Hesitant, Hopeful

The last post was supposed to be my last one of the year. Then tonight I learned that one of our best friends, Tommy, died yesterday. He had a stroke. He was only in his late-30s. And as of right now, it's impossible to wrap my head around. Two days ago we were talking about Christmas and the possibility of Matt and me moving back to Texas. Today, he's gone.

While I try to comprehend the loss, I'm struggling to put it in perspective. All of the shitty things this year, that yesterday shone like blinding light, today are barely a dull glow. This one single thing makes everything else feel petty and unimportant. As I look toward a new year, one that follows so closely on this loss, I can't help thinking about how short life is. How we never know, from one day to the next, when it'll be over or who will be taken from us.

And, I can't help wanting to try harder to make my dreams a reality. To finish writing my book, to lose the weight I've been struggling to shed, to try to be healthier. To try harder to live in a way that's meaningful. But I'm cautious too, because I think death can do this to the living, make us see for a while how fleeting it all is. I'm nearly 40 years old and I can't help feeling like it's now or never, even more so than ever before.

This is the first time I've lost a friend to death. I'm so torn up inside. He was a friend of Matt's from work, who became a dear friend of ours. More than anything, he was an amazing person, always trying to make everyone around him laugh and feel happy. He was a good friend, a very smart guy, and had a great sense of humor. Above all, he was a unique and generous individual who will be missed dearly.

This is a pic I took of Matt and Tommy a few days before we moved to Utah. We all went out for pedicures and then dinner. I can't believe he's gone.

The title is a little bit misleading. I just spent the last hour writing a blog post about how horrible 2017 was. Two minutes ago, I saved it as a draft and started over. It was a bad year, but I realized while producing a ten paragraph brain-spill about how fucking terrible everything is, that there's absolutely nothing productive in putting that out there. I've heard people say getting it all out there makes you feel better, it's one of the reasons people write journals and go to therapy. But, having a pity part didn't really make me feel better, it made me feel worse. Thinking about the miserable year I had, writing it down, seeing it in black and white made me feel like shit.

So, I'm not doing that. This will be the last post of 2017. I'm not going to make the last blog post of 2017 ten paragraphs about all the crap swirling around in my head right now. That's pointless. So instead, I'm going to talk about the few things I did to better myself this year and how I intend to make 2018 better than this year has been. That seems much more productive than wallowing in self-pity. So, here goes.


Focus on Self 

The single best thing I did for myself this year was to try to turn my focus inward. What I mean is, I'm trying to start focusing on self-improvement and figuring out how I can help myself. I suffer with depression and anxiety, I have a pretty severe case of agoraphobia (which has been diagnosed as moderate, but feels pretty severe inside my head). Those issues have actually gotten worse this year. For whatever reason, my mental health is declining, which is confusing because every time I think it can't get worse, it does.

So, I started trying to focus on those things I could do, without going to therapy, to make myself feel better. To improve my mental health, even just a little bit. My husband suggested that mindfulness meditation might help with my anxiety and depression. He practices and swears by it. He's a pretty calm person, something many people actually comment on, and which he attributes largely to mindfulness. I figured I'd try it.

I downloaded the Calm app for my iPhone, upgraded to the premium service, and started trying this mindfulness meditation thing. The first thing, this shit is hard. It's not as easy as "breathe in, breath out, feel better." It may look that way on the outside, but it's tough and takes quite a lot of practice. Since I only started doing this late this year, I'm still trying to get the hang of it. What I like is that it focuses on trying to be mindful of yourself and your thoughts. No weird spirituality involved. It's like yoga for the mind.

The silver lining, it is actually helping me. I was skeptical that it would work at all and I tend toward pessimism, but am trying my hardest to take it seriously. I haven't had the energy to practice much this past month. I've been sick and can hardly breathe, so a practice that focuses largely on breathing is kind of out of the question. But, I have noticed an improvement in my ability to cope with my anxiety since I started doing this.

I plan to work harder to keep to a daily mindfulness meditation schedule in the coming year. Maybe that will make whatever's coming at us in 2018 easier to handle. If how I'm feeling so far is any indication, I'm hesitantly hopeful (ha... see what I did there?).

Weight loss

I lost 30 lbs this year. I may have gained some of that back during the holidays and with my depression, I tend to self-medicate with food, but I've manage to lose some weight. It's not a lot, especially for a whole year, but it's something. I'm counting it as a win for 2017 and something I hope continues into 2018, even though I have no plans to go on a "diet."

Writing

This is the hardest one. I've so neglected my writing, both this blog and my book projects. I've struggled with coming to terms with the fact that despite having written hundreds of thousands of words over the past ten or more years, I will likely never publish. The anxiety causes so much fear, I can't imagine putting myself out there that way. But, even still, I'm working on coming to terms with the fact that that's okay. That it's okay to write, just for me, without any artificial expectations about publishing. I can write the story in my head, the way I want, as an outlet for my creative energy. It's okay.

So, I've started to write again. A little at a time, I'm working on a novel that's been collecting virtual dust and I'm actually enjoying it. It's been nice. I'm hoping to finish that particular piece of work early this coming year. And, when I do, it will likely just sit in a folder on my hard drive. But again, that's okay.

I'm also going to try to blog more and work on starting another blog that I've been wanting to write for a long time. A book blog, of sorts, with a focus on romance--I read 3-4 romance novels a week, so I'd have more than enough material. At this point, the only thing holding me back on that project is that I can't seem to settle on a good title for said blog. Which actually kind of sucks since writing catchy titles for papers was sort of my jam in college. Professors would actually comment on how awesome my titles were. I think may be I'm losing my touch.


Ultimately, though the year wasn't a particularly good one for me, it wasn't as terrible as it feels either. Somehow, wallowing in self-pity made it feel monumentally worse than it actually was. At best, it was a stagnant year where I accomplished absolutely nothing. It could have been much worse. But, I'm hoping as I approach my 40th year on this damn earth, that I can get something done. Even one accomplishment of any kind would really help me feel like I'm getting somewhere.

So, since it's the last post of the year, here's the last selfie I took in 2017. We went to Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square and I snapped this pic, all bundled up with my Star Wars scarf. It was damn cold and I look happier than I am. But at that moment, surrounded with Christmas lights and wearing brand new shoes that were absolutely killing me, I was content. In that moment, I was okay. That feels like something positive, however small.

While browsing Facebook this afternoon, I came across a slide show where 15 women answered the question: Would you marry your husband all over again?

Most of the women said they would. Some said yes because their husbands are good daddies, others because they like them more now than they did before. One said she wouldn't marry the man she married years ago, but would marry the man he is now, which I think is completely relatable. Another said she might not because of her husband's severe depression--something, as a person who suffers with severe manic depression, I worry about. But it wasn't really the slideshow that was I found interesting, it was the comments on the Facebook link.

It's amazing what people will tell complete strangers. Stories about years of marriage, in many cases. But, it seemed like, overall, the answer was yes. Most of the commenters said that they would marry their husband's again. But, you know, I wonder how much of that is actually true? Maybe it's my pessimism, but marriage/divorce statistics don't tell a happy story about happy marriages.

But okay, that small sampling clearly doesn't represent us all. I wonder, though, if all of those women who said they would marry their man again really mean that, or if they're just saying it because, well, Facebook isn't anonymous. If there's a chance their husbands will see it, and it'll stir up drama, then of course you're going to say yes!

More than that, I wonder how much they really thought about it? Really, truly thought, before answering the question. Because, I think that most of us want to justify our life choices in a way that makes them seem like good choices. We want those years to mean something and if we go back and say no, that we wouldn't do this again with the same man, then how much of who we are has just been totally invalidated? I think it's tough to look the question in the face and really see the answer.

Having been married for 17 1/2 years, this is interesting to me. I've been thinking about it for hours now. Would I marry my husband all over again? Like the commenters, my knee-jerk reaction was yes. Of course, I would. But to be fair to my own questioning, I've been considering it. Really considering it.

Not all of the years have been good years. We've had times when we struggled, when we still struggle, and choices have been made that I had trouble adjusting to. I thought about what we've accomplished together and wondered how our lives would have been different if we had taken a different path. I thought about whether or not he gave up having kids he might have wanted in order to be with me, and I considered if that was a mistake for him or if he ever regrets it. I wondered if I'm worth it and came to the conclusion that I'm most likely not. I wondered how much time we've wasted doing nothing and how many years we've lost spinning our wheels. Then I remembered that we weren't spinning our wheels, we were getting somewhere. I wonder if we enable one another's bad choices and think that maybe, sometimes, we do.

But, you know, all that thinking and I never was able to see a different way. And, if I'm being honest, I don't really want to. I love my husband and even though we're both vastly different people than we were when we got married almost 18 years ago, we've grown together in a way that makes sense for us. We've grown together, not apart. We might enable one another, but we also support one another when it matters. We argue, but we also listen to one another's thoughts and fears. We're better together than we are apart, which is why we work. I hope he would say the same thing.

Still, love is only a part of the equation, which I think is the biggest thing a lot of the people--mostly women--commenting on Facebook were missing. Most of them had a love conquers all mentality, but love does not conquer all. Not by far. It doesn't overcome financial issues in a way that helps to resolve them, it doesn't feed you or put a roof over your head. Many of them were of the opinion that it's never acceptable to quit a marriage, which doesn't make sense to me. There are good reasons people choose to leave a marriage. It doesn't make a person a quitter.

That part of the process inevitably brought me around to my first marriage. I know, without a single shred of doubt, deep in my soul, that I would never, ever marry my first husband again. No thought necessary. It's something I just know, something I looked in the face years ago. I completely own my mistake in marrying him. We had an abusive, painful dynamic. He thought I was stupid. He told me more than once that I wasn't smart enough to go to college. He treated me not like a partner, but like a person who should be grateful he saw fit to give his attention. It was bad and would only have gotten worse. There were a hell of a lot of good reasons to leave that marriage.

It's a drastic difference when I compare that to my current marriage, to a husband who supports me and lifts me up. I know what a bad marriage with a bad husband feels like. No one should want to stay married under those sorts of circumstances just so they don't look like a quitter.

Ultimately, the slideshow and accompanying comments are a harmless little thing, but they got me thinking about how much time people really take to consider their choices. It's valuable, though, because it gave me time to really reflect on mine. It brought me to a place where I was able to really see my relationship and not take it for granted. Because, that's just as important as knowing, if you ask me. If people aren't thinking about their marriages, how can they truly appreciate them?

I finally got my Utah driver's license squared away a couple of weeks ago. We've been living here for a little more than two years and I finally, just this last month, got my driver's license. Because I procrastinated, sure, but also because the ID laws here (and apparently everywhere, now) are a big old pain the ass. Even then I only did so because my Texas license was expiring and they wouldn't let me renew it. Turns out Texas wants you to live there if you're going to be licensed there. Go figure.

My first TX DL after moving to Waco--man I looked young! They cut the top off when we moved to a new city and I got a new license. Here in Utah, they just hole punch to invalidate.

I had the intention of writing about something unpleasant that happened recently... no, I did write about it, but I decided not to share it right now. I don't need any more negativity, I'm feeling low enough without all that. So instead, this...

My in-laws are here this weekend. We haven't seen them since we moved to Utah two years ago, so it's nice to be able to visit. They're going to a family reunion next weekend and took a longish detour to come up and see us. Matt's been happy to be able to see his dad and step-mom, and we've had very a nice visit so far.

Before they came, though, I spent two weeks cleaning and trying to prepare for their visit--which is totally our fault because we didn't keep up with things all that well and something we were happy to do because we wanted Matt's folks to see the best side of us. In preparation, we bought a bed for our guest room, which we needed anyway. We painted a door and a return air vent that needed work, we paid the guy who does our lawn $200 to mow the back (well worth it!). I spent three hours on my hands and knees scrubbing the very dirty grout in our kitchen, trying to bring it back to the pretty light-almost-white-gray it was when it was new. It was hardcore spring cleaning, a little late.

It's been hectic trying to make everything presentable while working full time... and Matt, well, he was helpful, but less than might have been welcome. He tries, but ultimately he couldn't seem to manage to find the time. Laughable, since I work just as much as does he and I found the time.  But, I digress... my point is, it just seems like it's a lot of work presenting yourself to, well, anyone. Usually, our house is mostly passably cleanish. It's not messy, we keep it picked up, but it's lived-in. We live here and living isn't neat and tidy. Neither of us are house-spouse, so there's no person here dedicated to the upkeep of the house. We have to make time where we can.

So, if you walk on the floor barefoot, your feet will likely get dirty. No matter how hard I try, I can't keep the floors clean. There's dust on the furniture and my dogs have probably made a mess somewhere I haven't discovered yet. If you look behind the doors, there's probably dust on the baseboards and the cat box always needs to be scooped, no matter how often I scoop it. Look under the throw blankets I have neatly draped over the arms of the sofa and you'll find that said arms are a little torn up thanks to a naughty cat. The crisper drawers in our fridge could use a scrubbing. Our master shower needs a good hard cleaning and the bedroom carpet needs shampooing... again.

But the alternative seems less than pleasant. Present to anyone the messy truth that you're busy and don't really have any sort of motivation to keep your house super-clean? Show the world that depression often keeps you from giving a damn that the house is a little grimy? Let people see the truth, you're not perfect and neither is your dwelling? That would be nice. Sadly, my anxiety won't let that happen, so while I don't have a lot of motivation thanks to depression, anxiety makes it impossible to leave it be.

So I scrubbed the place down and, well, it looks really good. We got wax warmers to hide the slight animals-live-here-too smell the house takes on when you live with critters. I'm proud of the way it looks, but it's just a facade. Something to show the world to prove that you're okay, that I'm okay, and that I function like everyone else when, in reality, everyone else doesn't and neither do I sometimes.

And, we've agreed to try to keep it clean, to try to work a little every day to make the house look good all the time. The reality? That will not happen. It won't. That's the same lie I tell myself after I've spent the whole weekend doing ten loads of dishes--I'll keep it up, now that it's clean. But, whatever underlying thing made me less-than-motivated to keep it up last time, it's still there. It's still making it impossible to keep it clean now. I can try and I certainly will, but it won't stay like this. I'm just trying to enjoy it while it does.

But, I'm thankful for having a good reason to do the cleaning in the first place. The house needed it and without something to give me the push I needed, it would likely have gone on looking a bit of a wreck. My in-laws coming has given me a good reason for some good hard spring cleaning and I'm grateful. It's been lovely seeing them, too, which makes it all the more worth it. Wish us luck keeping things this way!

I've been having such a hard time lately. The hardest time I remember having in a long time and, well, I have no idea how to get back to a happy place. Zero idea. It's a deep, dark funk and I'm stuck. All the way stuck.

In fact, I had such a hard week last week that I about turned-tail and ran my ass right back to Texas. It's the last place I remember being happy. It's my home, even though we left almost two years ago. I want to go home. That its not even close to being an option, that didn't matter last week.

I spent the whole week obsessing about whether or not I could, feasibly, go back to Texas and how that work work with Matt staying in Utah. The logistics would be a nightmare, but last week, I'd have been willing to accept that. I was in a dark, dark hole and going back to Texas was the only way I could see to climb out.

I have friends there who would let me stay with them. I could get a job and pay them rent. I still have a Texas drivers license. I could see myself going. Matt wouldn't entertain the idea, because, you know, it's ludicrous. He wouldn't even discuss it except to say that someday, maybe, WE would go back there. We. Not me, but we.

This week, I can see how crazy that is. Except the thought still lingers, even now. But you know, Matt is a whole lot of what made Texas my home. Without him in it, I don't know that I want to go back.... at least that's how I feel in my more sane moments. In the moments when I'm more tired or more depressed, I think I could do it. I could go back.

The whole crazy scheme is fed by the fact that we don't see one another much, working opposite shifts. And soon, his shift will change and we'll see one another even less. It's so incredibly hard. I know there are women who manage to get by without seeing their husbands for long periods of time and still stay sane, and happy, but I'm never going to be one of those women. I need for us to spend time together.

Not seeing one another leads me down the dark path where I feel like if I can't see my husband, I might as well have something and Texas is that something. My brain says, "you don't see one another much now, and you're miserable in Utah." I tell myself that maybe Texas would make me happy again, at least in some small aspect, and that would allow me to gain a little control over my life.

Because, ya know, I don't have any of that right now. Control over my life. I go where Matt goes, I do what Matt wants to do, and I wonder when the last time I did something for myself was. And, I can't remember, at first... then I remember 1999, when I moved to Texas. That was it. That was the last time something was at least a little bit about me.

Then the cycle starts over. This week, I know it's not an option. Because, well, it's not. I want to be close to my husband, I want to see him when I can and find a way to see him more, and there isn't any way that could happen if we're living 1,200 miles apart. So, I'm here and I'm looking for something.

Nothing yet, but maybe tomorrow that something will occur to me. Maybe.

I'm alive!! It's tough to put your fingers to the keys when it's been this long. It's hard not to just give up on blogging (or writing) entirely. But, I like to think I'm not a quitter. So here goes... I started a new job a little over 3 months ago.

I left my old job at the end of November and started working a new one in December. It's a clerk job and more physical than anything I've done before, which has been tough and humbling. I sort of expected to be either teaching or working an office job right now, so to have a more physical job is hard both physically and emotionally. I'm working through my issues.

But, it's also been good for me in so, so many ways. Take for instance, I've lost almost 20 lbs since I started in December. While that's slow weight loss, I'll take it. And, I haven't really done anything to lose it except go to work. That's it. I go to work. I eat a little less and I don't sit on my ass all day drinking soda. That's it.

It's actually made me want to try to eat better and do better so that maybe, you know, it keeps coming off. Matt says he notices it, though I really don't, which is nice. He's trying to encourage me, which I'll take. He's sweet.

There have been some down sides, too, though. Like, we don't see one another very much. I work swing shift, Tuesday - Saturday. He works graves, Sunday night - Friday morning. We have different days off and we work different shifts. That amounts to a few hours together on Sunday and Monday and not much else. I don't love that... at all. It does make the time we do have together more precious, though I wish it was more.

I don't think there's really much else right at the moment. I have some other thoughts, but I don't have time right now... I have to go to work.  I feel good having at least I made time for this much, since I haven't been motivated to do much lately--depression is a tough cookie and winter has made it doubly hard. Maybe I can make it a trend and write more. Fingers crossed. :)