Sunday, November 2, 2014

Honesty

Hmmm....where do I begin?  The last few months have been an epic shhh storm for me.  I got out of my groove, and trying to regain it has been a giant struggle.  There is a lot of introspection that I am in the process of in order to regain my sense of self holistically. 

I want to be completely honest with you.  I have been pushing my negative feelings and problems away or trying to deal with them on my own.  I recently realized how detrimental it is to my family and myself to keep those negative things harbored in my soul.  Most of what you see is the happy-go-lucky girl.  Well, unless you are some one who is close to me - then you have seen the struggle, or listened to my rambling for hours on end.  Those ears that were lent and shoulders to cry on made me realize that I am not alone in this world.  I was not acknowledging the fact that I feel alone.  Me against the world.  And in my fight, I stopped taking care of myself.  I was helping everyone else, but myself.

I stopped exercising.  I stopped caring so much about what I was feeding my body.  Soon, my clothes were fitting worse, my mood was foul, and I was generally unhappy.  Sure, I could blame it on a lot of things, but that would be the easy way out.  And, I realize that as an adult I have a choice on how I deal with issues as they arise.  Given an extra project at work:  Great, but I should have done it in a manner that did not cause my house to be in complete disarray, me to stop exercising, and back to eating on the go.  Really carving time out to do the things that take care of my kids, my dog, and myself would make me a much more productive and happier person.  Things come up with the kids: This could be positive or negative, but why on earth am I not prepared for the unexpected?!  I know we need to eat.  I should always have a few quick and easy meals ready to go.  People being jerks: I know I shouldn't sink to their level.  I know I have the skills and confidence to rise above those situations.  Why let them drag me through the mud?

But, where I really struggle is with parenting.   I have two daughters.  They both have completely different needs (other than water, food, shelter).  One is struggling academically, and seems to accept that.  The other is reaching for straight A's.  It is no fair (in the eyes of the child who strives for perfection) that I spend more time with my struggling daughter on homework.  She berates me with, "You don't care that I am not a straight A student."  She is right.  I would reward her for B's and Cs as long as I knew she was trying her best.  Then I fall short because I compliment one and not the other, and that is not fair or I don't love one as much as I love the other.  Really, I do love them both the same, with all my heart.  But, it is really hard to hear this, and feeling like I am failing the two most important people to me.  Maybe I do give one more compliments, but she seems so broken lately.  She feels like everyone is bullying her.  What I have come to realize that it is part her being stubborn and not willing to compromise with her friends.  I find the two situations very frustrating and my temper gets rather short.

I learned or rather acknowledged somethings about myself this week, as well.  I had beat myself up that I was bad at a few areas of my life.  When really, I just have too much going on.  It is really tough to work full time, try to get my Beachbody business off the ground, be a single parent, deal with immature games, and take care of myself.  I realized that I have a lack of social life and a lack of things I enjoy. I do things, and flit through my day.  Something has to give, and it is going to be the time I spend dealing with the BS that I should not have to deal with.  I realized that if I focus on taking care of myself, the rest will fall into place.  It will also give me a chance to try things I want to try and enjoy things that I forgot were enjoyable. 

I started to feel overwhelmed with life. My friends have given me different advice on how to deal with the overwhelm.  One of the things that I took to heart was creating a list of all the things I need to do.  In looking at this list, I was able to identify that each thing either directly or indirectly tied back to one of my top 3 life goals.  The list keeps growing, but I have tasked myself with crossing at least one thing off the list a day.  Today, I took my desk that was missing some screws and wasn't very stable down to the trash.  This is supporting my goal to become a minimalist.  Tomorrow, I am going to make some phone calls that will help support my financial and social well-being.