they feel rejected. ??? I'm so whacked out about this.

Some of my friends come off so strong. They have a "take no shit" attitude. They make healthy choices with their lives. They seem SO MUCH stronger than I do. I still feel like a weakling emotionally. I really hate it. I especially hate it for my girls. I need to get it together so that they don't learn bad habits from me and grow up feeling nervous and insecure about things. What is it going to take??

Frustwriting. (sounds like I'm Aussie!)

So after enrolling in a class at Writers and Books (a writers haven in Rochester)--my class was cancelled due to low enrollment. DAMN! This is the 3rd time. However, this time, I felt horribly let down. I was so excited to get back to going to a class and forcing myself to write and be around other writers. They are a different breed of people. Mostly focused inward--sadly, but still creative and fun to be around.

I'll try again.

Going to take a nap now...ugh.

The Kill (I'd only watch if you like TSTM or The Shining)

Artifact

I watched Artifact last night. It's the 30 Seconds to Mars documentary about their fight with their record label. A lot of scenes with them working and creating. Jason said he could not relate to it at all. I definitely have been around people like that. They are hard to comprehend for an engineer. "I don't relate to this at all." Half the time when I hear him on the phone it sounds as if he's speaking another language.

He's not a creative one and I think creative people come across as crazy or immature. Most of the time they are wandering or constantly questioning things. Nothing is black and white. They are emotional and in tune with their emotions--even if they don't share them. Most of them need a lot of counseling. HA!

Anyway, I dug it. When someone is able to tap into something that feeds them in every way and they feel like THIS is what they were meant to do. I am in awe.

ARTIFACT - OFFICIAL TRAILER (Thirty Seconds To Mars Documentary)

Missing: Sense of self. Please call if found.

I've always felt that I had something to say...well, that I had some type of writing that needed to be done. As if it were one of my purposes in life. I can't figure out where to start. I can't seem to write every day. I think I need to start with one sentence, or maybe a subject to break through the block. I'm at such a strange part of my life. Staying at home with the girls has been odd for me. I love them and I'm so happy with who they are becoming, but I am lacking in being interesting--I feel. I'm quite boring, actually. I'm a little needy. I come across as wanting a connection with someone so badly that I feel it's a turn off. I've been going to a women's group...well, I had my first session this past week. It was eye opening, sort of. We all had very similar feelings about raising children and about feeling boring and lacking a real connection with anyone. We all seem to have lost our true sense of self. Maybe it isn't just a mom thing...but a human thing. Some just seem more put together than others. I'm not sure I've ever been put together--at least not how I'd like to be. I am always insecure about making new friends. Insecure about my "weirdness."

I have a general high anxiety level that makes me feel set apart from other people. It makes me want to talk about how I'm feeling a lot in a way to understand it or to compare it to how others feel. There are about 3-4 people in the world that I always feel comfortable talking about how I really feel without worrying what they are thinking.

At this point in my life...I continue to wonder if I will always feel like this. If I will ever have a strong sense of self. If I will be able to come across as confident and wise to my daughters. If I will always have issues with anxiety and the feeling of not being complete. There seems to be a crucial thing missing from my life--and I can't figure out quite what it is.

I'm hoping I'm a late bloomer.

I'm trying to write every day and it isn't working out. Either I forget, am too tired or I'm uninspired. I'm going to take a class to jumpstart myself. It starts in 2 weeks. I think writing has to become a part of your day, like a habit or daily ritual. A lot of people write in the morning. I don't have time until mid day or evening...and then I'm spent.

The girls are growing. I can see things changing. Life will be different once Harper isn't a baby anymore. She is technically a toddler...but when she really starts talking, it will be a new ball game. Things may get easier. Some are more challenged during the teen years. I am definitely not a grade school person. I like conversation and ideas...I can't wait to watch REAL movies with them and discuss. I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself a year from now. Harper will be starting pre-school and I will need to find a place in society again. That causes my chest to be heavy. I've never had a career. I have daydreams about things, but I've never worked toward completing any of them. Maybe I will have the courage by then.

Spring needs to come. I'm claustrophobic.