No Way

Hands down, this has been the most stressful summer of my life.  Of course, my relationship did not stay in the blissful harmonious place it was way back in March.  I expected that.  Honestly, it doesn't really phase me and I'm grateful for the peaceful times.  I haven't had a whole lot of energy to invest in that drama so at this point, my attitude is that it is what it is.

Getting my son into college has been a nightmare.  He finally settled on SUNY at Buffalo.  It's a great school and was his first choice but it is HUGE!  It is the biggest school in the northeast.  FAFSA is a nightmare.  It's confusing and obnoxious.  I am convinced it's just another way for the government to gather more data on it's citizens.  Really, who is getting all of this aide?  How low does your income have to be to get the grants?  The little bit of aide my son got wasn't even worth the time to fill out the FAFSA forms.

He got the perfect room assignment but was unsure if he should keep it.  It was a single on the south campus.  I panicked and told him to request a change as all of his classes were on the north campus and I felt he would be too lonely in a single.  We went up for orientation and decided that room was perfect.  The south campus is a bit quieter and less busy and a bus runs every 3 minutes to the north campus.  If he misses one, he will blink and the next one will be there.  He went in to cancel his room change request and had already been reassigned.  He is in a double in Governor's Hall.  Not the ideal freshman dorm.  It's for the very serious, academic students.  While my son is very bright (he graduated in the top 5% of his class) he is a social kid.  He loves to play sports and hang out with friends.  This is the worst possible scenario.  His roommate is Asian, and while this is so stereotypical, we are assuming super smart.  We could be totally off base here, but typically if students come abroad to study, it is to actually get an education.

My son never partied in high school.  I always told him to wait for college.  He did that and now is in a dorm that will be the least conducive place for that.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't want him to party his way to failure but I do want him to learn how to balance fun and work.  After all, isn't that what adulthood is all about?  We have to learn how to have a fun life and still meet our responsibilities.  I feel college is the perfect environment to figure that all out.  You are an adult and independent, yet the safety net is still in place.  I led him very wrong in the decision to change his room.  He has put in another request but so far, nothing.  I'm sure this late in the game, he is stuck where he is assigned.

It is making buying things for his room very difficult as well.  Since we have no idea if this is where he will be, he has not contacted his roommate.  We are hoping he doesn't have a refrigerator and area rug, etc.  I'm assuming if he's coming from overseas, those types of things will not be easily brought.  My son doesn't want to contact him and then get reassigned, obviously.  This would all be so much easier if I had just told him to stay where he was.  Live and learn.

The thought of him leaving is also killing me.  I know it's time.  I know he's ready.  I know this is what I have been preparing him for since childhood.  However, none of that logic makes it any easier to grasp that one of my babies is leaving the nest.  I cannot fathom it.  I'm not ready.  I need more time.  There are so many things that I wanted to do with my family that never happened.  I feel that we have been in the worst place ever, as a family, and this is what my son is taking away to his freshman year.  My head is in constant thought.  Admittedly, it is all negative speak.  I'm trying so hard to be positive and let his last weeks be happy ones.  We have been spending a lot of time together as a family and I'm really making an effort to make in non confrontational.  If I feel myself getting angry, I just let it go.  I want him to miss us, not be happy to get the heck away from us.

I also haven't felt well for a very long time.  I finally broke down and went to a doctor in July.  It was the evening before we were leaving for vacation.  She found two tumors.  She told me they were fairly certain they were harmless.  She said she would know more in 14 days and that every day closer to that 14 day mark was better.  If I didn't hear from her in 14 days, I could relax.

Yesterday marked 28 days since that appointment.  I got a call at work from my husband that my Dr. had called the home phone and wanted me to call her back.  I assumed that it was a follow up call as I had been put on medication to shrink the tumors.  She explained the first month would be rough (and believe me, it has been) and I thought she was just checking in. 

They found abnormal cells.  I think somewhere, deep inside, I knew something was not right with me.  I have just been "off."  I have another appointment on August 27th.  I have a bunch of tests with fancy names that essentially boil down to a biopsy.  I'm in shock.  Fourteen days passed and I checked this all off of my "to do" list.  Had I received this call within that time frame, I would have been prepared to hear whatever.  Yesterday, at work, not so much.

I'm tired.  I'm so unbelievably tired.  I'm tired of stress.  I'm tired of fighting.  I'm tired of decision-making and care-taking and my life in general.  I want to feel peace.  I want to wake up and look forward to my day.  I don't want to hurry up and get it over with so I can go to bed and hurry up and get the next day over with.  That is my attitude lately.  My job is the most monotonous, anti-Kiraly place in the world.  I hate technology and tv and phones and that is what I do ALL day long.  It's like going to hell every day.  I like who I work with and the convenience of where I work so I'm trying to find the positive in it every day, but it's getting harder.

I don't know how I will tell my kids if something is wrong with me.  This is such an exciting time for both of them.  It's stressful for me but what makes it all worthwhile is listening to them both.  He's off to college and while nervous, I haven't seen him so excited about anything in a long time.  She's starting her senior year.  This is the most fun year of high school with so many adventures ahead.

I want to be 100% there for them.  I want to be the mother I have always been since they first looked into my eyes.  I am so afraid that God is going to have other plans for me.  I'm terrified that I may not have the energy to give all of myself to them.  I'm nervous at my lack of control over my own body.  Pray for me.  I pray so hard for all of my friends who struggle.  I pray for strangers I read about who need to be lifted.  Lately, I pray an awful lot for myself.  I need all I can get and I just ask that you pray for me.

Let's Press Pause

This has actually been a good week.  It seems like forever since I have been able to say that and the words come with a huge sigh of relief.  I don't know what the magical light of clarity was, but it came and I'm enjoying it's aftermath.

I had stopped wearing my wedding rings about a month ago.  I was sick and tired of pretending I was happy and thought I needed to start the process.  After about three weeks, my husband noticed.  Of course, he was less than thrilled.  He kept telling me to put them on and of course, I kept refusing.  I told him when I felt married and loved, I would wear them.

Right around the same time, I had to get money out for something and my husband noticed I had a LARGE amount of cash stockpiled. I told him flat out that I was saving for an apartment.  He didn't believe me but he couldn't deny the fact that I had an awful lot of money saved to simply look at.  I think for the first time, he really got nervous.  It finally dawned on him that I was done.

He started actually being kind.  He talked gently, he would just hug me for no reason and in general just started acting like my old guy.  Finally on St. Patrick's Day he asked if I would please wear my rings when we went out.  I told him I would but he'd better earn them.

We have had a great week!  He has been loving and sweet and considerate.  I feel a calmness that I have not felt in way too long to remember.  I admit, it is very hard for me to let my defenses down.  If I were in a less weary place, emotionally, I am confident I would still be hostile and unreceptive.  I'm just so tired from everything that I haven't put up much of a fight.

This is what I want.  I want a husband who looks at me like he loves me.  I want to look into his eyes and know that he can't wait to get me alone.  I want to see desire and and love.  I want to see that when I've been married 50 years.  I don't want a divorce.  I don't want to start over.  I know I would love to be alone but I'm also a realist and know I would start dating someone else again.  We all crave companionship.  I just don't want a new relationship.  I want my old relationship to feel new.

Maybe we have to go through all of this.  Nobody said life was easy, after all.  Maybe you have to go through the angst to appreciate the "normal."  Maybe it's where we are at with the kids that contributes to the woes of our marriage.  My kids are great but they are 18 and 17.  They are constantly running and doing and I feel like we are non-stop.  I don't acknowledge it because it's just our life, but it IS stressful.  It never calms down.  Once one thing is done, we are gearing up for the next.  Prom for the daughter, over.  Prom for the son, next month.  Dance-outs for the daughter, done.  Baseball for the son, just beginning.  On and on it goes.  We will get our son into college in the fall and then the process of finding one for our daughter begins.

Don't get me wrong.  I love having our kids close.  We chose this but it is exhausting.  I think it is more stressful than I realize.

I don't know what the heck is going on but I know, I like where we are RIGHT now!

Take A Break

I've been considering taking a break from social media.  I just don't have it in me to be a part of relationships.  I've practically become a hermit in my "real" life and I'm finding the effort to just have conversations exhausting.

I have to be "on" at work and by the time I get home, I don't even want to speak.  I know my poor kids don't understand it.  I'm usually very gregarious and lively and I know they see the difference.  I don't even have the desire to visit with my in-laws and I'm usually the one who always makes it a point to go over there with the family.  They are the only family my kids have here and I am adamant that they need a strong relationship with them.  The thought of going over there and having to have conversation is too much.

I am depressed.  I am actually amazed I'm just now really getting into the depths of depression.  When I think about my life honestly, I can't believe I've managed to remain functioning and sunny as long as I have.  Now I just don't care.  I have no more energy to give.  I just don't care.

I love my friends on social media.  I am usually lively and witty and love the connection I have on there with so many friends and family.  Lately, I find myself just scrolling down the page and hitting a like once in a while but rarely commenting on things.  This is not me.  I have something to say about everything. 

I'm not me.  I don't know who I am or who I will come out on the other end of this but I do not like where I am.

Dream On

I'm a dreamer.  I have always been a dreamer.  I fantasize that the world is a perfect place, filled with people, who, while not perfect, all have some good in them.

I live every day trying to find the good in every person and every thing.  I can't function otherwise.  When I give in to reality and acknowledge that maybe some people just have no good in them and life is not the perfect place I seek, I despair.  Lately, I am finding it harder and harder to keep my mojo rocking.

I have lived too long in my bubble.  I have been isolated and allowed to only acknowledge reality as I choose to filter it.  When you are home all day, every day, what you encounter is very much in your control.

I don't watch tv so there was no negative energy coming in that avenue.  My computer habits were completely in my control.  I chose to read and surf where I found things that perpetuated my idyllic ideology and avoid anything that brought me down.  I had no idea how very much I have been avoiding.

I now have a non-existent marriage.  I do not even have a friendship with my husband at this point.  I don't listen to him when he speaks because the only things that come out of his mouth are negative and have to do with work.  We spend absolutely NO time talking with one another. I don't care that we are disconnected.  We are beyond repair as far as I'm concerned.  I don't have the energy nor the desire to rebuild our relationship.  I used to miss him horribly when our break down began.  I missed "us."  I don't miss a thing about him.  In fact, I continually find it hard to remember what I even liked about him to begin with.

It seems to me that he has been this miserable, selfish, mean man for longer than he was ever the man I met.  I clung to that man, to that memory of what he was.  I held tight with both hands wishing for that man to come back.  At some point in this VERY long process, I realized that man is gone.  He's been gone for a very long time and he's not coming back.  The man who has replaced him is here to stay and is the "real" husband.

I'm also coming to reality about my job.  It was supposed to be part-time.  It is very much not that.  I thought with time, I would begin to really like it.  The truth is, I just don't like what I do.  I don't like technology.  I sell phones and tv service and internet and I couldn't care less about those things.  How can I go to work and be happy and passionate about what I do when I honestly couldn't care less about any of it?  Some days it actually sickens me how obsessed people are with their technology.  Heaven forbid if their tv is not working and Jeopardy is coming on.  You would think the apocolypse was upon us.  It is sheer panic!

I really like my boss as a person.  She is cool and fun and nice.  Working with her is completely different.  She is very good to me and respectful but she flips on my co-workers and it makes me a nervous wreck.  She literally gets very angry when they make mistakes.  On one hand, I understand her frustration.  These people have been working for her for quite some time and should have this stuff down.  However, they are laid back and kind of "spacey."  She knows that.  It's like trying to put a square peg into a round hole.  No matter how many times she yells at them, they are not going to stop making mistakes.  They just don't care enough to be really good at what they do.  They are content with "good enough."

I am always waiting for her to flip her switch on me.  It is so stressful.  While I sense a different relationship with her and I and I cling to the hope that she will not speak to me the same way, I'm always waiting for it.  I'm confident alot of things that I'm still unsure of would be much easier for me if I weren't always afraid to mess it up.  I'm paralyzed in indecision because I can't trust myself to be perfect.  I worked for someone before like this.  I was very good at my job and it was very easy but she had me so paranoid to make a mistake, I couldn't write my name without second guessing myself.  It is a horrible feeling every day to be on edge like this.

When she and I are alone in the office, it is very stress free.  We work well together and she seems in a good mood.  When a co-worker enters the equation, the whole atmosphere changes.  We have to hire another person as one girl has left and I'm nervous about it.  She tends to hire the same "type" and it just doesn't seem to me like the formula is working.  She hires young, inexperienced girls that she already knows.  Then she hopes they work out.  Sometimes they do a really good job but they tend to move on.  I don't understand that.  A young girl could make a career there, or at least work there for several years and use that experience as a launch pad to get into a really good job.  I am starting to think they sense that tension in the office and like myself, they like our boss and use the excuse of starting a career elsewhere to leave and maintain a good relationship with her.  She really is a nice person.  More often than not, they just don't work out for one reason or another.

It's her business and her choice.  I'm just worried about this process.  Again, my optimistic outlook is trying to convince me that the new person is going to be great and it's all going to work and we are going to be one big happy office.   There is a nagging little voice in my head that is telling me that may not be the case.

I have no marriage.  I have a job I don't like but need.  I can't get my health together because I can't find a single reason to care if I'm fat or old or ugly.  I'm not motivated to work out or eat well and I can't summon up the energy to do anything about it.  I don't think I have ever been as hopeless and sad as I am right now.  I have had hard times but there is just such an emptiness in me and I can't seem to find the will to fill it.

Thank God for my children.  I am confident if I didn't have them, I would not make the effort to even get out of bed.  I just wake up every morning and say a little prayer that somewhere in my day, something will inspire me to get through it and want to wake up the next day and try again.