Thoughts, events and emotions from the week...

While in the moment life seems to move at a snails pace and then while looking back you suddenly realize that those snails have been moving at warp speed. It's been a week since visiting San Francisco and the new, improved Academy of Sciences. It was very crowded and was sometimes difficult to see displays but it was enjoyable. What I did see was impressive and I look forward to going back during the week in the fall/winter months. The aquarium still has a lot of growing to do but is beautiful.


The rest of the week was spent looking at houses, taking care of errands and other mundane life tasks. The one exciting event for the week is that we made it through the first acceptance steps in buying the 'house of our dreams'. It is a short-sale and the owners have accepted our offer. Now their bank must accept our offer and then we get to start all the inspections and move forward with the purchase. This is the first time one of our offers has been accepted so we are excited.


During the week I have had many times where thoughts have filled my head of despair and loneliness but it is always after I have just gotten off the computer on the insistence of JT. Well, not really insistence, he just makes the comment that I have been on the computer all day - which I had. I've been spending a lot of time just looking at other blogs, trying to find some that interest me and also find some that might follow the same topics that concern me. If I'm honest with myself it's escaping really. It's so much easier to immerse myself in the lives, thoughts and images I encounter as I browse than to look within and explore the same. It's so difficult to open that door. I never really, cognitively accepted how well I am able to compartmentalize. It's a matter of safety really. Think of a pressure cooker for example. We had one growing up and I can remember asking my mom what would happen if the the steam release cap came off. At the time she was cooking beans for chili so she explained that the built up pressure would force the beans through the release valve, spewing them all over the kitchen like a volcano erupting lava. I chose to resist my urge to 'accidentally' knock off the cap at that point and went on about my business. The door behind which I stuff everything has this kind of pressure built up. Shoving it all in is easy - you don't have to open the door for that. It works more like osmosis I think, the outer membrane only allows one-way movement. The door is only used for release and to open it would release all the pressure resulting in an emotional eruption of cataclysmic proportions. Or so I tell myself anyway.


I found a blog yesterday that I decided to follow and today she had posted a scanned image of her diary from years past. One of the comments that followed mentioned that the they (the commenter) had similar thoughts but had never managed to keep a diary over the years. I must say I am the same. Once or twice I can remember starting a diary but it never lasted more than a week or so and I have no idea what happened to those diaries. The first time I really put any effort into a journal was when my ex left. Even then I kept more of a prayer journal than a record of my thoughts and feelings. I have never thought that anyone would be all that interested in reading anything I might have to write and putting it on paper also makes a person vulnerable. When it goes on paper it becomes real, you are acknowledging the existence of that thought or feeling. What if others find it, read it, what will they think? But really, who cares anyway? My own mother doesn't care about my feelings why should anyone else? Hmmm.


Where did that come from? She's my mother so of course she would care about my feelings! Growing up crying was not an acceptable form of expression unless it was justified. This was made clear by the frequently threatened statement: "if you don't have something to cry about, I'll give you something to cry about!" Not a veiled threat either, as some might think. My parents didn't believe in empty threats; spare the rod and spoil the child was accepted discipline. Not that we were abused by any means - please don't read that into my recollections. My point in all this is simply that you hear a phrase like that enough times you quit reacting, quit showing emotion unless it's justifiable. You only cry in the privacy of your room, in the solitude of an apple orchard, or into the fur of a loving animal. When your older, as a teen, you find a friend or two who are sympathetic and bend their ear a time or two. What is justifiable? When is it ok to cry you might ask? A physical injury (to some degree, drama is frowned upon also) is allowable. Crying after punishment is expected but don't over do it. Your feelings got hurt? Buck up - it happens to everyone you'll be fine. It didn't help that I was an emotional child (still am really) and cried at the drop of a hat. Since I never could manage to control the tears I just quit trying to express the reasons for my tears and I think somewhere along the way I just quit even acknowledging the feelings at all.


My weight is one of the issues that this blog is supposed to help me control. All these emotions that are bottled up and undefined have started to wreck havoc on my body and I am in need of help. My mother-in-law told me once that I needed to learn how to ask for help. I know how to ask for help - I never forgot that. No, instead I learned a new lesson, people are to busy with their own lives to care about mine. "You need to reach out, Comfort. Let people know what you need. They can't help if they don't know you need it. Tell them what they can do and they will help."


Whatever!! is the nice way I use to say BULLSHIT!!!!!


I asked her for help. She offered one of her treatments for trade, I do work for her and she gives me a treatment - that way I don't have to pay for it. She can't even remember half the time that I don't have a uterus anymore. I guess I'm probably the only one that remembers that fact all the time but if she's going to give me treatments then she should treat me like other clients and at least remember my medical history! What about your other friends you might ask. What friends? I have a lot of friends but not the kind that are able to provide support I guess. It's been this way all my life it seems. There have been periods here and there where I thought I had found that friend(s) that would be there through thick and thin and it just hasn't seemed to happen. There is not a single person that called me when my father-in-law passed away. No calls to see how I was holding up, no offers to help us move into his house so we could take care of him before he passed. I have gone to specific people and expressed my need for support, my need for a friend, given out my number in hopes that they might give me a call sometime. This is so pathetic, I sound like a depressed teenager and I'm 39 fuckin years old. 6 months and I'll be 40; a bit old to be crying for friends you'd think huh?! I have my counselor and JT but he doesn't always get it. Most of the time he doesn't get it.


This is when it gets really hard, the emotions are getting strong and I just want to bawl. At the same time I want the thoughts to stop so my fist instinct is to move to something else. That work, the bird distracted me. (s)he tried to eat JT's bugers indicating hunger so I had to pause and deliver the bird the it's cage. Just enough time to distract and get that door to slam shut again. I do need to get food for the puppy though and am going to take a break for a bit. I have to post again tonight!