allow myself

DH took part of Friday off and I found myself cleaning out the car! When I thought about it, I got it; it’s consensus. When we’re in emotional contact, I have no problem with cleaning up the day to day or doing the clearing the place out stuff.

When we’re not close, I shut down. I play games, don’t cook much, don’t clean hardly at all, and basically want to just hide. Since DH has been working crazy, 12 hour days for most of the past 2-3 weeks, the house is NOT getting better (or wasn’t) and I’ve been feeling almost assaulted.

Not brave, not strong, not progressing, just hiding out, and numbing myself down as much as I could.

It’s one hell of a way to run an airline, much less a life. wtf!

jkd

Here’s where I’m at:
1 18/30
2 16/30
3 13/30
4 16/30

(updated last 4/23)

I missed a day because of being sick Good Friday. Also, last night DH did the dishes as I was wiped out and just went to bed after dinner. So, for me to have been doing perfectly I should be -13/30- 19/30. But all in all, this is NOT bad!

More, there’s a part of me that’s monitoring this, but I am NOT panicing. I can feel some resistance as time goes on, but I haven’t stopped yet. A few points: I’m not doing this all at one time, so I think that makes this easier. And, it’s not all about the same part of the house, which I think also makes this easier. The dishes are downstairs, the bed and bath upstairs. Maybe I broke it up this way unconsciously, but it works (so far)!

Yeah me!

jkd

I threw my back out today, DH is doing the dishes…bless him! jkd 4/21/09

It occurred to me reading the last letter to myself that I did, I’ve had a different name almost for all of them:

Judy when Mom died
Judi when I got engaged at 16
Judi/Jill when I got divorced/mental hospital at 20
Judith since around the time I was 30.

And I am all those people. It isn’t as important to me that people call me Judith now and it isn’t always the way I think of myself either.

Judy is somehow that happy kid, and it never fit well after Mom died.

Judi was adopted in jr. high when I was trying to be different and since my full name was Judith it always seemed to fit.

Jill was the persona I was going to become for the Christian fiance. She was a gracious lady, and I did not see myself that way at all, but she was NOT me, and that was terrible in many ways.

Judith is who I became when I moved to the east coast after my father died. I had struggled most of my life to be accepted as an adult because of the freckles, looking young, and being short. I could change none of that, but I could take on an adult name, and I did!

They are all me, or parts of me, and I’d never really seen that for each of those major phases of my life I adopted a different name.

Huh!

Judy
Judi
Jill
Judith
jkd (or whatever!)

I have started a goal, elsewhere, to try and help myself do this. The goal is comprised of 4 daily pieces:

1 make the bed when I get out of it
2 brush my teeth right after dinner
3 wash dinner dishes before I go to bed
4 log all of the above

for 30 days. Mind you, these get done, but not CONSISTENTLY. Sometimes DH does the dinner dishes in the a.m. when he’s making coffee. Sometimes, the bed doesn’t get made until late, or it doesn’t get made at all. Usually, I drag myself away from bed where I’m reading to brush my teeth before going to sleep. And of course, before yesterday, I hadn’t been logging any of this at all.

My idea is that these are small changes, tiny really. Most of them are a matter of timing rather than actually changing habits. All of them will lessen the stressors in my life, and that’s a good thing.

This is a baby step, but because I am UNCONDITIONING myself, the changes have to be tiny. It has taken me many years to really understand that I was conditioned, like a Pavlovian dog, about my home space, hence the irrational panic. I keep saying this, I was under assault in my own house, in insidious ways, and the lack of consistency is probably the most damaging overall effect I still carry. It has made ALL of the rest a quantuum leap more difficult than it would have been otherwise, something many people simply do not comprehend.

I asked my brother one time when he started a project, did he think about what would happen if he failed? He answered, “No, of course not! Why would I do that?” and internally, I thought, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” [I have spent hours/weeks contemplating the failure of almost anything I undertake. Big waste of time, huh? Stop it? I’d love to…. I’m hoping the consistency piece will help that too.]

So, here’s where I’m at:

1 11/30
2 11/30
3 10/30
4 11/30

jkd

Easy for you? You’re lucky. For years, habits were something to be beaten over the head with. I have bad ones you see.

But if I was predictable, if she knew what I valued, etc. it got derided, sneered at, etc. so I learned right quick to act as if nothing really mattered. I hid what was precious to me, like Gollum, a bit I suppose, away in the dark. Guarding that “treasure” became my life’s work. That treasure was a part of me, what part I do not know exactly, but I know for years on end I held something back and away from others and projected an image, a persona.

Guardian no longer, no guards required.

Do you know that what’s precious to a three year old isn’t very special to a 54 year old? And I have, or rather…don’t have all the connective tissue that happens with normal aging and maturity. The parts of me that I held tight, kept away from others are pieces of a very young girl, and although I’m immensely grateful that my young self could divide herself thusly to keep some parts of her safe, I have no idea how to grow the little girl bits up to the 54 year old rest of me.

Mostly, I ignore this as it seems to usually be a nonissue.

jkd

I think the memoir is the next step, I’m reluctant to say. Someone whom I trust and who knows writing said that when people get stuck like I do that frequently there’s an unknown blockage. He suggested that I do a complete narrative. I tell my stories, but not the whole thing…

And, he said, if he’s right, I’ll start and then won’t be able to stop. (So far, that hasn’t happened.)

We’ll see!

jkd

If my health gives me a chance, I’d like to actually make that last step, that is, to make the struggle FOR something. I’m not sure exactly what or how, but it’s something I’d like to do, a form of validation I suppose.

To do this I suspect that I’ll have to get more comfortable dealing with with all those unknown things: love, God, spirit, soul, etc. that I’ve avoided as it seemed I couldn’t/shouldn’t do them previously.

We’ll see!

Judith

DH brought me cider this a.m. (He used to bring coffee, but I don’t drink it anymore!) and I spilled it on the coverlet and topsheet. Rather than just “living with it” which I likely would have in the past until Sunday when we normally change the sheets, I got out of bed with both the coverlet and top sheet and trotted down to the laundry room.

It’s that “because I deserve it” that’s reflected here. Yes, I could have lived with it, it was only a few drops, but I thought about how I’d feel if it stained, and how sad that would make me, so off it went to the laundry.

Definitely different than I used to be!

jkd

I’ve discussed this in another thread, so I won’t go into detail here. But the idea that I can not hurry like mad is pretty new!

jkd

This is so odd, being undirectional. I’ve never felt free-floating emotionally before. Before, there was always the pain to run from, try to cope with, etc. Do others really spend their entire lives like this?

Wow.

No wonder many people feel no “need” to work on their emotional crap. If you/ the world was basically ok most of the time, why bother digging up the monsters? Huh.

After I got out of the euphoria of “not hurting” and not being tied to my family, there’s nothing? It isn’t a glass that’s 1/2 empty, it’s a glass with nothing in it at all. And I’m standing in front of one of those really big bars…. I have NO idea what to choose!

Huh.

jkd

(Image from kegworks.com)