Anger Management.

It is very rare that I find myself angry. 

I get frustrated, irritated and exasperated...but rarely....angry.

But lately I've been feeling a major cascade of anger waves. I don't know if I am just over and done with some things or if my frustrations with my own self are manifesting themselves in some serious anger issues. 

I feel very angry with my job. 
When I first started my job, I had no idea it was a start up. I thought I was walking in an easy peasy lemon squeezy receptionist gig and I'd just roll in and roll out and never break a sweat. Little did I know, I was walking into a situation where I spent the first 48 hours I was employed going back and forth between tasking the other members of my office with putting together desks and calibrating equipment to going over detailed contracts with providers. I was talking out of my ass, stressing out, wondering what I'd gotten myself into - all with a smile on my face. 
The providers loved me. The people I worked with and for loved me (my ex-boss maybe a little too much; he was constantly sexually harassing me). I was feeling a satisfaction with my job that I had never felt before. I walked away every evening knowing I had worked really, REALLY hard and accomplished a whole hell of a lot. 
When my second boss came in to replace the first terrible one, I really worshipped her. She knew what she was talking about and while she didn't take all of my work, she took a lot of it. She took the things I had no idea about and taught me. We worked until 7, 8 at night and got so much accomplished that I think even she was surprised. 
I was surprised that she too 100% of the credit, that I never got so much as a thank you, and that since then, I have been basically ignored by everyone in upper management. 

Why did I work my ass off? 
Why did I take that time away from my children and mate?

Less than a year later....after working my rear off, after being verbally abused by one manager, not credited by another and sexually harassed by the first, a position came open that I really thought I'd be perfect for. I really wanted it. 
My fiancee encouraged me. Bought me the most perfect little Calvin Klein dress. Helped me with my resume. Mock interviewed me. I was ready.

And I was not taken seriously at all. I walked into that interview as nothing more than the admin and I left that interview as nothing more than the admin. I was laughed at. All because I don't have a fucking degree and thousands of dollars of student loans from some bullshit college. Let's not forget though, I spent all those years that the dumb fucks were in college....well, I spent them at home raising two beautiful children - the single most rewarding experience of my life. 

It makes me very angry that I was only seen as a piece of paper. And they deemed that piece of paper not good enough. 
It didn't matter what I had done. All that mattered was what I had NOT done. 

So another woman got hired. She was sweet. But she ran out of there as quick as lightening. She did not last a week. 

So then another girl is hired. I got looked over again. Jessica is one of the single most dumb people I have ever met. She "be" doing this and "She's" be doing that. I am not joking. THAT is who they picked. 

Some degree. An education can still leave people ignorant. 

I find myself so angry at work. So incredibly ANGRY. My attitude is one of just not caring. I feel betrayed that I invested so much but my return was so little. It's a slap in the face, every single day I go to work.

I try not to be angry with my mate for not making enough money for me to quit and stay home. 
It's hard. 
He has so much education and I make more than him. 

I need to learn to manage my anger. 

Green Feelings.

Do you ever feel so jealous that you just hate yourself for it? 

I've always been a bit of a master at hating myself. If I couldn't find anything to hate about myself, well, I'd just borrow something. 

I've always been jealous of something. I can, at the same time, be insanely happy for someone and also equally insanely jealous of them. 

Jealousy is a sin, right? 

I am jealous of all of the things that I want to be, all of the things that I want to have, and all of the things that I think will make me feel happy and whole and content. 

And yes, I know, only I can make myself feel happy and whole and content. 

But that doesn't stop the jealousy.

I have really begun to be jealous of the friend that I have who writes. She never seems to have the time for me anymore because she is always writing. She has books - actual published books that you can touch and smell and bind the spine on. And she has more than one. She posts these photos of herself gazing out into the distance as she ruminates about her next great novel. She tweets about this character and that character and about how attached she is to them. 

I can't seem to get through 100 pages of the novel I have been working on since 2008. 

But you know, I have been wondering lately if that novel is too close to home. It's so autobiographical that it is physically painful in my chest to write that story. It's about love, and love lost, and growing up. Finding love again. I'm thinking of completely revamping the story and instead of making it all about love, make it a coming of age story that encompasses all aspects of my growth from clumsy teenager to graceful woman. 

Instead of being jealous, I need to get to work. I need to force myself to sit down and then the words will come. 
I need to force myself into the gym and then the weight will come off.
I need to force myself to stop spending so the money will come to buy my own house. 
I need to force myself to love myself so I can look in the mirror and see beauty. 

Being jealous makes me feel terrible about things. I know I shouldn't feel that way...but I feel it anyway. I hate that. Not being in control of my feelings, my emotions, my actions - it's hard. 

I feel jealous that my best friend has this amazing outgoing life and friends who miss her when she isn't around. She is almost my only friend. Everyone loves her, everyone wants to be around her. No one ever misses me. And saying all this makes me feel whiny and pathetic. 

Probably because I am whiny and pathetic. 

Tomorrow I will be happier and the sun will be jealous of my shine. 

Rainy Day.

Today has been a downpour. 

I awoke to the sun refusing to shine and it has since then not changed its mind. My companions today have been Blustery & Wet. 

My companions today have also been Contentment & Happy. 

I have created my scared spot of writing. I have a little nook that is all my own. Right now I am creating my very first sprinkles of self reflection in that very spot. 

I am not known for doing things on a whim. This chaise lounge...this perfectly shaped, camel colored, just long enough for me chaise was purchased on a whim. Two glasses of wine and a burst of insecurity along with my mate's single sentence - "If you like it, just buy it" and $600 left my credit card and was invested into myself. It is not easy for me to spend money on myself. As much as I love things....comfortable things, pretty things, productive things...I have a hard time buying them. 
But on this particularly evening, with the taste of a cheap Merlot still on my tongue, I invested in me. 

The chaise was delivered yesterday, while I was at work. I rushed home afterwards, savoring the fact that I was going to walk into an empty house and have a few precious moments alone with my investment. I walked into my all white and blue bedroom and there was a gloriously huge box awaiting me. I grabbed a pair of scissors and began to cut right into my very own treasure box. I screwed the adorable little feet onto my new treasure, flipped it over and nestled it into the corner of my bedroom. I walked around it quite a few times before sitting down and putting my feet up. So, this is how it feels to create something for yourself....

...I have to say, it feels pretty damned good. 

I feel as if I have been in control of good things this week. I did not let the monotony of my job pull me down. I sacrificed nothing. I got workouts in, I got time with my mate in. My home is perfectly cozy and clean and there has been good (home-cooked) food in my belly. I have reached out to friends, and although some have not answered the call...I have made progress. I have allowed my mate to control certain areas of our relationship and I have not then chastised him for it. I have allowed things to flow, I have listened, I have supported and I have taken care of myself. 

The true testament of my progressing well-being will be next week when the children are back and the busy level gets multiplied by about 100. 

I have not bullied myself this week. I have tried to not over think and I have done my best to just...be. 

The Long Road Home.

Tuesday marked the official last day of our Ohio adventure and we took to the road for a long, arduous nearly nine hour excursion for Memphis, Tennessee; our halfway point back home to Dallas. 

The night before was New Year's Eve, the end of a long and (sometimes) hard and (sometimes) beautiful 365 days. I have never been big on plans for ringing in the new year. Something about screaming "Happy New Year" along with a hundred other intoxicated  and sweaty strangers has never really appealed to me. My New Year was rung in virtually alone, sitting on the chaise lounge in my Aunt's living room that I'd kind of marked as my own during our week long stint there, watching New Yorker's tick down the last seconds of 2012. Right as they hit the .30 second mark, my cousin and girlfriend and my...fiancé sauntered in to watch the ball drop. 

Before they all unceremoniously walked in, I was pretty positive I'd be watching the New Year roll in all on my own...

..which left me feeling very sad. 

I should have been spending New Years Eve wrapped in the strong and capable arms of my gorgeous fiancée. We just couldn’t seem to get it together. One fight on the 26^th and we kept it going right on up until after 2013 started.

Why do we do those things to ourselves in relationships? Why do we find it easier and more satisfying to hold out until the other one apologizes instead of just talking it out immediately and moving on, happily together?

I have always had a bad habit of not being able to truly verbalize how I am feeling when I get hurt. I am super sensitive and instead of talking about how I feel when I feel it, I tend to just sweep it on under the proverbial carpet because….well, I get hurt so easily. Why bring it up ALL the time? If I said something every time I felt stung, it would be monotonous, right?

My mate tries very hard – at everything.

In the span of two years, he has taken a long and arduous journey on the path to self awareness, self preservation, learning true self worth, figuring out what works and what doesn’t work. He has done all of this while also embarking on a relationship with me – and I am probably the hardest battle yet.

Being in a relationship with me cannot ever be easy. I have a hard time being in a relationship with myself, let alone how another actual person feels. I am needy, bleed insecurity…I have “I am not good enough” plastered across my forehead. I set up endless rows of hoops for my mate to jump through. They get high, they get low, they are ringed with fire or impossibly small to fit through. And if you can get through all of those hoops well…there are other trapeze acts to follow before I will accept the fact that you love me.

How he puts up with me, I don’t know.

How I put up with him sometimes, I don’t know.

My mate is also not easy. Not in the slightest. He is a dreamer, and dreamers…well, they dream. They dream big. And everything to a dreamer is a dream. The scared and apathetic person that lives inside of me not only envies the dreamers of the world, but is also terrified of them. How can you dream? How can you set goals so high and expect to achieve them? And then how are you okay with yourself when you don’t achieve them? Things like that are crushing to a self loathing creature like myself.

My mate has an addictive personality. He will get fixated on something and run with it. My mate is a recovering alcoholic who can become moody, critical, unforgiving. Moments like that – like the moment I was experiencing as the ball dropped – make me feel like a small and scared child. Or like the teenager sitting in the back of the classroom while everyone else sits up front having fun and being engaged.

My mate also has the ability to make me feel as if I am the most beautiful, intoxicating creature he has ever come across in all of his days on Earth.

What damages those moments (which are the majority of our relationship) is my inability to accept the adoration.

I fear that I am killing that adoration by not accepting it. The thought terrifies me.

My mate gave me a chaste kiss on the top of my head for New Years. Our inability to communicate and move past things…our stubbornness…the terrible way I deal with things, it can sometimes be suffocating. We always seem to hurt the ones we love the most.

It has never been that I don’t know how to apologize. It has also never been that I am too stubborn. I think that others perceive my fear as stubbornness. When I am fighting with someone, I have no problem verbally slashing someone apart. My words are my weapons. It’s where I feel comfortable. But afterwards, no matter who was right or who was wrong, I feel terrified that I will be chastised and my apology will not be accepted. I feel ashamed for having stuck up for myself. I should be able to take everything, shoulder everything. I should – after all of the things I have gone through – be able to control my feelings and not be so sensitive. I don’t say a word. I allow the other person to come to me. Not because I don’t want things to be amended, God no…I hate conflict more than anyone else in this world. Conflict settles like a twisty and dark monster right in the pit of my stomach and eats me from the inside until it is resolved. I obsess over it. No, I don’t say a word because I am terrified of more rejection….

…I sometimes wonder if because the world was shifted onto my slight shoulders when I was 12 years old, that all of the adjusting I did to carry it stunted my emotional growth.

I react to things like a 12 year old. I handle my emotions and deal with difficult situations in such a way that most people do not understand me at all. I take everything personally; I remember everything people say to me, I am always looking for the dark side of things. I hate that about myself. It’s something I need to change…I need to learn to grow up emotionally. Right?

On the road we started, on New Years Day. 01-01-2013 (have to use those zeros as place markers) Neither of us talking to one another made for an extremely long 7 hours. When the silence begins to fill up the space between you, you finally realize how much there is. You can be so close to one another, but still miles apart.

Feeling connected to my mate is such a part of me. He does not define me, he does not complete me. He does not make me feel whole or give me relevance. What he does do, is enhance my life. He makes everything sharper, brighter, louder. Everything that surrounds him is magnified. He makes my world noisy, but that’s what I need.

I need to appreciate him. More. And I will.