Never giving up what I want again...

I'm a selfish, crazy, hot mess...

I know these things.  But, I also have a ridiculously big heart, and love beyond compare.

I have always struggled to find the line between what I want for myself and what is just crossing into selfishness.  That being said, I refuse to bend for anyone ever again.  It has taken me so long to figure out how to do that.

I use to live other people's lives...I would get so caught up in living for them, that I would lose myself, I would revert back to remembering how I had nothing to offer, so I wasn't worth having my own life, so I would live theirs...cause they were important and I could show them that!  I still obsess over people and find myself starting to live for them.  I still lose myself occasionally.  We all do.  Part of keeping myself on track to figuring out what I like and want in my life is working on myself.  I have to, or I'll get lost again...


Self-worth is a goddamned bitch.  Holy hell.  I seriously don't know anyone that doesn't struggle from it sometimes.

I know now that much of my self worth was rooted in me being taught that I didn't really matter.  I know that when I was young I was told that my mom had me basically to rope my dad into staying with her, and when that didn't work and they divorced when I was two (he left her for the woman that he was having a affair with, you know, grass is greener shit), I became a pawn my mother would use against my dad.  I think that was the start of it.  The start of me devaluing myself.

Devaluing yourself is always easier when someone teaches you how to best do it.  Both my parents were excellent at doing it to themselves and really everyone around them.  They would say, just like I would say about myself, that I was always making the best choices for everyone and giving so much of themselves for others.  But really, like me, all they ever were doing was making choices out of selfishness and fear.  Those things are the two worst things a person can feel together.  They make for some hell of some choices.  Even now, as a awake and open person, I still make choices out of selfishness and fear.  My awareness is helping me to realize it and correct the behavior...by the time I die, I should do it nearly not at all....ugg.

I know now that my parents didn't have the ability to give me the tools to be a good, well-rounded, happy, self-confident person.  How could they give something they didn't have themselves?  Most of the time I'm not angry about it anymore, most of the time I just feel sorry for them.  My father was a addict who only could see finding to someone who would he could control their love and my mother was a manipulative mentally ill codependent who also had a penchant for pathologically lying.  They were categorically not equipped to have children.  Like I say all the time, I am glad they did, of course...but they should never have.  They couldn't provide a good psychological base for their children.  They had no concept of contentment.  They were constantly striving for something they just could never find.


My father died in 2006 when I was 23, I was a horrible daughter at that point.  I hadn't seen him more than a handful of times in the last two years of his life while he was sick.  When he had his massive heart attack in Texas, I was on my way to moving to Seattle.  My sisters told me to keep my plans and that they would go and take care of dad.  I agonized over that choice, but ultimately, I chose to make my move.  My dad would have been pissed if I hadn't.  But when my relationship with that boyfriend terminated 5-6 months later and I moved back home, I still didn't go see my dad more than a handful of times.  Honestly, I think a big part of it was how he was not himself and how completely miserable he was.  He couldn't do anything he had ever done before, so he was more miserable than I had ever seen him and I had seen him pretty fucking miserable.  I just had the hardest time seeing him that way.  Being so young, it just didn't feel right that this was happening.  When I got the call from my sister that he was going to pass, I got on the train as soon as I could...I got the call not a hour later that he was gone.  I lost my mind.  That may have been one of the hardest things I have ever experienced.  I have a lot of regrets, but the one that sits with me everyday is that I never got to say and learn so many things.  That goes twofold, that goes with him being a shitty father, and that goes with me being a shitty daughter.  It's a hard place to be.


My mother and I have not talked since one week after my wedding to Eric Oct 15th 2011 at Gooseberry Falls and I have made the choice to never talk with her again.

Eric and I had made the choice to have a very small wedding, just immediate family and a couple of close friends at the ceremony and dinner.  I knew that my mother would bring her puppy dog friend that she always kept with her, so I called her and talked to her and explained that I would not be ok with her being there.  When we showed up to the center to get ready, of course my mom had brought her.  I was royally pissed, so I went outside to have a cigarette, my mother decided to follow me.  I ignored her and did not say a word to her.  So she sent her friend and my step-dad to the car to stay there while I got married, I was livid with her with that.  When we went to take family pictures, I only included her in one.  Then my wedding happened, and it was, of course, wonderful.  Afterwards, I was informed by my sister that my mother left at the very beginning of my ceremony and that my brother-in-law had missed the beginning of my wedding to follow her and try to talk to her into staying.  She did not come to my wedding dinner in downtown Duluth even though she was staying at the same hotel.  The next morning, I ran into her checking out and she handed me my "wedding gift" of towels.  She had just given my sister a bag of nearly the same towels a few weeks earlier.  I felt even more like shit knowing my own mother didn't even try to do something special for me for my wedding.

I called or she called me a week later, I don't remember which.  She spent that phone call, not apologizing for any of her actions, but telling me that I was a brat at my wedding and that she should have slapped me. (I asked people after if this was any kind of true, and I was assured that I was completely chill as a bride and that at no point did I act out of line.), my mother was trying to manipulate me into thinking that everything was my fault.  My step-dad then got on the phone and starting talking shit about how bad of a dad my father was.  That ended that phone call.  I informed them I was done and hung up.  I vowed to never talk to her again.

This behavior, sadly, is not anything new for her.  She always did anything to have the attention on her, anything to get people to give her what she needed.  She had hypochondriac tendencies and I what seemed very Munchhausen by Proxy-ish.  My childhood was filled with lies, and mystery medical maladies.  When I moved back from Seattle and my car died halfway through Montana and she and my sister's cousin-in-law came to got me, she disowned me as her daughter a couple hours into the trip home because I wasn't being nice to her.  Excuse me, I'm sorry, I just broke up with my boyfriend of two years, am completely broke and my car broke down filled with my things in a state that I have zero resources in....get the fuck outta here with me being nice at that point.  Fuck you for being a mother who would disown her daughter during that.  My childhood and early adulthood was filled with these things.

My wedding was my final straw.  I clearly have some very unresolved mother issues.  There's no way they will just go away, and likely I will have to deal with them at some point.  But they will not be with her, I am done.  That toxicity will have no part in my life again.  That damage that women has done to me is unreal.  Learning to forgive hasn't come easily.  My anger ebbs and flows, I try to remember that she can't do it anymore and that I have to let things go.  I try to empathize with what she went through as a child, horrific things supposedly.  I try to be a better person in understanding.  Then I realize the damage learning many of those behaviors or coping mechanisms in growing up with her did to me and I get angry, so angry that I revert to pushing everyone and everything away because I start to devalue myself again.

Add my longest relationship, among others, into the ring of self-deprecation and you'll find plenty of fun reasons that I seem to find no value in me when I'm in my darker places.

Aah, and here we are again...devaluing myself.  I'm so fucking good at it.  I isolate, I push people away, I try to control everything in my life out of fear.  I get so stuck in my own head, that I forget all of the good, all of my positive qualities.  I forget to remind myself that everyone has negative pieces of them and that everyone makes bad choices sometimes.  I start doing harmful things and making really horrible choices.  I revert completely.

Valuing yourself is absolutely a learned behavior.  Don't get me wrong, I love me.  I do.  However, I am so good at convincing myself that I don't deserve things, it's ridiculous.  There's no finding me in those moments, there's no snapping out of it.  I'm not aware that I'm in that moment usually, it's all so subconscious.

That is why it's time for me to do what's right for me.  Only me.  I always have to remember that other people are involved and I need to take their feelings into things of course, but ultimately, if something isn't serving me anymore, it needs to go.  There is no room in my life for things that I don't want.

This life has zero guarantees, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.  Today is the only day that matters, and today I will live for myself, I will make choices that make me content and improve how I see myself.  I will try to hurt as few people as possible in the way of this.

I have value, we all have value.  We just have to learn to unlearn all the bullshit we were taught about ourselves.  All that negative that has been passed on, it's time to let it go and stop believing it and start believing more in ourselves.

So. Much. Work.

I'll get there, so will you.


Pan

I died in that moment............

So...2015 sucked and 2016 sucked too.  So, almost two years later...here I am.  Trying it again...

Not much has really changed since that first post.  I continue to be a hot mess, full fledged adult flailing their hands trying to figure it the fuck out.  Some days, I'm better than before, some days, I'm worse.  A lot has happened, some to change and mold and shape me further, and some because I am a complete fucking idiot, but even in that, I have to put faith in my higher power and hope that there was a reason within the universe for me to make those bad choices and be where I was, when I was.

I'm trying to figure who I am daily, it's more of a struggle the further I let others pull me into their issues which I should be far, far from.

Who I am?

Who the fuck am I kidding, I am who I am.  I'm learning to find acceptance of myself.  Little by little and more by more I allow myself to be me.  As weird and fucked up as I am, why am I still surprised that who I am is weird and fucked up?  I keep trying to not be, I keep trying to live up to what everyone thinks I should be.  This is prolly why my Xanax consumption went from a few a year to sometimes a few a month.

I am learning that my weirds are my normal, and that no one has to like them.  I have lost a few close people in the last years, and I'm ok with that now.  I wasn't suppose to be there anymore.  That and maybe one of us were a douche...it happens.  But my weirds make me who I am.  I look back and realize what I have been through in my life, at times, being a daily struggle, and sometimes a lifetime struggle.  I have been through all this and am still alive.  That's what I've got right now.  It's kinda where I am...I don't feel blessed, I'm still angry and sad about everything I have been through.

I am all about that acceptance though.  Learning to find acceptance instead of anger.  I know that I really can't blame anyone anymore, that shit is on me now.  I'm a adult and have to figure out how to live a content* life.  It's hard, every day is hard.


Life has been different, I've been through two very difficult relationships since Eric(I'm learning it may be who I choose at this point...).  The first one almost destroyed me, but I jumped into the second one and ended up hurting him worse because of it, and now, in all technicality, I'm mourning both.  I've talked to Eric once in the past year, other than our incredibly messy and hurtful animal switch.  I quit going to Al-Anon and isolated myself from everyone.  To be honest, I backslid.  It happens, I know.  But it hurt.  Letting myself get back into the headspace I was before Eric and I split is frustrating.  So frustrating.  Especially when there was a point in the past two years where things were getting better for me..


In one of my blogs, I said...and I quote:

"What I want to do:  Apply for a job in King County, get said job, move to Seattle.  Live.

What I am doing:  Keeping the job I have(which I do love), living in a teeny apartment(which I am learning to love), staying in Minnesota(which I love/hate).  Learning to live(again)."

I did it.  I applied for a job in King County, I got offered said job...

I turned it down.

Yes, that's right, you saw that correctly, I turned it down.  I realized I had nothing for me there yet.  It wasn't going to make me happy to go out there yet.

I had just recently committed to moving to Denver for a few years.  I have support out there, a landing place and a way to meet people without feeling overly pressured.  Denver will be interesting, the sun and I don't mix and there's rarely ever a rain shower...but I think it will be nice for awhile.  Something new with some people I'm comfortable with and feel I can be the real me around.

The plan was originally Denver in early 2017, but I have the chance to go to business school through my union for free first.  A free business degree?  Yes, please, thank you.

So, business school is on, I took my first two classes this past fall.  Fucking A, this bitch is gonna end up with a degree this time.  Third time is the goddamn charm.  ;)


Another good quote from the last session of the blog:

"What hurts the most is knowing how deeply you truly do love that person, but knowing you can't be together...it's like poison. It hurts to be with that person, and it hurts to not." 

It's still true.

I don't think about Eric like I did then though.  I still miss him and think about him often, I prolly always will.  The edges are all fuzzy now though.  I don't remember things as deeply and often.  There's still lots of talk about him and our life, things that happened in the past, but now, it doesn't hurt as much as it did then.

I hear he's fairly happy and got his GED!  And now is trying to go to school/going to school for some kind of machine operating.  I hear he is still sober too even though some bad stuff has happened to him as well.  I hope all of it is true and that he is finding his contentment too.  He deserves it just as much of the rest of us.  If he truly is the person I believe he is, he might even deserve it more than most.


We're at the holidays again, and just like the past few years, I really am not looking forward to them.  I am single again, and it's a interesting feeling around the holidays.  I feel like the holidays are really about family and stuff.  So, on Christmas, I celebrate the holidays with my sisters, brother-in-law and nephew.  I have no urge to do all the other stuff right now.  Maybe next year.


So, here we are...trying this again.  My goal is to post once a week, sometimes daily or every other day as my mood needs it.  I think that I have let myself go so backwards, that it's time to try and figure it out again.

I will hopefully find the energy to start going back to Al-Anon the first week in 2017.  I will hopefully find the motivation to start walking home from work again, in all weather...and not using it as a excuse like I have been seeming to do.  I will hopefully lose the 30 lbs I have gained back this past year, my body hurts and I need that weight off of my back and core so that I can start to heal physically.  I will hopefully find a way to start eating clean again(though I am currently vegetarian), because it makes my body feel good.  I will hopefully figure out how to get my mental health more stable so I can learn to obsess over people far less, so that I can heal again.

There's a lot of hopefully there.  I have hope that I can be a better person.  I have hope that I can commit to things.  I have hope.

Here's to trying again and again, and getting back up every time I fall, no matter how many damn times that actually ends up being.  Here's to it.

PAN

*A complete new outlook of life for me!  Find contentment instead of happiness, happiness is a momentary feeling like sadness...contentment is a state of being!

2015...

...alright so the beginning of my year had a bit of a rough start.

I am not using that as a basis for comparison for the rest of my year...not at all.  This year is going to be amazing.  Not perfect, just amazing.

I got the flu right off the bat, that has now transformed into a full on sinus infection.  So miserable, painful and so made me want to die for many days.  I swear putting me outta my misery would of been better and easier.  But I made it through to the other side...still a little fuzzy, but I'll make it.

So, one of my talents is full on breakdowns.  Most people don't know that they are full on breakdowns...they know I'm being a bitch or saying mean things.  But they don't understand what is happening in my head.  See the interesting thing for me is, I don't have a addictive personality, like most people think.  I have a ocd personality, I obsess over everything.  It's not a hidden trait that I keep, most people know it about me.  So when I get stuck in my head, it can get very scary for me...and sometimes for others too.

Usually all it takes is a good breakdown session and I'm ok...I'm lucky to have a few strong people around me who can listen to it and deal with the irrational thoughts and help me move on without judging me or trying to force me into a different perspective.  That takes unimagined talent.  I'm a force not to be fucked with when I'm in my head.  I say mean things, that I do not mean.  I do mean things, that I do not mean.  I act in mean ways, that I do not mean.  I am a horrible person sometimes.  And one of my biggest flaws ever, is that I find the strongest person around me and I use them as my punching bag...it's bullying behavior is what it is.  I'm trying to hurt someone else to make myself feel better.  It is not a good thing.  Most people eventually walk away from me after a certain amount of punches from me.  There are a select few that don't....but those people are very rare.  It's also almost always males...haven't quite figured that one out yet though.

My breakdowns don't have to define me.  I'm not sure how I will fix that part of me yet...but I will.

This year, I have so much going on already.

I have four major events happening(all costing me a arm and a leg, of course):

First, and even though most people would not think so, the most important...I do though, so suck it...is my trip to Seattle in May.  I am massively in love with Seattle...like if I could marry it...I would.  This will be my first ever solo trip out there, and it will be the first year that I am not focused on touristy activities.  I will be completely immersing myself in MY city.  I have been lucky to have made it out there as many times as I have in the past, and every time I have taken some time to get to know the city a little more intimately than the last, this time, it will be a full on experience of living that way for a full week all by myself.  I am so overly excited.

Second, I will be redoing my budget in full and completely revamping all the debt I have accrued over the past year...a small part of me is ashamed to admit it, but another part is completely ok with the fact, but, I was very lost in 2014 and made some very bad decisions both with money and with other things too...  All the work that I had done the past few years to get my credit back on track and myself financially stable went out the window with the split.  I could have handled money better is really what it comes down to.  But instead of beating myself up over it.  I am taking a page outta my own book and getting it down in the right way again.  So, I am working with my bank to completely reset my budget.  I was blessed with a raise, a cost of living increase, a promotion and my insurance reverting to single status again all within a two month period at work.  I will use that money to my advantage and get my financial situation back to a manageable one.  I am positive I will reverse all the damage I have done in a short period of time.  I turned my credit and financial history totally around the last time in less than two years, I will do it again this time in less than one.

Third, I will be getting a new Jeep.  I love my baby...like I love her, I would...and maybe have...made sweet love to her....(hehe, Dukes of Hazzard reference).  Naw, I love my car very much, but she's on her last leg as far as I can take her...I don't have the patience anymore.  She's done me 5 years.  Time for something different.  I don't know what, or how, or by what means, or anything like that...I only know that I am going to need a new car and I have resolved to get one this spring.  I have just asked the car gods to get me through the winter with her and then we'll find someone who will love her for cheap and get a new to me Jeep.  Bittersweet really.

Fourth and finally is my New Years Resolution.  I don't usually put a lot of stock into those.  I'm very much a person who thinks that if you want change you should embody it when you feel it...not at year begin.  That being said, this one was a important one.  As we get older and wiser we start to move away from people that aren't giving us what we need on a daily basis.  It doesn't always mean that we don't care about those people or want them in our lives...what it means is that our priorities change for one reason or another.  There's no real reason for it to happen other than we have to make sacrifices one way or another.  A lot of the time, the "friends" or "acquaintances" are the first to go.  I have resolved to plan one everybody event per month, and one girl's night/day per month.  I will attempt to choose events and activities that are low cost and family friendly where available.  I will invite everyone I know and associate with in any way without regard to how other people feel about the situation or person or other issue.  I will be the host, but I refuse to be the one responsible for others actions.  I am completely excited for this.  I miss the people that I used to know and be around all the time, and though I know our lives are different, I think we all need to be able to see each other.  The ones that think they are better than others will never show, and that's ok.  Those are the people I have no real interest in being around.  Also, this is something I am doing for everyone, it is not a me specific thing, I'm not doing this just for me.  I'm doing this because I have heard on numerous occasions from numerous people that they miss the old crew, the old hangouts, the old times.  Sometimes we all do.  And every month, you will have one opportunity to have those feelings back and maybe meet someone new that you just get along with like crazy.

This New Year will be good.  It's going to have a lot of hard times and I am going to have breakdown moments just like I always do...but that's ok.  I'm allowed.  But things will get better and having goals this year will be a fantastic place for me to start.

Healing is never a easy or painless process.  I am moving forward, one day, one minute and sometimes one second at a time.

Happy 2015 fuckers!!  I love you all!

Pan

"I lost my whole life and a dear friend..."

...that quote is taken directly from one of my favorite songs of all time.

It's a beautiful quote, but I just realized how closely it applies to my life.

Here's the thing...I love(d) Eric very very much.

Letting go of someone you love that much isn't easy.  People are sick of me talking about it, they're annoyed with me being sad, or crying, or being emotional.  ...or talking about it, or talking about it...or yeah...you get the picture.  That's not fair.  Those people, whether saying it out loud, or in their heads...they didn't live the relationship, and besides it's only been 10 fucking months...for a nearly 10 year, in love relationship.

I am letting go, but it's very hard...

Eric was everything, literally everything that I have ever wanted in a guy.  He completely healed my heart in so many ways, and tore it apart in just as many.  Between the two of us, we ruined us.  Not that it was ever meant to last, but hey, only god knows that.

As time goes, time heals...but some days actually feel harder, probably because the anger is subsiding.  Every day I am less angry at him and some days I am more angry at myself.  I'm realizing many of the hurtful things I did without bias.  Without me going back to why it's actually his fault.  Because while much of it was his fault and his responsibility, there was so much of it that was mine as well.

I still miss him everyday.  The life we had together wasn't perfect, but it was ours.  It's so hard to let go of someone you shared so much with.  Someone said this to me..."What hurts the most is knowing how deeply you truly do love that person, but knowing you can't be together...it's like poison. It hurts to be with that person, and it hurts to not."  Wiser words have not been spoken in my case.

Being with Eric, I was deeply depressed, in pain all the time, constantly sad, but we had a lot of good and loving moments.  Being without Eric, I am deeply depressed, in pain all the time, constantly sad, but I have a lot of good and loving moments.  The ONLY difference now is that I KNOW things will get better...eventually...probably not soon...but eventually.  In the relationship, I could only hope...sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't...but I could never be sure.  I think it was, but that could just be the positivity coming out?

Things will get better and I will get stronger again...but in the meantime, I am definitely finding out who my true friends/supporters really are, because honestly I don't give a fuck about how you treat me when things are good in my life.  I care how you treat me when the shit hits the fan and I'm a giant mess.  That shows me your true colors.

I am a huge fucking puddle of a mess right now, I am not going to try to hide it with a smile or sweep it under a rug.  I am making bad choices, doing stupid things, saying the wrong things and not being the best person.  I am just learning to take care of myself again, to put myself first.  And you better believe that I will learn to do those things again.

When I do, I will be a strong, independent, adventurous, outgoing, positive, unique, crazy, happy person again.

That's Pan, that's the real me.  That bitch will most definitely be back.

Pan


*Listening to:
     ~Call Me - Shinedown
     ~Let Me Go - Avril Lavigne & Chad Kroeger
     ~Crystallize - Lindsey Stirling

How do you feel?

...ever feel like you are wasting your breath trying to get someone to understand something?

You probably are.

I remember in my relationship with Eric, I always got accused of repeating myself...and recently, I realized that was true.  I constantly nagged and said the same things.  Sometimes they were valid, other times they were just my little annoyances that I took way to far.  But either way, I repeated myself...a lot.

When you feel a certain way and you are a control freak, the number one most important thing is not only trying to get someone to understand that way of feeling, but to feel that way too.  Others can't have different opinions, cause yours is the only right opinion, the only right way to do it.

Now I am very aware and supportive of the fact that there is always many ways to the same answer or result....but for some reason, when it comes to that being put into practice...I suck.

I understand that it is important to stand up for what you feel and what you think is right.  But first, there is a time and a place for all that...and second, choose your battles wisely.  If you don't do those two things, people will always associate you with being a control freak.

Eventually if I want to move forward, I am going to have to learn how to keep my mouth shut.  If I don't like something that someone does and I have voiced my opinion on it several times, I have to figure out if it is either enough of a problem to remove that person from my everyday life, or if I can live with it.

Let's face it, everyone does at least something that another person can't stand.  To be honest if it wasn't that way, we would all be terribly bored with life.  We need difference and change and uniqueness for relationships to build successfully.

When I am hurt I tend to have these behaviors more, I think I subconsciously think that having these behaviors is protecting me.  Really they are just hurting me more, pushing the people away that I love so dearly.  Reevaluating your ideals and thought processes to find out if they work anymore is really fucking hard.  Sometimes I feel like I'm too old to change, this is just who I am...and if you don't like it, you can leave my life.  But then I realize how incredibly lonely of a life that could be if everyone I love leaves because of my ideals that they didn't agree with.

All that being said, I have to learn when it is important to say the things that are important to me and focus on the things that are actually hurting me.  My heart is the most important thing to me, and though it is the thing that gets hurt the most...because I'm so damn sensitive...it's also the thing I have to learn to protect the right way to stop the hurt from happening in the first place.

Sometimes when I talk and say how I feel, people don't listen.  I'm not sure why.  I probably don't listen very well to other peoples feelings either.  Maybe we don't know how to deliver them, maybe we complain, or yell, or cry, or fight, or maybe even stay silent.  It all comes down to communication...we don't know how to communicate...I don't know how to communicate.

I'm not the best listener, and I don't always let people know how I feel in a constructive manner.  I'm not sure how to tell someone that they are doing something wrong or hurtful towards me without it coming off as blame or attack, even though I do try.

Communication is apparently a very difficult thing for me.  I am good at pretending that I am, but I'm not.  It's a issue that I've had in my personal and professional life.  I have always had to take care of myself, so talking to others about what needs to be done or what I am doing always seemed pointless.  Why do I need to talk to someone about it if I'm just going to do it myself anyway.

I have always felt very independent, but not a healthy independent, a forced independent.  It makes me weak to ask for help, so I only do it from one or two people.  I don't trust people to do things I need for me.  I don't ask for advice, I know best.  I don't ask for support, I will do it myself, I also just expect people to read my mind and support what I need.  I hide myself from people and tend to be more of a loner because of these things.  I don't, no matter what, want to appear as if I can't do it on my own...because not being able to do everything on your own is a sign of weakness.

I actually don't really believe that...I actually think that not being able to ask for help is a bigger sign of weakness.  I can't do everything on my own, and I know that, but for the most part, you'll never hear me admit it.

I hate to feel helpless, it is probably my biggest fear from a emotional standpoint.  When you feel helpless, you're frozen, you can't do anything.  Even with people pushing or getting mad at you...you just stop and can't do anything at all.

I digress...

I don't want to have to repeat myself over and over, I want the people in my life to take this things I say seriously.

That being said...I need to learn to pick my battles...I have to learn to ask myself "How important to you is this?".  I need to find out if, whatever it is, if it's a deal breaker for me in any way.  If not, I need to keep my mouth shut.  I want to keep my relationships with people from deteriorating.

It's hard to feel, listen, communicate, ask for help and be independent.  Learning to do these things when they do not come naturally for you is even harder.

I hope to become successfully balanced soon.......

Pan

 

Christmas Eve...

...this year it's painful, and nothing will make it less painful.

Today was the one time in the year that Eric's mom and dad were front and center in our life.  Oddly, I miss them...a lot.

I met Eric's mom briefly when she was living at the house she owned with her ex, the one Eric was living in when I met him, then I started to get to know her better when she was getting sober(which she did with flying colors).  She didn't really like me at first, probably cause I was a bit like her and had some of the same behaviors.  I think over the years she learned to love me...maybe she never really liked me, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure how I met Eric's dad, more than likely it was when he brought some of Eric's stuff to my house the first time.

Today was a day of happiness for us, every year...opening gifts, having food and spending time just hanging out...it was simple, but it was good.

I haven't contacted either of them since the split other than to give Eric's mom some cupcakes for mother's day and to send her and her partner a card congratulating them on their wedding.

I don't feel like I'm welcome to contact them either.  I wish they would call me, and tell me they want to see me.  But I suppose that would hinder my healing as well.

When you have traditions, and people that are a part of your life for so long, you really lose feel lost when those traditions and people aren't around anymore.

I don't understand how to feel or how to be a part of something else yet.  I don't want to right now.

Today, it might be Christmas Eve for many, but for me, it's a day to mourn the loss of something that I took for granted every year before now.

I miss and love them very much still and I hope that their Christmas Eve is filled with love, laughter and happiness!

Pan

....

...

Today I haven't been able to concentrate at all.  I have not gotten much work done, can't think about what I'm supposed to be doing.  Can't think of what to write in my blog, can't remember what I need to do tomorrow.

My brain is officially on vacation, and it's not to a happy, fun place.  It's to a sad, lonely, dark place.

Today is not a good day for me.  This week hasn't been good.

I will leave you with this:  Whatever your problems, there are those of us that have had them too...

Pan