I'm grateful for: talking with old friends; enjoying my family; knowing that the problem is my attitude, not my life.

I think today was fine, but it didn't feel good. *sigh* I slept in until 3pm. That is NOT how I want it. I can't argue that i needed the sleep, but why can't I sleep at night? Just saying.

Felt grouchy and cranky, but I coped. Woke right up to kiddush and a very good meal, although not really good for breakfast. Manicotti and potato salad and I can't really remember what else. Yummy anyway. John made the noodles rather than using the ones I got in boxes. It makes a huge difference, and not only because the pre-made noodles are with white flour.

The soup I made with D2 turned out fine, D2 said it 'tastes like vegetables,' and on further discussion came out with 'it tastes like your soup.' From D2 this is almost high praise. I can't remember her saying that anything tasted good.

After a whole day in the crock pot, and a fair amount being eaten, we refreshed the soup, adding more potatoes, and a bunch of leeks, and more carrots and some water. I will add some seasoning tomorrow whenever I get up and hope that is time enough for some of the spices to cook in. With all the things that D2 won't eat and doesn't like the soups I make for her are always a little bland, and dull, but at least they are hot and filling.

I came back to my room, and D2 and D3 and I, with a little help from S3 and an even smaller amount of participation from S1 did a delightful jigsaw puzzle of a giant panda up high in a tree. That was fun, and more fun because Kitten joined us, and between squealing over how cute she was and dodging when she stuck out her claws (in her sleep), it kept it lively and fun.

TH read some more Hardy Boys and some more Saki for me. I didn't manage to finish The Prince last night, but I'm going to take another stab at it tonight. The end gets closer, and closer... It's not a good translation is the major problem. Sometimes reading a sentence is like trying to wade through date syrup on a cold day. Slow. I'm going to try to find a better translation before I suggest it to any of the kids. I mean...

The day is just full of 'I didn't's, as in I didn't eat a proper breakfast, I didn't get to shul for services, I didn't say shachrit, I didn't get out to feed the chickens, and so on and so on. It's hard to come up with things that I did do that are positive. There is one sort of positive negative which is that I didn't spend the day complaining about it all. So, that counts.

I did phone a friend in the U.S., someone I've known for going on twenty years I think, LL. Talking to her was a blessing. We haven't a whole lot in common, but we are both survivors and we've been working on recovery for almost as long as each other, so we've got a lot to talk about there, anyway. We ended up talking mostly about how hard it is to be ourselves in the world. It is SO hard.

I have to listen to people say stupid things to me about how 'everyone needs their mother.' Or, my favourite, really, is when some a**hole gets judgmental about the fact that I had sex before I got married (I'm religious, these things happen regularly). It's obvious I did because D1 is 27 years old. But ... I want to shout sometimes "How dare you act morally superior to me because no one raped you when you were ten?!?? How dare anyone pass judgment who doesn't know where I've come from and who I am? But they do, every, single, day.

Now I've got an acupuncturist who told me that everything I've done in recovery for the past twenty years doesn't count, that I am 'just starting now' because talking to a shrink doesn't work. I MEAN! I mean - how the f**k does he come off assuming that all I've been doing is talking to shrinks? And who is he to make such a judgment anyway? Does he know me? Does he know where I've come from? What I've done? No. He just makes this assumption.

And here's the point. I CAN'T just go around telling people their wrong. It's not that I have any issues with it, I haven't got enough TIME. I'm not going to live that long. So where does that put me? Keeping my mouth shut and going along with people's assumptions of me, or pretending to be someone/something that I'm not, or spending the entire rest of my life arguing with people, or spending the entire rest of my life hiding out from people.

So I do have to go in and tell the acupuncturist he's wrong. Whether he'll hear it or not - he completely brushed me off when I attempted to argue with him last time - I have no idea. If he is not able to hear that what he said was insensitive, insulting, dis-respectful and demeaning (not to mention, ignorant and stupid) then I will have to stop going to him for treatment. Which. Will. Suck.

The physical improvements I've seen from going to him are simply phenomenal. Like nothing else I've experienced in over twenty years of work, and it has been HARD work, hard Gd DAMN work, including seeing other needle practitioners and not so much talking to shrinks.

However, if Hashem wants me to continue with the physical improvements, He will find a way. I do NOT have to allow myself to be diminished in order to heal, if I have learned nothing in recovery I've learned that.

I want to tell the fool, that I grew up thinking of myself as property. I had to learn to be a person. It took twenty years of work and more just to be able to GET to his office. A**hole.

So, anyway, lots of stuff like that. LL has similar things, different stories, they are her stories and I'm not going to repeat them, but it is good to hear from someone else dealing with the same sort of issues. How can I be myself in the world? Is it even possible? We didn't come up with an answer, but we both felt better after kicking the question around quite a bit. Kicking it HARD.

I also phoned MMF, if I have any new readers (?) just a quick sketch, I've known her for longer than anyone except family, she is someone with multiple personalities, although she claims now that the other personalities have gone since having a series of strokes. Also a survivor, for years the one friends who would listen to me as I was going through the worst of reliving memories of what happened when I was a kid. Over-bearing, annoying, egotistical, rather ignorant but convinced she is smarter than anyone else in the world - except her older brother. She once told me "...sometimes I even think you might be smarter than me!" Perish the thought.

Anyway, it's a long, old, not entirely pleasant relationship, but at the very least I owe her for a lot of years of being there for me. We started out rough, as is fairly common with us, but ended up having a pleasant conversation, about all sorts of unimportant things, mostly her dogs, I think. I listened. I should say, she talked and I listened. Actively. There was no opportunity to get a word in edgewise. If we'd been on the phone long enough, I probably would have gotten some time to talk, that's how it works with her, but S3 came in wanting his bedtime story read. Ah, well.

So we read some more of the Hardy Boys book, and I chatted with various family members, and that was my day. Except for reading some email and writing this. I'm not happy because I want/ed so much more. But it's not that anything is wrong, it's just that my wants are not in line with reality. I need to work on altering my wants 'cause my life really is good enough for today. *sigh*

I'm still listening to the fan in the air conditioner. I can't wait to be able to turn it off and have a bit more quiet. I hate white noise, can't stand it at all.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06