Boundary

Time
One night specifically
Just a moment for myself, for my art
For my mind, for my soul
I just needed time

You filled my space with noise
Trying to push through
Be a part of that which I had claimed for myself

My time, my boundary
Just one night

Am I so unreasonable needing time

Just one night

To be alone in the evening

Without drama or distraction

A communicated need

Needing time

One night

I don't think so

I deserve the time I've allocated in my boundary

I don't ask for much

I don't ask often

But this is my life

My time

My night

I'm done letting someone else try to impose control on what I do with it

It's Hard to Ask

I've been working on being assertive and being aware of my needs, but it's hard when it comes to actually saying what needs to be said.

I have been around people for days...every day, every night, my free time is mostly taken up by being around someone until the time I need to finish chores and go to bed.

Today, it took everything in me to tell someone, I need tonight to myself. 

Why is it so hard to be honest about such a small thing? I know I have trouble disappointing people, but to say that I want one evening after the kids go to bed just to myself--why is that so hard?

At least I did it. At least I'm moving in the right direction, but I'm amazed at how simple a statement it is, but how hard it felt. 

Like a Love Song, Baby

I've had "I Love You Like a Love Song" by Selena Gomez stuck in my head all day long today.

Do to this inconvenience, I've spent awhile thinking about the concept.

There are a lot of ways to go with it...there's the flaky, surface-level, ditsy, romantic notion of love in pop songs where hearts flutter and the world is happy and no one ever fights. We accept and appreciate a partner for their flaws, lifting up their chiseled jaw, ruby red lips, or the way he looks in those pants as the epitome off all things good and lovely and ridiculous.

I don't think I would be flattered to be loved the way lyrics portray love in any cookie cutter love song. To be in a song, to be frustrating, and amazing, and loved would be interesting, but if less than two pages of words can sum up how it feels, what it means, and why I love someone, I don't really think that's love.

Call me crazy...I have had the song stuck in my head, so I'm sure there are love songs out there that are at least enticing when it comes to how I'd like to be loved. I just can't think of any with Selena Gomez blaring in my brain.

Wisdom from Conversation Clips

A DD cup size for a female adds a +5 modifier to CHA (A +1, B +2, C +3, D +4) against creatures attracted to your gender.

My Very Own Puppet

I left her strings loose, unattended

I thought it gave her freedom

I only recently noticed her vacant expression,
Only tussled by a child or the reverberating bass at a concert

Her expressionlessness, motionlessness, aloneness...
It angers me

Now I'm tangling her strings
Wrestling with her spin
Watching her break
Fall apart
Unwind

She's still alone

I pick up my puppet and I give her new strings
Repainting her face, adding more moving parts
Painting a backdrop on her case to give her imagination

I woke up this morning
My puppet had unhooked her strings
She has ventured out

I am alone.

Shall I make a new puppet?

Coping with What?

We all have our escapes, our recharge activities, wishes to enhance the good or check out of the bad parts of life. How we cope with strong emotions can be healthy or unhealthy.

Obvious problems are addiction, excessive anger/violence, etc, but those are easy to see. It's easy to tell when someone is not coping, but can we really see when someone is struggling with coping?

I think it's hard to know how to deal with stresses and even celebrations in life when it gets to be too much. So I've been trying to come up with ways to cope when I'm feeling either overwhelmed or underwhelmed .

The best list of safe coping skills that I've seen actually comes out of the Allies Program in Sacramento, CA [Copyrights the Guilford Press, New York. From Najavits, L.M. Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse (2002).] Pages 5 & 6 of Seeking Safety Handout

Granted, this list was created with emotional trauma and substance abuse in mind, but really overuse of electronics, lack of communication with other people, overuse of caffeine, along with other hosts of relational problems are issues we all struggle with so I don't think that someone needs to have a socially recognized "problem" to benefit from the knowledge and practice of safe coping skills when extreme situations/emotions are encountered.

I think my favorite ones from the list (Pages 5 & 6 of Seeking Safety Handout) are:

• Inspire yourself
• Seek understanding, not blame
• Alone is better than a bad relationship (or friendship)
• Avoid avoidable suffering
• Get organized
• Integrate the split self
• Let go of destructive relationships (or friendships)
• Setbacks are not failures
• Notice what you can control
• Make a decision

Along with self-care and a host of others, those are probably the ten that I need to keep in mind when moving toward being a more assertive, more happy, healthier person. 

I think it's worthwhile to examine how we perceive the world around us. I've been surprised at some of the negative things I tell myself. I'm not free of those thoughts, but I'm definitely working on it. Life is too wonderful to get stuck on the negative!

He didn't know

that he had the power with a single sentence to make her cry

Seemingly Practical Advice You Can't Follow

1. Don't talk to jerks.

I love this line...sometimes the word jerks is replaced by asses or idiots or expanded to guys that don't deserve you, but tell me, lovely people, do you see signs on people that are cruel? Is there some stamp in special you-can-see-but-i-cannot ink that allows you to automatically discern who the jerks are? I have no such luck. I happen to be friendly to a fault. I like talking to people. I've usually been talking for awhile when I realize I'm talking to a jerk. The advice I need is, once I've detected a jerk, how do I get him to stop talking to me?

Question of the Day: Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

I saw this question today posted on LinkedIn with an article and I can honestly say that placing the blame on Facebook is fairly ridiculous.

Are people living out their lives through relating to others online? Yes.

Whose fault is that?

Sorry folks, the truth is that each person has to accept responsibility for their own loneliness. Want to do something with people? Go find people.

Have game night, have movie night, go to a friend's house and pound on the door until she gets off the computer.

I know it's hard because we're so used to getting our information about people online, but if we're not getting together, Facebook didn't do that. We may have an easy avenue to relate to one another, but Facebook isn't real.

You won't see the best, the worst, and everything in between about a person on Facebook. It's a few lines, a few pictures, a list of interests, and a nice compilation of events and correspondence out for viewing. It's not a friendship or relationship, it's a person transmitted across the internet so that you can see things about someone you know.

Facebook doesn't let you hear the way your friend laughs when you say something funny, or what she looks like curled up on the couch with a book on Saturday. It doesn't tell us what a person is really feeling or how they're doing at work or at home. It's a summary and it's not enough to carry on a healthy friendship with anyone.

We can't blame technology for giving us convenience but we can blame ourselves for not putting that technology down.

I'd much rather check in on Facebook when I'm tired and not interested in doing anything else. If I have someone to hang out with or something to do. I am busy creating memories, not sitting around reading someone else's.

Love Is...

...when you say something is important to you and she does everything she can to support making it happen.

...when you're comfortable crying in front of him.

...when you can be spending time together but don't always have to clutter the air with words.

...when he's listening to you making an ass of yourself.

...when she tries something new and isn't embarrassed if it doesn't work out.

...when you can be honest if you just want to do something else when there's been a plan in place.

...when you can eat junk food, complain about gaining weight, and you're not offended when he gives you shit for it but still thinks you're gorgeous.

...when the comforting words she says really do make you feel better.

...when everything is based on trust and enjoyment of time together not on promises, dreams, and ideas about times that may not happen.

...friendship.

If It Matters

I think everyone struggles with whether or not to spend time on things; whether they're for other people, a treat for the self, some down time, or even a goal that involves many people and factors, I think managing time is one of the harder things I deal with.

On one hand, I have the things that must get done. With kids and work, being a responsible adult means getting certain things done, but I have trouble discerning where that line is. At what point am I pushing myself too hard? At what point is it okay to do something for myself over folding a basket of laundry or worrying about sewing on a Girl Scout patch?

I'd like to say I live in an ideal little world where things fall into place and I have the time I need to get things done, but when I'm really pressed for time, I think that it's my friendships that really start faltering. For the sake of responsibility, I let important things and important people fall by the wayside.

On another side, when I'm upset with someone or don't want to deal with it, the relationships really suffer because I just let it go and don't deal with it because it takes too much time and energy.

So where do I find balance? Not sure, but I'm going to keep trying.

Hopefully the friends that really care and matter will understand.

Are You THAT Stupid, or Is It Just That You Think I Am?

There are people I've had it past "up to here" with and it's not actually for any reason other than their absolute inability to realize simple facts....ones that I've been more than vocal about.

A chronic narcissist obsessed with himself somehow decided that I must be as well, and instead of checking facts he avoided important things while living in his mind with his deluded fantasy. How hard is it to ask one question? How hard is it to look away from the dramatic story being fed to the brain and just clarify a thing or two?

I know the answer, so if you haven't realized that I'm ranting and these are rhetorical questions, I apologize. I'm a little frustrated and disgusted right now.

I feel like I'm a fairly predictable person. I focus mostly on my kids, I struggle for a clean house, and when I'm in the zone, everyone should get out of the way because Mama gets things done. I care about my family above everything else. I love music and spending time with friends, and most of the time, I will choose doing the responsible and necessary thing over frivolity, not because I want to, but I factor in everything and am very concerned with doing the right thing.

How someone can be so arrogant? Silly question really. Lately I've met a lot of arrogant people. I have a very simple news bulletin: I really don't care. So if you think I spend time thinking of you, that's a  lot of wishful thinking. Even my closest friends aren't getting a lot of my time right now. It's not that I don't care about people at all--it's that I don't have time for stupid drama.

Moral of this rant: if you are concerned about something with me or want to know something, just ask. Seriously, it's much easier than me feeling the way I do right now.

If it seems uncharacteristic of me....it's probably not the truth. Between people being stupid and rumors, it's no wonder people choose to have their entire social life play out online--can we please get out of freshman year of high school? (OMG...)

Rant over :) I feel a bit better now.

The Downside of Dependency

I've been in a woman's group for the past few months where we've examined things like family dynamics, person set backs, excuses, dealing with emotions, and we've recently come to a section on relationships. This last week we've been discussing dependency and what different types of dependency look like and then what a healthy relationship would look like. Sometimes, we're not only talking about romantic relationships but also those friendships that are close as well as family relationships.

I know that I have a few unhealthy friendships, but when I look at the different types of dependency and then what a healthy relationship should look like, I definitely feel like I have a lot of learning/growing to do and a lot of things on my mind are in question right now.

I think it's really easy in our society to fall into dependent relationships. We spend too much time thinking about what we want and not enough time seeing what is really there and getting to know people. Here's a bit of what I'm learning and thinking about right now:

In a dependency relationship, the two people involved can't be whole, single happy people when they are alone--they have to be together and it's confining. There is no room for personal growth.

In a smothering relationship, one person cannot live or function without the other person. There is no room for two people to grow in this situation.

In a pedestal relationship, one person "worships" who s/he believes the other person is. This creates judgmental and high expectations that no one can live up to, resulting in emotional distance, high turnover, and generally driving one another crazy.

In a master/slave relationship, one person is subjected to the other persons needs/wants and it's very rigid. There is a high amount of emotional distance, constant power struggle, and problems with intimacy and communication.

In a boarding house relationship, there is no expression of love, two people live together but do not share communication or otherwise, it's confining with no hope for emotional growth or involvement.

In a martyr relationship, one person controls the other through guilt as they are constantly framing the relationship in terms of the sacrifices and things done for the other person. This leaves the party receiving help without power or ability to express their true desires or needs which leads to resentment and emotional distance.

So what is a healthy relationship? It's normal to go through patches in a relationship with these types of dependency, but what should a person really strive for? A healthy relationship is two people who can be whole, complete, and happy without a partner. Their emotions are not partner dependent. These people choose to stay together instead of needing to be together. In a healthy relationship, there is love, emotional expression, and open communication. There is space to grow and be your own person in a healthy relationship and you do not use the other person to meet inner needs. In a healthy relationship, you're able to work things through with communication and expression of love.

How do you do that? A lot of work...you really have to know who you're getting involved with. You have to look at the messages you're sending yourself, and instead of falling in love and devotion, maybe it's better to put the brakes on and make sure that you know who you're dealing with. If you fall too far into a dependent type of relationship, especially an abusive one, as time goes on, it's only harder to get out of it.