43. For every experience you get: What are the biggest things you have learned?

Hmm...  I do think there are certain points in my life that have shaped me.  And not all of them in positive ways, but even the bad times have still taught me something.  I try to look at what I went through in my marriage as a learning experience.  It did teach me to "survive" although I hate that word, survivor.  I don't know how I can call myself a survivor when even years later, I'm still dealing with the effects of what I went through.  But I don't have a better term to use, so I suppose that's better than nothing. The marriage did teach me a way of acting and seeing the world that I'm still trying to undo, though.

Leaving my marriage, however taught me how strong I could really be.  It also taught me that I deserved someone to treat me well.  I deserved to be happy and I deserved good things in my life.  It's something I have to remind myself of, but I think I've made some slow progress in learning to accept that I deserve better than what I actually had.  I also learned that people can be incredibly caring and understanding even when you may have made some poor decisions.

My father's illness and death taught me to appreciate my loved ones.  Tragedy either brings people together or it tears them apart.  I was very lucky in that my family and friends banded together and were able to make my father's last months as good as possible.  And we were able to support each other, as well.  I learned that the worst times often bring out the best in people.  I learned that cancer fucking sucks and I never want to watch someone go through that again.  But I also learned that if I ever get sick, I hope I go down fighting like my dad did, even though he was crazy and angry to the end. He also never admitted defeat and there's something to be said for that. I also learned that I was lucky that when my dad passed, he did it with neither of us having unfinished business, questions or regrets and that he died knowing how much he was loved, no matter what. It taught me to make sure to cherish my other relationships, so they know how important they are, too.

When I lost a job for a really stupid reason a few years back, I learned that my tendency to try to take on too much responsibility and try to be the person who can do anything and fix everything is unhealthy.  I have to remind myself to slow down, to take care of myself when I'm overwhelmed and sometimes even stop and take a break and breathe.  It is still incredibly hard.  It's even harder to admit when I need help, that I really can't do everything.  It's hard to let go, but I have to.

When I joined the Army, I learned that I could be a part of a bigger picture.  I learned a sense of discipline and a different type of self-worth.  I learned that I could strike out on my own and be ok in a foreign place.  I could get out of my comfort zone, do something that most people might find crazy and I could push myself beyond my limits, physically and mentally.  I learned that I also never wanted to work in law enforcement again.  The Army, however, was a great experience and I truly believe that more people should give service to their country in some way.

I learned many, many years ago that I met the one person who "completes me" to be all Jerry Maguire about it.  I was too young to recognize it for what it was.  But I was also lucky enough to get a second chance.  People enter your lives when they're supposed to. And my person came along again at a point when I was better equipped to open myself and appreciate it.  It taught me again that sometimes it's worth it to take a chance if it makes your life happier and more fulfilling.  It taught me that it's ok to do what makes me happy, instead of what I think I'm supposed to do.  And it taught me that sometimes the hardest things bring the best rewards.

Hopefully, I will have more lessons to learn.

Break on through to the other side...

So, earlier this week I did something completely crazy and out of character. I actually went to visit a psychic. Yes, really. My friend Katrina was having a psychic party and asked me to come. I hadn't seen Katrina in quite some time anyway, so I figured even if the psychic end was silly or useless, st worst I'd get to have a nice time with a friend.

Which is how I ended up at the office of Cindy Newcomb with about twelve other people.  I really wasn't expecting much, maybe some vague statements. Probably nothing that would have much impact on what was actually going on in my life. Needless to say, I was proven wrong. Now I know it sounds absolutely crazy, but I ended up having an experience that touched me in ways I couldn't have imagined and brought to a head everything I was struggling with. It was almost a transcendent and slightly frightening experience. Either this woman is an amazing instant researcher, just really good st reading body language or she has some other gift, whatever that is. All I know is it hit me hard.

So, how did it turn around so fast? In the first five minutes, she had me stand up and told me that Helen was there. And Helen isn't exactly the most common name, but it is the name of my grandmother. There were other little facts that a stranger shouldn't know. Things that even my friends don't know. Even if somehow this woman got my name ahead of time, I don't know how she would have been able to find those things about me. So, that definitlly opened me up to give what she said a chance.

For the next three hours, I watched this woman proceed to go through the lives of everyone in the office. And some of the things she said were pretty impressive and on point, especially the insights she was able to bring out. But, those are their stories and it is not my place to share those with the world. What I will say is that watching her do this with so many others and still be able to share such specific insights with such different people also helped me to listen. At times it was more like a counseling session than a reading.

Which comes to my story. She told me my father was there and that he was sorry about how he acted because of his tools. Now for some background, when my father was diagnosed with cancer, the hardest thing for him was having to watch us shut down his industrial supply business. To say he was angry is an understatement and he made it abundantly clear to us how angry he was, convinced that we were all working against him. Losing his business was worse than the cancer that killed him, because that business was his life. So, hearing that my father was sorry for the way he acted was like a weight lifted. And maybe none of it was real. Maybe she's just really good at reading people. But I'm still going to keep those words with me.

I think I've been doing better about opening up about the struggles I've been having in my life, especially with worries that things won't get better. At times I feel like I'm being held together by scotch tape. But I'm also really good at pretending I'm ok when I'm out in public. The nice thing about scotch tape is that it's invisible. She told me that I'm at the cusp of a new beginning and it's going to work, but only when I can learn to let go. She told me that I was verbally abused (two words I have never been able to say aloud about my marriage, even writing it is hard) and said it'll happen "when you can admit that it was never your fault." Like I said, at times it was almost like a counseling session.

And maybe that's all it was in the long run.  But maybe it was the counseling session I needed at that moment. I needed someone to tell me it's ok to let go of that pain and those memories. It's ok to stop blaming myself.  And it's ok to embrace what will make me happy. I need to embrace those new beginnings, instead of spending my time frightened. So whether she was a psychic or just a really good reader, I should still take those words as the gift they are and think on them.

42. If you were to die tomorrow, what would be your biggest regret? What can you do now to make sure that doesn’t happen?

I think more of my regrets are based on things I have done, rather than things I have yet to do.  I wish I'd made better decisions. I wish I'd learned more from my mistakes, instead of repeating the same patterns. I regret not taking charge of my life earlier. Focusing on crisis management put me behind on building myself up.

I know I need to be more proactive and plan better, rather than putting off the hard tasks and decisions. I need to stop giving into the grayness when it comes on me. I don't want to waste my life feeling sad. I need to find stability. I do find breaking down tasks into smaller steps helps. I've also found working out helps. It helps me get rid of a lot of anger and frustration.  So, I guess feeling better for a few hours after a good workout is still better than not at all. Maybe more refocusing will be good for me.

40. What’s the top priority in your life right now? 41. What are you doing about it?

I put these questions together because they're so connected. It just seemed easier and faster to tackle it in one post. (Maybe this is also evidence of my improved time management skills... Haha)

I think I'm in a position now where I'm viewing things less on a daily basis, less firefighting and crisis management. And now I can focus a little more on planning for longer term goals. But I also have one very important task to complete before I can completely move on to the next phase of my life and that's the divorce.

Divorce isn't easy, especially when you're dealing with so many other issues on top of it. But having the divorce finally settled should contribute to giving me some peace of mind and hopefully should also translate into smoothing out some other stresses in my life. I wish I could've been stronger to get everything finalized quicker. But I didn't, partly because I was naive and thought my ex would be more reasonable and work with me. Then when I realized that wasn't going to happen, I got caught up  in the disappointment, which spiraled into a paralysis, thinking things were never going to get better so it didn't matter how quickly the divorce was finalized. I have to stop losing sight of that better future to work towards.

So, the last few months I've been pushing through the divorce to get my goal of finalization before Christmas. I do not want to start 2015 still married. It's the last string to my old life that I need cut. And I've done everything on my end with the paperwork. It's now down to one last piece of paper my ex needs to sign, then we can finally file. After it's done, maybe I'll be a little closer to where I want to be.  So yes, the thing I've put on hold and my main priority is the exact same thing. All the more reason to get this done.

39. Are you putting any parts of your life on hold? Why?

I am. Waiting for my divorce to finalize is definitely putting my personal life on hold. It's especially frustrating because I'm at the very tail end of the process, I've done everything on my end I need to do  for finalization and all I can do is wait for my soon to be ex husband to finish his end.  As of today, it is own to one single piece of paper that he needs to sign before we can file.

At least he's finally motivated to finish the process now that he has a girlfriend, but in some ways that makes me angrier because I had to wait so long until he finally had motivation to actually do something.  I can't help wonder if dragging his feet and putting up roadblocks to the divorce for three years was his own way of punishing me for leaving. He only got on board with the process when it was convenient for him.

It's also frustrating because I want to move on in my own personal life and the stress of trying to get the divorce finalized has impacted that significantly.  It's caused roadblocks to the future I want to build.  It makes me feel less secure because I don't always trust that my future is really possible. Especially since I didn't leave under the best of circumstances and my current relationship is impacted by that. I want to break free of that past, but I often fear my current partner cannot. It hurts. Why can't it be easier to let go and move forward?

38. Who are the people who have achieved similar goals? … What can you learn from them?

So, way way way back in January I posted my list of goals for 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years.  I've been feeling pretty low over the last few weeks, so looking back and seeing that I've made some progress on my one year goal did give me a little positive twinge.  I am more secure financially.  It's still not where I want to be, but at least I'm not in the cold sweat, "How am I going to make it through each month with my bills and still eat?" territory.  I don't feel secure in a lot of other areas, though and that still bothers me.

And my issues right now are all about getting over the bad things that have happened to me, my worries that I'm just not good enough.  My worries that I can't break free of what I went through, the worries of getting hurt, the worries of not having the life, love, family and emotional security I want to have.  I still have times where I see something or hear something and it brings back some flashback and it's horrible. The stuff I went through, it stays with me.  And I feel so alone.  I don't know how other people move on from it,  because I don't even know how to find people who talk, really talk about those struggles without sounding like a bad Lifetime movie.  I don't want to read self-help or platitudes or cute Pinterest quotes over pretty backgrounds.  Things like that don't inspire me, they just depress me more because it's not really that simple.  I don't know where to find those people who can make me feel better and can teach me how to really let go in a realistic, non-treacly way.  So, if there's someone out there that can do that, please point them in my direction.

Long time... No post...

So, it's been awhile.  I've been feeling the urge to start writing things again, so I thought I should at least jump in with a quick hi.  And wow, it has been a long time! I really am going to make a more concerted effort to write more often.  I think it's good for me.  I also want to finish the 101 Questions. It was an interesting exercise and I'd like to see where it leads.

Also, I like my little version of "online therapy" that I use this blog for.  It's the one public forum I feel comfortable sharing on since I know nobody really reads it.   So, let's dive back in!  Stay tuned...

My dog is a collector

I have the strangest dog... My lab Gunnar enjoys collecting and arranging various things from around the house on his couch.

For example, this is him caught in the act with my pants. He's obsessed with my pants. 

I believe he was laying out his ingredients to deep fry the cat food later...  I'm quite impressed he got the top off. 

Another recipe project? I think real duck would've been a better choice, though. 

He also loves shoes. I walked in before he was able to sort them properly. 

I think he was trying to make a nice blanket nest for reading to his bear. 

Good dog.

What I've learned, what I still have yet to learn

So, about a month ago I went downstate to visit my friend.  The trip down was awful, it was just problem after problem piling up.  It started when I overslept an hour and was late getting on the road. My first thought upon waking up was panic.  "Omigod, I'm late!  I'm late!  I won't make the train on time!  He's going to be so mad...  Omigod, oh no no nonononono..."  So I send a text and get a nice reply back not to worry.

Next, I see that the predicted two inches total of snow for today has already fallen, plus more, with no real end in sight.  I think to myself, maybe once I get a little past out of town, it'll get better.  Oh, how wrong I was....  The roads were frightening, to say the least.  After white knuckle driving at 40 miles per hour, I send a photo of the snow after stopping to get gas as my future apology.  In return, I get a text saying that it looks bad out there and to stay safe.

The snow doesn't let up and I spend I don't know how much longer white knuckle driving, but I do know that I am incredibly nervous. The roads are some of the worst I've driven on in years, I passed 7 accidents on the way and I'm terrified that I'm going to miss my train.  What is normally an easy 3 hour drive has turned into a nightmare.  I finally give in and admit to myself I will have to take a later train into the city.  When I get a chance to stop at a rest stop, I text him and let him know.  He tells me no worries.  However, this is me.  I continue to worry.  My inner monologue is telling me that I'm off schedule, I'm making him wait.  He's going to be annoyed.

I worry enough that I still miss the later train. Rather than wait at the train station an extra hour, I get the bright idea that I can catch it at a later stop. What follows is a cartoonish chase against time in a futile to get ahead of the train.  I miss several stops, get a tad lost a couple times and get even more frustrated. By the time I finally give up, I find myself in Secaucus.  I have to get on this train.  I figure Secaucus has tons of trains going into the city, I won't be that late.  I also have to pay an exorbitant parking fee that I wasn't expecting because I took the train in so close to the city.  I get in the station, and I have to wait an EXTRA hour.  All of my plans were for naught.  My inner monologue tells me that I am a failure.

I call and attempt to explain my troubles, but I quickly devolve into crying.  Crying!  I feel like a complete idiot.  I apologize profusely for being so stupid. I apologize for making him wait another hour and ruining our plans for lunch.  I am met with nothing but kindness and understanding.  He reschedules our reservation.  He could not have been sweeter.  When I finally make it into the city, we have an absolutely lovely time.  He even helps me out with my unexpected budgeting expense on the parking issue.  I feel very lucky and blessed, but I also feel an extreme sense of relief that I really, truly didn't screw up the weekend.

This has been on my mind for a month now.  Why was my reaction so extreme?  I know that I couldn't help the weather, but I was beating myself up about waking up late and convinced myself this was the root of the horrible drive down.  And my stress combined with the drive, further compounded with my failure to find a way to stick to my original plan caused me to stress out more, make dumber mistakes and feel like a useless idiot overall...  And my biggest fear wasn't even getting in an accident. It was that someone might be mad at me.  Why do I still think that way?

People talk about how hard it is to be in an abusive relationship.  This may sound crazy, but as difficult as it was, I adapted.  You have to adapt in order to survive. And now I don't always know how to be in a normal relationship, whether romantic or friendship.  I know how to mitigate a crazy person. I know how to avoid "getting in trouble" for the most part.  I know the rules.  I know how to ride the waves of a bad day, how to apologize for mistakes, whether they're my fault or not. I know how to pick myself up when I'm told all manner of terrible things and move on.  It's a daily effort, but I can do it.

I don't know how to react to kindness, though.  I don't know how to trust it, or how to believe when someone tells me it's ok, that it really is ok for them.  I don't know how to honestly accept another person truly caring about my well-being and support. I keep waiting for the nice thing to be followed by the "but you" statement.

It didn't occur to me that it would actually be difficult to believe someone wants to be nice with no strings attached.  And it's wonderful, but it's also like navigating a new world.  I don't know the rules to this world and it's very hard for me to break those old patterns of behavior that I learned for over a decade.  I don't know how to turn off my inner monologue.  And I like having someone nice in my life, I just have a hard time accepting that I deserve it.  Anyways, I suppose that realization is the first step to change.

37. What if these goals are doubled? Tripled? Magnified by 10? How would you feel? Would you prefer to achieve these or your previous goals?

At this point, I have so much on my plate, I don't think I could handle my goals getting doubled or more...  I love the changes in my life, but a girl can only take so much change, even if it is positive.  I'm still getting my footing in a lot of ways and it's going to take time for me to even feel secure that the good things that have been happening in my life really are real.  At this point, pacing and focus are more important so that I can make sure that I'm not overwhelming myself.  I'll stick with just the goals I have right now.

36. How important are these goals to you?

I think they're very important...  But, I think the act of goal setting in itself and thinking more long term is the most important part of it.  For a long time, I wasn't thinking long term.  I was thinking in terms of daily survival.  But in my defense, I was also in a position for a long time, that just thinking about the day to day was so overwhelming, I don't think it would have been possible to work on any long term goals.  You have to be in a position where you feel safe before you can build yourself up. Realigning my priorities is probably the best thing I could do.  And the fact that I finally CAN look to the future is a good and sometimes scary thing.  But the good outweighs the scary.

32-35. What do you want to achieve 1 year from now? … 3 years? … 5 years? … 10 years?

Two months ago, I wrote these words for Question #24.  "I hope in a year from now I'll feel a bit more secure. I hope in three years, I'll have some accomplishments under my belt. I'm hoping by five, I'll have built a home and a life to be proud of."

It's kind of vague, but it definitely emphasizes my need for security.  Not just security, I want to be independently secure so that I don't have to depend on anyone else to meet my needs.  Not that I don't want to have other people in my life, I just want to know that I have the ability to succeed on my own.  I want to know that I have the ability to take care of myself.

Year 1 - 2014 is about me building security.  What that means to me is that after I left my husband, I spent a lot of time with the wolf at the door.   After a lot of struggles and hard work to set my affairs in order, as of today, to quote my mother, "The wolf has moved down the street, but he's still there."  Not where I want to be still, but at least better than last year.  So, by 2015, I think I can deal with the wolf being a few blocks away, possibly looking at a new neighborhood to move into.  It's a matter of prioritizing my debts, building a better budget and continuing to sock a little way in savings.  As much as it hurts, I know that it's all going to pay off in the long run.

Year 3 - I want to be free of debt.  I really think I can do it.  Luckily, I can live cheaply.  I also want to grow in my job.  I want to have a higher close on my commissions and sales.  I'm pondering looking at learning about the financial services side of my job.  But I know there's so much to learn about insurance in general still, that I need to focus on that first. I've only been licensed for three months, after all.  I think in three years,  I would be in a good position to branch out in financial services.  I also know Jaime is going to be going to college in a few years and I want to make sure that she is prepared for that transition, both financially and maturity wise.  I want to make it so that she can go to whatever school she wishes and that she has the ability to succeed once she transitions    into college and adulthood.  I've seen small signs of emerging maturity, so I think with  and a lot of love (and maybe a little yelling when she does some crazy teenage thing), she'll be ok.

Year 5 - I want a house. My house.  My own house.  Whether it's just me alone or me sharing it with another person, I want one that feels like my own home.  It doesn't even have to be a house. It could be an apartment.  I just want to be in a place that feels like mine.

Year 10 - I actually have a perfect picture of what I want to have achieved and what my life would look like. But some things... I like to keep to myself. Sorry, Internet.

31.What would you do if you cannot fail; if there are no limitations in money, resources, time or networks?

Honestly, I'd still spend a lot of time sitting around and reading!  I could be a "woman of leisure" and lounge about.  But knowing me, I can only lounge for so long before I would need to get up and get moving.

Then I paid attention to the first part of this question, what would I do if I couldn't fail?  How would I transform my life?  What would I take a risk on knowing I could do anything?  I know that I'm probably supposed to think career wise, but for me my career is about building security rather than building wealth. I really only want to have enough money to make sure I will have my needs met.

When I think about what I want to achieve without failing, I think it's more about wanting to make myself into a person I would be proud of and would be happy to know.  I would take that chance at jumping for the things I know I want in my personal life that often seem so far away.  I want to build a home that is comfortable, that fills me with peace and is a place that I want to build a real life in.  I want to have a place where people who come feel like they're also at home when they walk through the door. I want to build place of happiness that I can share with others.  A big house to wander about in and find nooks to settle into when you need to be alone for a little while.  Like a safe haven.  A place of peace. That's what I want to build.

This is probably not the way I'm supposed to answer this question. But hey, it's my list. I get to do what I want.