a small novel

i went to the the-rapist today. i had been working many things in my head lately and so it was good to see her and have her to bounce a lot of this stuff off of. i shared with her my fear of failing, my fear of being alone...how hard it is to stand on my own two feet and how good i am at getting support in many different ways. (which sounds good but is often me numbing myself to the pain of building some independence muscles that i really should and probably need to develop....) how i wasn't always like this...at least i don't think i was. and i understand the sacrifices i made...switching this part of me for that security. it's all good. but i'm ready to reclaim a little...well, i'm ready to reclaim it all, but a little at a time.

i will post pics of my colorful house soon...i know how to do this, but i'm taking a few days off of painting, so maybe by the weekend, i'll be finished...

i am really sad that i will not make it to galveston county to visit a friend of mine who is hosting a friend of hers for a few days. i really wanted to be there and share in the experience. but my car was the final straw that the universe sent, trying to get me to see that i am spread too thin and a four and a half hour car trip is not only not what i need, but would really, really be pushing it. so i'm staying home to file income taxes and get my car fixed, and to get my spouse's truck fixed...and he needs to register for another board exam of some sort....and i registered for the san antonio half marathon today....and we're going to get some schoolwork done which we have not done in at least two weeks....yeah, there was stuff piling up. oh shit, speaking of which, there's also a ton of laundry to do...rolling my eyes

i have a ten year old. when my thirteen year old was eleven, i called eleven the age of being "a gross caricature of everything i hate about myself"...(myself meaning me...the mom) my oldest was bossy, mean, self-interested and rigid at eleven and it almost killed me. it was like looking in a fun house mirror and seeing your worst parts magnified and everything good shrunk to tiny, tiny, itty bitty, can barely see it sizes... ok, it almost killed him at times, too. but now, my ten year old is making the journey into elevenness...i mean, he's only a third of the way there, but i can already see the caricature forming. but it's not the mean, bossy side of me he's mirroring. it's the unsure, timid, apologizing fifty times for something he had no hand in part of me. (only i'm a she, but anyway....) it is driving me crazy. and then i get frustrated and then i freak out that i'm going to smash him in my frustration (because he's all fragile, like me, see?).

my the-rapist reminded me i'm pretty tough. and pretty independent. and strong and smart and lots of other good things i wanted her to write down so i wouldn't forget. but the trick is, i think as soon as i start believing those things, i change again. although who i would become is beyond me since i've never really allowed myself to see myself that way...this is an interesting prospect all of a sudden.

there was this quote my girlfriend had on her wall when we were teenagers. it said, "but if i tell you who i am, you may not like who i am, and that is all i have." it seemed so sad to me then. but now, it almost seems like a statement of what's motivated me for the past decade or more. but i have to learn to like who i am and then i guess i'll always have that?...is that how it works?

i'm on this mama board and someone asked a question about whether people liked themselves and these women talked about not just liking themselves, but loving themselves. i stayed out of it because i'm older than a lot of them and i don't know that i do love myself. i mean, i feed myself, i shower, all that kind of stuff. but it's hard to really like who i am sometimes. i mean, sometimes my head is a downright unfriendly place to be. i am not kind to myself in my thoughts. but i usually look at myself like i look at my spouse, when i know he's realizing he's been a shit...and that he didn't mean to be that way even though he was, in fact, that way. and now that he sees his actions for what they are, he has to figure out how to change it...so they reflect how he really feels. and that is how i see myself. so maybe i do love myself...just very imperfectly. i just don't know.

ok, i called this a small novel. i didn't say it would be good but i have not been taking good care of myself and part of that involves writing...even when it's bad. and this is rambling, but it's not like i'm unaware of my ability to ramble, and sometimes rambling is just what i need. and i am impressed with my ability to not go back and change this into something i like more, but i will run the spell check over it. ha

peace

ps--got an email from julie. she is in singapore, taking a nap in their airport that has showers and beds, and will leave for kathmandu in a few hours. she's getting close.... <3