Breathing
I am in the middle of an anxiety attack. You wouldn't know it to look at me. Until you watch closely, then you notice that I am holding my breath. I have to remind myself to breathe.
I wake up each night around 3am and lay there thinking of every god-damn thing wrong I am doing, have done and that has been done to me. I think about what I need to do the next day, the next week and the next year to fix my life, fix myself. I draft letters in my head to friends and family trying to explain past wrongs and present feelings. I plan how I will try to be a better parent, wife, professional, friend, sister, cousin... I'm thinking about asking my GP for medicine to help me deal with this anxiety. I get anxious about the anxiety. It creates a vicious circle that eventually leads to a breakdown. I don't sleeping enough and can't focus on being a better everything. I can't excersize, which I know help, because all I want to do is sleep, so I feel worse. Eventually, I'll wake up one night, so tired, so frustrated, I'll start crying and won't be able to stop. After a few nights of this, I'll finally wake my husband and let him know. How did he not know? He'll tell me to stay home, take a sominex or sleeping pill of some sort and get some rest. It'll work for a day or two, but it won't relieve the true underlying cause of the symptoms and we both know it, it's money.
True Love (Twu Luuv) and then there's my mother's love
To be honest, I have given and received a lot of love in my life. I am grateful for all of that love. I can categorize the love I have felt; my conflicted love of my mother, my unconditional love of my father, friendship love, unrequited crushes, high school puppy love, and my current soulmate-see-all-your-faults-and-still-love-you love for that husband of mine. But nothing compares to the love I feel as a mother. The feeling that comes over me as I look at my kiddos sleeping, playing, throwing a tantrum, sleeping or spilling juice, is like an endorphine injection. OK, so, not every waking moment is spent mooning over them, but you get the picture. It is through their eyes that I try to see myself. Do they care that I haven't lost 15 lbs. and I have a big ole flabby tummy? Do they care that I think I am so flawed that I can't imagine how to begin liking myself, much less loving myself? Do they care that I'm socially awkward and have anxiety attacks that feel like I'm about to fall into a bottomless pit and won't be there to see them grow up? Do I wonder if I deserve this love? Will they still love me when they are grown and see me as another adult does?
That brings me to the flipside of love, the love I have received. And while my husband's love sustains me and heals me so deeply, to be honest with myself, I have to look at my mother's love, wherein I believe so many of my insecurities stem. I have a love/hate/love-me relationship with my mother. She claims to love me, or so she has always said. And yet, she has always wanted me to be something other than what I am. So how can she really love who I am? I hope this makes sense. I have been trying to make sense of it with and without therapy for years. I have learned to love her for who she is, although I remain frustrated by who she is. She is a very difficult person to know, even by those closest to her.
God, this is hard. There is so much more on this topic. Like I said, it's to the core of where I go and where I've been. I think this is a good intro to one of the topics that occupies a huge percentage of my emotions and thinking time. I just can't do anymore today.
Oscar hangover - a little fluff for fun
and what a waste. I usually love watching it, the dresses, the shameless display of wealth, t&a, jewels, and crazy presenters (Jack Parr is still my fav), but last night was flat. I was all set to love on Jon Stewart, the wonderful political satirist he is...alas, he was boring, maybe slightly fun at times, but he was no Billy Crystal. Luckily, Clooney Coma (credit to gofugyourself.com for that phrase) hit me early on. He was so beautiful! ME-OW!
There were so many beautiful young ingenue. Each one very appropriately dressed, I was so bored with them. The worst anyone can say this morning is how hideous Charlize Theron's dress was, which, while it was a very lame dress for such a beautiful woman, just pales in comparison to some of the prior years, faux pas.
The ones that remain with me this morning are Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Dame Judy Dench and
Frances McDormand, who was looking very Diane Keatonish! These women
blew me away. They look like themselves. Real people. Unlike some of the scary faces of the presenters, or in the case of
Dolly-stein, performers. I won't guess whether any of them has had any work done, but they look real, like my beautiful Aunt Dora, who is almost 75 and so elegant. They laughed and ad-libbed. I want to invite them to a dinner party or a girls night out - they would be a so much fun! I loved the contrast of their wise, confident, self-deprecating manners (or so it appeared), to the wooden, stiff and insecure presentations of our current starlets. Dare we hope Angelina, Jennifer, Nicole, Reese, Charlize or Naomi will some day grow into these roles? BTW, where was my hope for the future - Debra Messing?
Not much else to say, not much interesting there. Ciao.
Blog themesI've been struggling to uncover what the theme of this blog is? Why did I start it? I've been reading others blogs for awhile. They make me laugh and cry. I'm such a mixture of things, it's always been hard for me to pick any one thing to label myself or attach to my identity. I've always hated that type of identity. One thing I do know is that I've struggled to like/love myself for a long time. I can remember liking myself when I was little-in elementary school. But I always knew that I was different, hard to like. Now, I find that I am still hard to like or love, but I don't like myself either. My goal is to find a way to like who I am and love myself. I wonder if I can do it. I do know that there are people who love me. My incredibly wonderful, understanding and cute husband, Mark. My kids. My parents. My girlfriends. I often wonder why they love me. I've asked Mark so many times and he can't explain it. If there are such things as soulmates, he is definitely mine. I understood (yecch)Tom when he told Renee (J.Maquire), "You complete me." That sums Mark up for me. He's the best thing that ever happened to me and he probably saved me from some wretched botched-up life I would have had without him. My goal for this blog is to try to learn to love myself. I've tried for a long time. I've tried therapy, which sometimes helped, and sometimes went nowhere. I've tried anti-depressants. I wonder if I need to return to them sometimes, but I don't like being on drugs. I've tried drinking (wine, moderately, I don't have an addictive personality, although I can understand why some people drown their sorrows there) and I like that, but it's not really a solution. I'd like to try therapy again, but we can't afford it right now. So, this is my therapy. My personal dumping grounds. If anyone is reading this, I'm open to suggestions. I may go back and re-read a book that helped me when I finished college and didn't know who I was or what I wanted to do. Feeling Good by David Burns. It was very simplistic, but I went ahead and did their exercises and it helped.
