Two Peas

Since the early days of elementary school when I was writing notes to the new girl with the phrase "Do you want to be my friend?" circle yes or no at the bottom in shaky print, I think I've been searching for that friend who just gets me.

Every grade, every new school brought new friends. Most drifted away over time, in fact I can't really think of any that I made the effort to stay close to. Facebook has made it possible to find and reconnect with those that I care to but still, those relationship are often long distance and on some level artificial. The small details of life shared online are hardly what friendships are built on. At least the ones that I am looking for.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that being friends with me is A LOT of work....stop laughing....the first step is admitting you have a problem, right?  From minute to minute mood swings and nearly unprovoked tears to fits of uncontrollable giggles.

My husband is legally obligated to be my best friend. A detail of our marriage vows that I'm sure he overlooked when he agreed to marry me. Too late now!! He'll always be the one who holds me together when I think I'm falling apart. The one who sometimes just stands there not knowing what to do when the tears fall but who's very presence keeps me from crumbling. But that Y chromosome keeps his brain from understanding the female in me.

In May of last year (or actually long before that but for the sake of this post lets go with May) my job out grew me. To keep me from losing my mind and my job the powers that be at my company hired someone to fill the open position. Let me just say the my life hasn't been the same since!

I knew she was applying. I had met her once, liked her. She was nice. I, for the most part had worked by myself. What if I didn't know how to work with someone else? What if we didn't have anything in common? What if we didn't have anything to talk about? Or worse, what if she didn't like me?!

What I never thought was "What if she became everything I didn't know I was missing?" There was no uncomfortable-ness. All there has been is this awareness that we should have been sisters. How had we not known each other forever?

We are two peas in a pod BUT so very different. Where I have extreme weaknesses she has intense strengths. I talk over her (which drives her crazy). She is beautiful just the way she is but refuses to see it. I cry All.The.Time.  She survived a loss that would have destroyed me.

Then again, we're not so different...we can dissolve in fits of giggles for almost no reason. We both love fiercely and often have to remind each other that anger is not nearly as important as love. We finish each others' thoughts with a look. We've been known to sit on the floor and pout then not be able to get up because we're laughing too hard.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be because she is exactly where she is.

I  love you Peapod!!

Weighing and Sorting

Deep in sleep, I could be having the most perfect dream and BAM  that damn scale scrapes the tile as it's pulled from it's home under the shelf in our bathroom! There I am wide awake until I hear it put back where it belongs. Every.Single.Morning that he gets up before I do that scale is pulled out. I can't explain why but it leaves a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Why does he care so much what that number on the scale reflects? Our bodies fit perfectly together. Don't they? Maybe he's not as sure as I am. THAT  thought scare me to death. I've voiced my concern. Or maybe I whispered it because I'm very, very afraid of the answer. My curves that so completely complemented his are now met with thin limbs and vanishing love handles. He's healthy and happy but my mind (and it's accompanied craziness) goes to gaunt and sick. He assures me he feels better and more energetic than he has in years but still that scale scraping that tile floor reminds me of everything that I have no control over.

In my current swirling mind of mess, lets throw in a call from my ex husband.

Long story, short. I used to give him back the child support that was automatically sent to me by the Social Security Administration because, well I felt sorry for him. A couple months ago he pissed me off and I quit giving it back. Anyway he called to tell me he was going to be evicted because he can't pay his rent with what is left (approximately 600.00 a month). I get it. That's not a lot of  money. What it boils down to is I created a monster. Can we afford to keep giving him the money that the court has decided is child support? NO! But, I can't let him be homeless either. Doesn't divorce mean I no longer have to worry about any facet of his life? I'm sure it does in some language. Am I going to help him? Probably. For how long? I don't know.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Writing Through It

Thick, darkness bubbles around me. Threatening to pull me under. I know it's there but I fight to keep my head above it. I'm not sure what triggers it or where it comes from. I do know it's uninvited and it scares me. I don't know how long it will stay or how far down it will pull me before I kick my way to the air above gasping just to fill my lungs with anything that allows me just a moment to breath without feeling like I'm suffocating.

I grabbed a book from my closet this morning to read during my lunch time. It was a book of inspirational stories and I thought it as a good choice giving the muck my brain seems to be drowning in lately. I thumbed though a few stories but couldn't focus on any long enough to get though them. Just then a St. Anthony medal fell out into my lap. I'm not really sure where the book came from or who the medal belongs to but there it was in my fingers just when I needed it.

So I'm going to try something. I'm going to write though this. I'm going to keep writing until all the black and thickness and anxiety gets manageable. I have to believe that it will happen.

I went for about and hour walk after work. I listened to music that I liked and as loud as I wanted and I just walk and walked. I thought about how lucky I was, it was about 70 degrees. I even found puffs of dandelions that I HAD to pick and blow the seeds from.

 I found pansies that reminding me of my grandma.

And before I went back into the house I looked up to see that the moon was smiling at me.

I wish I understood the pull of the panic and anxiety that scares me so. I wish I could control what it does to me but until then I'm just going to write though it.

Comfort Zone, Party of One

Being pushed even slightly out of the boundaries of  my comfort zone turns me into a blob of hyperventilating, anxiety filled, sweaty palmed mess
 
"What ifs" plague me like certainties of impending disaster.

That wouldn't be such a problem if my comfort zone wasn't a teeny, tiny space with room for little more than just me. Pushing me beyond it doesn't take more than receiving something unexpected in the mail. Like a summons for jury duty, which happened last month. That means I had a WHOLE MONTH to completely stress myself out about everything I didn't know about the courthouse, the parking lot, security, judges, criminals, attorneys. OhhhhhEmmmmGeeeee!!! What if I had to talk to people? What if I went in the wrong door? Or forgot to take some sharp object out of my purse and got stopped at the metal detector? I even considered pulling out the "I have Panic Attacks" card to get out of it. But I didn't, I went. And more importantly, I survived it. Yes, I sat there shivering like I was sitting in a freezer because I was sweating like I had just run a marathon (you know, if I knew what it was like to run a marathon) in an air conditioned room.  I was 95% sure I was going to throw up so I made sure I paid very close attention to where the restrooms were even though I never left the room....even when my bladder begged me to.  I was terrified of getting lost and not being there if they called my name. By the way, they never did.


I don't remember a time when I wasn't this way. I dreaded the first days of school beginning in June, about 2 minutes into summer vacation. Most kids were just thrilled to be out of school for the summer but my childish brain was conjuring up every terror filled possibility of the unknown of the following September.

I'd love to be the type of person who dreams of adventures. But with adventures comes EVERYTHING outside my comfort zone. Luckily, I have a soul mate who's not afraid of unknowns and who doesn't know anything outside his comfort zone. He'll share his comfort zone with me when he can and when he can't, me and my sweaty palms will just have to get thorough it.