Hurry up and wait.

I've been thinking about stress a lot lately.

Trying to figure out what my stresses are, how they manifest and how to rid myself of their influence.

One of the things I've pinpointed is that I feel like I'm always in a hurry. And, when I'm not hurrying I feel pressured to get my ass in gear and hurry up. I have to make myself relax and usually end up feeling guilty the whole time. Historically this wasn't an issue for me but these last few of years I've been feeling the pressure. The clock is ticking. I realized one day, I'm not getting any younger. Okay, go ahead and laugh, I am after all only in my thirties but still, it's just now that I've finally figured out who I am, what I want to do with my life and what needs to happen to make it so. While I don't necessarily feel like I wasted my 20's I do feel that all of my aimless wanderings have made it all that much tougher to get my life in order now. I've got a lot of work to do and I feel like I need to make up for lost time.  I had something of an extended adolescence ;)

One of the toughest parts of this new found motivation is that I really really need my partner to be on step with me and help me pull this cart & plow this field. Problem is he is dealing with his GAD (general anxiety disorder) and panic attacks so he's not been able to be of much real assistance to me. He cannot handle even the smallest of stresses most days. For years now I've been attempting to juggle all of the responsibilities with more resistance than assistance. I am thankful though that he is finally seeking counseling to help get over this, I just don't know that I could take much more of it.

I see that horizon, I know that it's the direction I want to head in....I just can't seem to get there fast enough. You know those dreams where someone is chasing you but you seem to be running through peanut butter? That's what I feel like every day.

 This is the part where I get snappy and resentful towards my husband. I seem to be constantly swimming against the current, getting nowhere fast and he's no help. While I do my best to understand what he is going through I have to work double (okay, quadruple) time to not be outwardly angry towards him. Lately his panic attacks have reached epic proportions and it's been more difficult than usual. I decided to take a different tack with him though. In order to heal my resentful/angry heart I've decided that when I feel like slapping him instead I will channel that into being twice as nice to him. Instead of saying something snappy or seething I'll offer to do something nice for him or say something nice about him. Most times it feels like it helps, other times....not so much.


I have been noticing a shift in him though which is surprising. It seems that he is finally able to see how hard a lot of this has been on me. He's offering to help out a bit here & there too. It's baby steps but I have to believe that it's going to continue to get better, it just has to.


I never used to consider myself a patient person, perhaps this is the Universes' way of teaching me patience...right?

Home again, home again

I had the most lovely time visiting my grandmother.


It was also the most relaxing vacation I've ever had. Thank the Goddess!!!


The key to having a relaxing vacation for me is that I have to go by myself . Constantly worrying about someone else- are they having a good time? are they feeling left out? I guess I better do this/that or they'll be mad. Admittedly my inability to curb my people pleasing problem is in actuality my problem and something that needs to be remedied, for my sanity, but- this was not the time or the place for that. I needed to go and be by myself for a bit.


Being by myself with my grandmother & her broken wing was also very conducive to non-stop relaxation since she was more than content to sit in her chair and read/snooze/chat/snack. And that is exactly what we did. Typical me, I had a whole list of things I had hoped to do while I was there, I wanted her to teach me how to do this & that, do a stitching project or two, work out a little every day, in essence a plan to get the most out of my time off before I had to leave and in the end we didn't really end up doing any of them. Thankfully I'm okay with that. I'm driven but also able to accept when things aren't fitting together the way I micromanaged it. I just chilled out and let it be and rode the wave- or more appropriately the couch.


I read Amy Lowell's poetry by the fire as all the women (two of my aunts live with her) of the house snoozed, I wrote in my journal (for the first time in a VERY long time), I read two whole fiction books back to back!! Both books were beautiful, haunting, imaginative and had very unique perspectives/stories. The first book is titled 'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' by Gordon Dahlquist and the other was titled 'The Lace Reader' by Brunonia Barry. I practiced my mindlight meditation a bit, I drew some cards from my tarot deck & documented them in my tarot journal, I napped, I ate food that was very bad for me, I watched my grandmother nap- studying the lines on her face, I got the stories behind various pieces of memorabilia. I barely got on the computer at all (so slow it was not worth it) and basically just dropped out of the world for 9 glorious days. It was so very nice.


I was so secluded that on the last day when I began to pack my bag back up everything that I had run away from flooded back to me and I instantly got a headache. How's that for a mind/body connection? Blech. I am hopeful however. Hopeful instead of completely overwhelmed like I was when I left.


I know we will get through this just as we have everything else that has come our way. I haven't talked much about what's been going on with my husband lately because I've never quite figured out how to talk about other people in my life without 'outing' them on the internet- especially when it's something that is not altogether positive. I would prefer for the time that all the characters in this play remain as anonymous as can be.  We are up to our noses with a chronic anxiety condition with major panic attacks and instead of it getting better when I left as I had hoped he has gotten worse. He will finally be going into psychiatric treatment starting this wednesday and I hope and pray continually for his healing and for my sanity. If any of you suffer from this horrible issue I feel for you from the bottom, top & middle of my heart, same for any of you who have someone in your life who is afflicted with this- it's hard on us too, the supporters, the anchors. For 10 years now we have been dealing with this and I've done all I can do. Thankfully we have insurance that includes counseling so we're finally going for it. He's ready to accept that this isn't going away on it's own and though there are times that are more mellow than others overall it's creeped into his daily life with an alarming consistency for the last year and it's time to get over it.


One day at a time.

~Count Your Blessings~

Today I am very grateful.

I'm grateful that I am able to go and spend some quality time with my grandmother. One might notice a theme to the last handful of posts, family family family. We've had some hard losses this year and while I'm sad that it had to be under these circumstances I would have to say that we've been putting some extra special effort into being close to our loved ones.

My grandmother took a nasty spill yesterday and I am blessed to have a job where I am given paid vacation days and am able to afford a ticket so I am going to take a handful of days off and go and be with her while she is on the mend. When I called to tell her I was coming I could hear pure joy in her voice, she perked up big time, it was adorable. I intend on having her help me learn how to make bread, make a pie crust, be a better embroiderer (she's the one who taught me in the first place!) and hopefully how to operate a sewing machine. We'll see though, she's not known for her patience but it might be that she's mellowed out a bit more these days...I'm not getting my hopes up...we'll just see what happens. Another thing I have to make sure we work on is a memory box that I bought her a little over a year ago. Hallmark put out these sets called Memory Boxes, I believe they were designed by Marcia Cross (of Desperate Housewives) and they were pretty cool. They are hard to find now, Hallmark quit carrying them for some reason but now and again you can find them on Ebay. They have a book with questions and a mini tape recorder, a little album and so forth. I really want her to give me as much memories of her & my late grandfather as she can.

It is unfortunate that it takes getting older sometimes to appreciate our elders and the lives they have lived. I wish I had asked more questions as a child, been able to learn more things from her. I wish I knew something of my parent's grandparents but they were gone long before I was a glimmer in the gloaming. I want my baby to know their great grandparents but it does not seem that we will be granted that opportunity. I'll collect as much info as I can before we bid them farewell.

Back at it!

Wow.

So, it's practically been forever since I last posted. What can I say? The holidays are brutally busy. Especially this year as I had my family coming to town to stay and wasn't able to get prepared as soon as I would have liked due to another death in the family and a cold. It's been quite a one-two punch for my husband this year having just lost his mother in Sept. and now losing his first grandparent on Dec. 23rd. And of course we all know that when something like that happens to your spouse it happens to you too. We must always support our other half, bolster them and shoulder the weight of daily life until they are able to rejoin the activities. All in all he & his family are doing okay, Christmas was hard but we knew it would be.

Christmas nearly didn't happen for me as my parents were driving and would have to go thru what was predicted to be one of the most brutal storms in many many years. They called to say they had heard the highways were going to be closed and they weren't going to make it. I poured myself a cocktail, settled into a movie and pouted.
That night when I went to sleep I expected to awaken to a winter wonderland, instead the sky was clear and the sun was shinning. My phone was also ringing....they were on the road!! Turns out the storm dissipated and they were able to get going anyway! They made it in good time and were all safe & sound on Christmas day. We celebrated the next day so everyone would be able to relax and be ready for it instead of just rushing thru to be able to celebrate it on Christmas day exact.

This wasn't the relaxing vacation I had been looking forward to ( I ended up having to work a few extra days) but it was nice and it's always great to see family even when that includes a surly brother who doesn't seem to enjoy my company. Oh well.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and were surrounded by love and comfort~

I'm getting some plans together to start some intensive work surrounding meditation and manifestation so there will be details soon!