My best friend and her boyfriend broke up on Thursday. Their relationship was one that was passionate and intense…and completely dysfunctional. Never a dull moment with those two, ya know. They would break up and get back together, break up and get back together, break up and get back together. When they fought it was intense and when they loved it was intense. Something always kept them coming back to each other.
Anyway, she changed her cell number. She said that’s it, she’s done. Now he can’t contact her, now when her phone rings she won’t be running for it thinking it’s him. Now she can start to heal and get on with her life. She came over this weekend and I was so proud of her. She had started reading this book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”. She was talking about the plans and goals and things that she was doing with her kids and how he just wasn’t the one for her because he wasn’t interested in being a part of a family unit and was basically too selfish to even be in a relationship with her.
Then Saturday night I get a hysterical voice message from her saying she caved and called him (blocked) and now she knows he with someone else. I asked her how does she know he’s with someone else? She said because when she was talking to him, trying to get him to understand her point of view, he was saying he doesn’t care. I asked her how that means that he’s with someone else. She said she just ASSumed. Yea. So I talk her down, reminding her of how fabulous she is and that he’s probably missing her so much he can’t even begin to look for another woman, how he loves her just as much as she loves him, but that she needs to get herself straight and maybe when she’s on that road then she’ll realize that he’s not the one for her.
Cool. Right?
First thing this morning she texts me asking me if she should text him with her new number in case he has an emergency and needs to get a hold of her. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Girlfriend, what emergency could he possibly have that he would call her instead of his family for? She was once again hysterical. She was bargaining with herself, playing games with herself, and basically not being honest with herself.
And how do I know? Because I've been there. I let my emotions control my common sense. I remember the feeling of horror I would get, the weight on my chest, the upset stomach, the uncontrollable tears, the see-saw between self-confidence and self-doubt. I remember texting him because I was too scared to pick up the phone but I just wanted to know that he cared. And any attention was better than no attention. I remember praying and begging the Universe for this man that I love so much to pay attention to me. I remember waking up and first thing thinking about him. I remember thinking about this man 1000+ times a day. I remember being devastated and practically paralyzed thinking that I would never be in his arms again or see him smile or kiss him or smell him. And I remember being devastated and practically paralyzed thinking that I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life if I stayed with him and continued on that on-again, off-again roller coaster of emotions that gave me constant heartburn.
Men are so quick to say how they are different than women, yet why do they expect us to deal with things the way they do? When we love someone so much and we’re faced with the thought of losing them or staying with them and things being awful forever, it destroys us. We cry. We yell. We beg and plead and make bargains and do what it takes to keep them. We lose ourselves. We lose all common sense and we lose the ability to think rationally. We stop talking to our friends because we’re sick and tired of hearing them bad mouth this man we love and we’re sick of talking about it because we’re sick of hearing ourselves talk about it. We make excuses for our men because we love them so much and to bad talk them makes us look like we have poor judgment.
And then we reach a point where we just shut down. We do whatever it takes to get through it. We refuse to talk about it because talking about it puts it in our head and if it’s in our head then we have to deal with it. And we’re not ready to deal with it yet. So we ignore it.
Sounds crazy right? We’re not. And that’s the thing. I spent so long thinking there was something wrong with me and that I’m the only person in the world who has ever acted like this. But the funny thing is, the only ones I hear calling women crazy ARE MEN. Tell your story to another woman, and she’ll more than likely cry with you. She’ll know how to get you through it because she was there at some point in her life.
So are we crazy? No. We’re just in love and we’re hurting and we’re torn and confused and we’re scared. But crazy? No.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Learning to love myself (again)
One of my friends asked me why I’m not waiting until I get my boob job done (in November) to model nude. It was kind of hard to explain to her my reasons, but the more I thought about it, the clearer it became to me.
See, me getting a boob job was something that I had promised myself I’d do once I was done having babies and once I was in a position financially to pay for it. I’ve always been a petite woman. I mean, even at my “heaviest” post-pregnancy nursing weight I was only 125. My normal size is a 1 and my chest has gotten smaller after each child and weight loss. While it was an issue with me, it wasn’t serious enough to cause me any distress. After all, I’m a beautiful woman who has a lot to offer anyone in my life. Gosh that seems like a lifetime ago that I felt that way.
Today I try to avoid looking in the mirror. I can’t face the woman that I’ve become. And because I’m not happy with the woman that I am on the inside, I can’t seem to appreciate the woman that I am on the outside. I’m not going to list my faults or even the reason that I feel the way I do. All I know is that going up three bra sizes isn’t going to make a difference in how I view myself unless I fix my way of thinking.
In order to do that, I have to learn to love the woman that I am now, today. So I set up a photo shoot with an artist, posing nude, for next weekend. I look at myself nude and learn to love me, all of me. After a two week break to deal with household and family matters, I’m going back to the gym with a vengeance starting tonight. I’m still not smoking but watching what I eat so the weight that I’m gaining is healthy weight and not nasty fat. I’m keeping busy and taking care of me. I’m spending time with my friends and cleaning my house and selling things I don’t need. I’m telling myself one positive thing each day. And, I’m ashamed to say, I’m not dealing with something that I simply am not strong enough to deal with right now. That’s right. The queen of “ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away” is actually ignoring dealing with something.
I’m learning to love myself again. It’s been three days but I’m doing it, one step at a time. I feel myself grow stronger and happier with each passing day. I’m taking care of me and learning to care about how I look again. I’m starting to hold my head up high. I’m not avoiding eye contact. I smile when someone smiles at me. And maybe, in time, I’ll be in a place where I can deal with this painful thing that I’m purposely not dealing with right now.
But for now, it’s baby steps for me.
See, me getting a boob job was something that I had promised myself I’d do once I was done having babies and once I was in a position financially to pay for it. I’ve always been a petite woman. I mean, even at my “heaviest” post-pregnancy nursing weight I was only 125. My normal size is a 1 and my chest has gotten smaller after each child and weight loss. While it was an issue with me, it wasn’t serious enough to cause me any distress. After all, I’m a beautiful woman who has a lot to offer anyone in my life. Gosh that seems like a lifetime ago that I felt that way.
Today I try to avoid looking in the mirror. I can’t face the woman that I’ve become. And because I’m not happy with the woman that I am on the inside, I can’t seem to appreciate the woman that I am on the outside. I’m not going to list my faults or even the reason that I feel the way I do. All I know is that going up three bra sizes isn’t going to make a difference in how I view myself unless I fix my way of thinking.
In order to do that, I have to learn to love the woman that I am now, today. So I set up a photo shoot with an artist, posing nude, for next weekend. I look at myself nude and learn to love me, all of me. After a two week break to deal with household and family matters, I’m going back to the gym with a vengeance starting tonight. I’m still not smoking but watching what I eat so the weight that I’m gaining is healthy weight and not nasty fat. I’m keeping busy and taking care of me. I’m spending time with my friends and cleaning my house and selling things I don’t need. I’m telling myself one positive thing each day. And, I’m ashamed to say, I’m not dealing with something that I simply am not strong enough to deal with right now. That’s right. The queen of “ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away” is actually ignoring dealing with something.
I’m learning to love myself again. It’s been three days but I’m doing it, one step at a time. I feel myself grow stronger and happier with each passing day. I’m taking care of me and learning to care about how I look again. I’m starting to hold my head up high. I’m not avoiding eye contact. I smile when someone smiles at me. And maybe, in time, I’ll be in a place where I can deal with this painful thing that I’m purposely not dealing with right now.
But for now, it’s baby steps for me.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
In looking at the bright side…..
Monday night brought Chicagoland the “storm of all storms”…at least for our area. Let me start from the beginning.
Monday started off as every typical Monday does. Go to work, go to the gym, come home. I mean, sure, it was raining that morning when I got off the train and the wind was a bit stronger than normal (it turned my umbrella inside out as I was crossing the River), but it had cleared up by the time I left work. When I went to the gym the sky was looking pretty clear, and after my hour-and-a-half workout it was dark but I didn’t notice anything abnormal. So I went home and put my dinner in the oven, washed the dishes and sat down and watched Big Brother from On Demand while I was waiting for my dinner to cook. And then it got weird.
I saw a bright flash of lightning and heard thunder boom and shake the whole house. Immediately following that the lights began to dim and the oven timer went off. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed my food and as soon as I shut the oven door the power went off. I’m thinking to myself…wow, I don’t usually lose power this must be a bad one.
I find a flashlight and look out my front door. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The light from my flashlight showed a tree blocking my neighbor’s front door as well as part of a tree laying in the street between our two houses. Oh my gosh. I was officially in freak-out mode. I tried calling R and couldn’t get a signal from my cell. I tried texting him and it took forever to go through. I called my neighbor’s girlfriend and told her to call him (my neighbor) cuz the tree was across his stairs. He runs over and tells me not to go in my backyard because my tree came down and pulled down my power lines. Oh my gosh. It was insane.
Finally, after an hour of trying to call ComEd, my dad calling to check on me, my ex-husband coming to see my damage, the insane storm with the hurricane winds, I laid down in bed and tried to get some sleep….only to be woken up a couple hours later by ANOTHER storm…this one with the sirens going off. I stayed in bed and said, well, if there’s tornado just kill me because I am NOT going in the basement.
Now, 5 days later, I still don’t have any electricity. ComEd informed me that I’m not a priority because the rest of my neighborhood has their power restored and, since I’m just one resident without power, I am placed last on the list. I have lost $450 worth of food. My neighbor is running an extension cord from his house to mine so that I was able to clean out the fridge and get some new food. State Farm has been amazing. My claim on my food loss is already being processed. They gave me the go-ahead to have an electrician out to install a new box without having to wait for an adjuster to come out. The adjuster is coming out tomorrow to check out my roof and the rest of the damage to my house.
It’s very frustrating not having any power, but at least now I have food in the house and am able to cook some because the stove top works as long as I light it manually. I’m able to charge my cell phone at work. Tonight, after the gym, I’m going to take my clothes to the laundromat. That should be fun…I haven’t had to do that in years! I’ve been reading books in bed using a flashlight, and lots of candles are keeping the house smelling nice, as well as giving some light. I think the worst part of it all is that I’m incredibly lonely without my kids. They’ve been with their dad the whole week since he has power and I don’t know exactly what damage the house has sustained. But that’s ok. It could be worse. The best part? I’m still not smoking!
Monday started off as every typical Monday does. Go to work, go to the gym, come home. I mean, sure, it was raining that morning when I got off the train and the wind was a bit stronger than normal (it turned my umbrella inside out as I was crossing the River), but it had cleared up by the time I left work. When I went to the gym the sky was looking pretty clear, and after my hour-and-a-half workout it was dark but I didn’t notice anything abnormal. So I went home and put my dinner in the oven, washed the dishes and sat down and watched Big Brother from On Demand while I was waiting for my dinner to cook. And then it got weird.
I saw a bright flash of lightning and heard thunder boom and shake the whole house. Immediately following that the lights began to dim and the oven timer went off. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed my food and as soon as I shut the oven door the power went off. I’m thinking to myself…wow, I don’t usually lose power this must be a bad one.
I find a flashlight and look out my front door. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The light from my flashlight showed a tree blocking my neighbor’s front door as well as part of a tree laying in the street between our two houses. Oh my gosh. I was officially in freak-out mode. I tried calling R and couldn’t get a signal from my cell. I tried texting him and it took forever to go through. I called my neighbor’s girlfriend and told her to call him (my neighbor) cuz the tree was across his stairs. He runs over and tells me not to go in my backyard because my tree came down and pulled down my power lines. Oh my gosh. It was insane.
Finally, after an hour of trying to call ComEd, my dad calling to check on me, my ex-husband coming to see my damage, the insane storm with the hurricane winds, I laid down in bed and tried to get some sleep….only to be woken up a couple hours later by ANOTHER storm…this one with the sirens going off. I stayed in bed and said, well, if there’s tornado just kill me because I am NOT going in the basement.
Now, 5 days later, I still don’t have any electricity. ComEd informed me that I’m not a priority because the rest of my neighborhood has their power restored and, since I’m just one resident without power, I am placed last on the list. I have lost $450 worth of food. My neighbor is running an extension cord from his house to mine so that I was able to clean out the fridge and get some new food. State Farm has been amazing. My claim on my food loss is already being processed. They gave me the go-ahead to have an electrician out to install a new box without having to wait for an adjuster to come out. The adjuster is coming out tomorrow to check out my roof and the rest of the damage to my house.
It’s very frustrating not having any power, but at least now I have food in the house and am able to cook some because the stove top works as long as I light it manually. I’m able to charge my cell phone at work. Tonight, after the gym, I’m going to take my clothes to the laundromat. That should be fun…I haven’t had to do that in years! I’ve been reading books in bed using a flashlight, and lots of candles are keeping the house smelling nice, as well as giving some light. I think the worst part of it all is that I’m incredibly lonely without my kids. They’ve been with their dad the whole week since he has power and I don’t know exactly what damage the house has sustained. But that’s ok. It could be worse. The best part? I’m still not smoking!
How true...
I came across this in my Reader today. It seems fitting.
"A wise and understanding heart does not repay a hurt with a hurt. In doing so, the heart is diminished. Fissures form. Love leaks out. Every pain given in return for one received, changes the contents of the heart. It is no longer defined by love, wisdom and understanding. It is redefined by the bearers of hurt and hate, pain and prejudice, meanness and madness, sorrow and sadness. You give away control of your very own heart. The despair of being hurt is healed by overcoming it, not clinging to the hurt and inflicting more of it on the world.
When darkness is added to darkness, no one can see, no one can love. Everyone loses. Love is not always warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it's the integrity we hold on to when we're tempted to strike back. Sometimes it's the honor that keeps us from exchanging the valuable contents of our heart for the harsh satisfaction of lashing back. No, the way of love is not always easy, but when night falls, dawn is assured. The integrity and honor of a wise and understanding heart, rises with the sun of a new day. Living in love and loving life."
Author: careycary
"A wise and understanding heart does not repay a hurt with a hurt. In doing so, the heart is diminished. Fissures form. Love leaks out. Every pain given in return for one received, changes the contents of the heart. It is no longer defined by love, wisdom and understanding. It is redefined by the bearers of hurt and hate, pain and prejudice, meanness and madness, sorrow and sadness. You give away control of your very own heart. The despair of being hurt is healed by overcoming it, not clinging to the hurt and inflicting more of it on the world.
When darkness is added to darkness, no one can see, no one can love. Everyone loses. Love is not always warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it's the integrity we hold on to when we're tempted to strike back. Sometimes it's the honor that keeps us from exchanging the valuable contents of our heart for the harsh satisfaction of lashing back. No, the way of love is not always easy, but when night falls, dawn is assured. The integrity and honor of a wise and understanding heart, rises with the sun of a new day. Living in love and loving life."
Author: careycary
Thursday, August 7, 2008
A week unlike any other…but I have achieved stardom!!
I could write about how shitty a week I’ve been having, what with the hurricane winds that knocked out the power in my town, the lightning that struck my tree which branches from said tree fell on my power lines which said power lines pulled out of my house….causing me to remain powerless going into day 4…while the rest of my town is almost finished with the clean up. Or I could talk about how the hundreds of dollars of food….now that I’m eating healthier and more since I’ve been working out and quit smoking….is more than likely going to go bad unless power is restored soon or my next door neighbor takes pity on me and runs an extension cord from my refrigerator to his house. Or I could talk about how much I miss my kids since they’ve been staying with their dad since they own a generator and were in good shape. Or I could talk about….well, I don’t want to talk about that.
I could talk about all these annoying, frustrating or heartbreaking things that my week has consisted of, but instead I prefer to talk about the humor that was just injected into my day.
My daughter called me to tell me she was coming home to take a shower since her dad’s bathroom is getting redone and they shut off the water. No biggie I say. Just DON’T OPEN THE REFRIGERATOR OR FREEZER!!! Being a typical teenager, or perhaps just being her mother’s daughter, she starts complaining about how this no power thing is getting old, she wants to come home, she wants her own bed, she wants the computer, she wants good food, etc…. I told her there’s a ton of food downstairs that I think she can cook on the stovetop that wouldn’t require her to go into the fridge, just go take a look. She sees some beefaroni or ravioli or something and then calls to tell me she can’t get the burner lit. Oops!!! I forgot to tell her the ignitor switch is electric and she has to find the candle lighter and light it manually.
Well, she calls me back again to tell me how happy she is that at least she gets to eat something better than a sandwich and thank’s Mom for letting me know it was there to eat.
Ha ha, so I’m telling one of my bosses that C is happy now because she’s eating, and he said “Well, I am happy because C is happy. It just made my day.” So I told him...I don’t know why she thinks she can be so difficult….now, if you know me, especially you, R, are you cracking up yet?.....and what does my boss say to me? Gee, Jenn, I don’t know why your daughter would be so difficult, I mean, could it be because she’s your daughter? Well, I just had to tell him….look, I never made any secret about me being a difficult woman, but I’ve earned that right. And he said to me….difficult? You’re beyond difficult, you’re high maintenance. Yes, dear reader, I have achieved stardom. Something that R found out in the very beginning and that I have already known has just been affirmed. I am high maintenance. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way ;-)
I could talk about all these annoying, frustrating or heartbreaking things that my week has consisted of, but instead I prefer to talk about the humor that was just injected into my day.
My daughter called me to tell me she was coming home to take a shower since her dad’s bathroom is getting redone and they shut off the water. No biggie I say. Just DON’T OPEN THE REFRIGERATOR OR FREEZER!!! Being a typical teenager, or perhaps just being her mother’s daughter, she starts complaining about how this no power thing is getting old, she wants to come home, she wants her own bed, she wants the computer, she wants good food, etc…. I told her there’s a ton of food downstairs that I think she can cook on the stovetop that wouldn’t require her to go into the fridge, just go take a look. She sees some beefaroni or ravioli or something and then calls to tell me she can’t get the burner lit. Oops!!! I forgot to tell her the ignitor switch is electric and she has to find the candle lighter and light it manually.
Well, she calls me back again to tell me how happy she is that at least she gets to eat something better than a sandwich and thank’s Mom for letting me know it was there to eat.
Ha ha, so I’m telling one of my bosses that C is happy now because she’s eating, and he said “Well, I am happy because C is happy. It just made my day.” So I told him...I don’t know why she thinks she can be so difficult….now, if you know me, especially you, R, are you cracking up yet?.....and what does my boss say to me? Gee, Jenn, I don’t know why your daughter would be so difficult, I mean, could it be because she’s your daughter? Well, I just had to tell him….look, I never made any secret about me being a difficult woman, but I’ve earned that right. And he said to me….difficult? You’re beyond difficult, you’re high maintenance. Yes, dear reader, I have achieved stardom. Something that R found out in the very beginning and that I have already known has just been affirmed. I am high maintenance. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way ;-)
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