I need to make an addendum to the update.  I started talking after the post.  To Moni, to Christine, to Ru.  People texted and left comments.  I stopped being in my head so much.  It stopped being so scary.  Also and this is crucial, Moni pointed out with my intestinal issues, I may be under-medicated.  And she has a point.  Sometimes when I eat a bit of gluten or have something else undetermined going on, not much stays in my stomach or my body.  If that’s the case, being overwhelmed, crying and the anger I have lands smack in the middle of depression.

That said, I do have a bit of the middle age crazy’s going on.  I am squarely in the middle of wondering now that I am an adult (for the most part) what do I want to do.  I have to choose my life now.  And there are still whole swaths of it that make me squeamish.  Not pleased.  That is just hard mental work my friends.  And last night while watch the extremely intellectual Thor – a quote came up that just soooooo resonated it was like they made the whole movie just for me.

It’s not so bad finding out you had all the wrong answers. You start asking the right questions.

So I am starting to ask the right questions.  When I die, what do I want to be remembered for?  What do I want to leave here on earth as my legacy.  It won’t be children to mourn me.  I need to align myself with questions that matter to me.  And start living that way.  I want to go to bed with a smile on my face.  Satisfied, sated and moving forward because there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come.

I used to love venting on FB.  Just like I loved to snark on Twitter.  As each becomes less personal and more professional, my updates are less and less personally relevant.

I want to scream out that I am unhappy.  That I feel lost and that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I got what I wanted in a business and income (although I want more) and my health and bills and lack of forethought put me in this position where I am swimming upstream again.  And I haven’t even dealt with the majority of the bill issues.

The thing that holds me back again and again – I don’t want to owe people money and have no way to pay them.  I went through that and the shame and fear of it, is pushing me away from growth.

At least I have named it.  Now I can face it.

Sorry I don’t come over here and put happy thoughts.  There are plenty but this period in my life is not marked by much of it.  I have killed the hope addict.  I am coming to terms with their is no white knight.  I am not going to have a partner to share my burdens.  I don’t trust people anymore (tribe, family excluded).  I see other couples and their partners all seem to be contributing and I don’t seem to meet or find those people in my life.  I made horrible choices and am now paying the piper in many ways.  It’s easy to get angry, to have shame, to have fear and to have sadness about this place in my life and in my head.

What is harder is having forgiveness and tenderness toward myself.  To allow myself a certain kindness I would absolutely give to my friends and family.  I would wrap them in love, tenderness and caring.  I would help them and listen and guide them as they learn to stand up again.  I would cheer them and support them.  Thinking about that for myself seems very foreign.

For lots of reasons.

Having a bit of PTSD.  Financially I feel back in a stuck place and where I have to “hope” things work out.  And it was because I wouldn’t face reality.  Things are different this time.  I have billable work coming in and things will be fine.  It’s not the same thing.  But it feels like the same thing.  The reality is that I didn’t put enough away for my trip.  I came home to rent for a new office place, two trips, bills bills bills and oh some more bills.

This place is dark.

I also saw an old love.  And I am reeling.  He is in a bad place post a very recent break-up but it opened up a very vulnerable place and he said things I have always wanted him to say.  He didn’t say it to get back with me.  In fact, that’s not what he needs.  But he recognized things I wanted him to say for six years and it felt good to hear those things.  It felt so good, that I want him to call and invite me back over and tell me things again and again.  That I mattered to him and that I matter in general.  I know when he says these things it’s true.  He doesn’t say things lightly and he’s one of the few men, I trust what he says as he doesn’t give that praise and vulnerability often.

Unfortunately in the past he is such a drought of words that show I matter that I end up feeling like a beggar.

It makes me feel so vulnerable to think I need to hear that and when I look around I realize that where I lost my intimacy with Moni when she moved, I didn’t replace it with anything that really sates me.  And I’m not exactly looking for that again but to hear it and to crave it, makes me feel sad.   I have plenty of people in my life that I have intimacy at a friend level with but I hold it back until it bubbles out and then I’m shocked that I needed it and that it exists in general.  I find I believe that it’s not possible for me to find that in a romantic way because I don’t know know myself enough to know what I need.

He asked why I married my ex and I said because I was in Love.  With a capital L. I ignored red flags, and friends telling me to abort/abort and looked past traits that I thought I could fix.  What he was very good at was filling up that place that begs to hear I matter.  He was very good at telling me how wonderful and special and amazing I was.  It was like crack to me.  I felt so loved and heard and understood until slowly the blinders fell away and I realized those were just words.  Hollow words.  There wasn’t action to them.  There wasn’t movement.  It was just words to prop up my ego so that I would continue to put up with his behavior and his lack of integrity.  I fell for it for five years.  Until I was broken, literally on the ground, half dead.  Having gained 100 pounds and with all of my savings gone, my house ruined, friends and family wary and realizing I had married someone who could never love me because he didn’t love himself.  He didn’t even know how to do anything but lie to get what he wanted.  And I fell for it.

How do I ever believe people again.  Hell I pretty much went back straight to that pattern the first time I was given a chance.  How do I ever get to a place where I don’t want to fix a partner.  Or that I can accept that no one is perfect.  How can I trust anyone to have my back when every person I have known romantically has let me down.  EVERYONE of them.  Myself especially included.

Forgiveness and kindness to myself is something I have been really working hard at, but I come back from truly one of the most incredible trips of my life and I don’t like what I see again.  I went to Israel and saw and experienced an amazing world.  I truly loved every minute.  I wanted to be awake early and going and seeing and doing.  I fell asleep each night worn out in a happy way.  It was easy to be friendly and not sarcastic around people and share these wonderful experiences with my Mother.  I wasn’t feeling forced or weird or fake.  I was authentic and it was amazing.  I come back from the trip and I can’t get out of my mode.  I can’t stop feeling and what I am feeling is not great.  It’s overwhelmed and guilty and shame and alone and broke and everything around me is needing repair or fixing or help and I can’t do it.

I feel too much and not enough exactly in the same moment.

Sorry about that.  I have for once actually not living in my head and out amongst the living and haven’t updated here.

Today I find I’m back in my head a bit.  After a particularly vulnerable date – which wasn’t because of him but that I attempted to show up authentically and the brain fuck it did to me, gave me a vulnerability hangover.  For days.  Luckily I had therapy that next day.  So what I did in that session was figure out … that I allowed someone to lead, take care of me (in limited ways) and enjoyed feeling safe from a masculine energy – which apparently was me trying to be authentic in that moment.  I actually allowed myself to feel shy and embarrassed (two emotions woefully under-represented in the mix) and it was a good day.  As me and my therapist say, dating is helping me work out so many of my issues . It’s like a petri-dish of what’s going to emerge.  LOVE THAT aspect of it.

What I figured out today, was because this particular person has removed the sexual aspect of this relationship or at least made it very slow, that has taken away my control.  My belief that I have control.  My sense of power.  My ability to “bring” something of value to the mix.  Because in my cross-wired brain, what I bring to the mix is a love of sex and sex.  Kind of like come for the fun, stay for the person.   And if that is off the table, what value do I have?  I know – I have value.  Or in theory, I know that but when confronted with someone just wanting to know me emotionally, mentally, what I like – and I can’t mirror back to them – then I have to you know be authentic.  I have to take the action that I matter.  That I have to put that back on the table and be there.

And therein lies the rub.  This giving a shit about yourself – isn’t for weenies.

Is it a small depression setting in?

I’m debating it.  I don’t think so, but it’s got some undercurrent to it.

I like things to be a bit known.  Not that you can control everything but I’m feeling the tug of discontent and the unknown.  My former partner situation isn’t resolving.  My current work situation is just a job and not sure financially it’s going to support me.  I am seeing several people dating wise and while it’s fun, it’s also sort of disconcerting because I’m not sure even what I want exactly and so it’s a feeling my way process which is even more disconcerting.

So much unknown.  So many shoulds, maybes and what-ifs.  I find myself in the morning, not exactly jumping out of the bed to face the day.  I find myself wanting a nap when I get home.  The process where I start to pull-back feels like it’s happening again.  I should probably up my meds a titch but it’s just something for me to think about.

What a freaking hard one for me.

I’ve been learning so much the last bit of time about saying “no” and how that is really saying that I matter to myself but also to others.  But when it comes to dating, that instinct starts seeping in.  It’s ok to make it all about someone else, and to think this is about courtship and being pleasing – but slowly but surely, I look up and see, holy shit, I’m doing it all again.

Making it all about the other person and letting it be ok, if my needs get shoved to the side or ignored.  I’m so thankful I’m learning body signals, even though they are making me squirm at being so new and uncomfortable.  At therapy, we didn’t even talk about the signals we talked about my Ex and my step-son and a thousand other things.  But again I heard the phrase “Did you get what you needed.”  It’s always said subversively and in relation to others when I feel I have over-extended myself.  And it’s mainly a trigger to myself to remember that it’s not all about everyone else.  I can ask for what I want. And I started hearing it.  I didn’t want to hear it.  I didn’t want to acknowledge it because this new thing was feeling so good.

But I did hear it.  And so I kind of slowed things down with the guy I’ve seen a couple times.  I might have thrown a monkey wrench in the whole thing.  It feels different, now we had that talk.  And every pore in my sick mind, wants to drive it back to the other place.  But there is a small voice, that is resonating deep in me.  It’s ok that if I have a bad day, I can expect someone to give a shit about it.  I can ask that other person to just talk about it.  It’s ok to have those needs, to ask to get my needs met.  Sure it makes me want to throw-up.  And sure it’s awkward, as I learn to do it.  But it’s the process not the destination.  If this one guy, doesn’t want to get to know all of me, then he’s not the one for me.

Somewhere in me, a very small seven year old inner child is happy.