sadness – How do I…life?

The Dance

How long have we been dancing the dance? Do you remember? I think the real dancing started about four years ago. To be fair and completely honest, the dancing was always there. It was in the background at times, but it was always there.

You do know the dancing I’m talking about, right? It’s what has become our traditional relationship dance. I think we unknowingly started this dance; it wasn’t intentional. We did what we needed to do to, right? Is that how you remember the dance starting? There were times family interfered with our relationship. We each pacified the other. I know I felt stuck in the middle and I’m sure you did as well. Looking back, I wish we would have had the ability to cope with the interference and stop the dancing. But we danced around the problems, hoping they would just disappear. While it wasn’t always looming over our shoulders, the dancing was still happening in the background; waiting for a weak moment to speed up the tempo, to make one of us feel weak, vulnerable, unsettled. We did the best we could, right?

I think there was a time, and it probably was about four years ago, where the dancing pattern we are in now started. I would talk to you about needing help with decisions, kids, money, day to day stuff. I would talk, you would listen. I would get frustrated and stop talking. You waited me out, at least that’s how I felt/feel. You waited until I could no longer take the awkward silence, the no talking. I would break my silence, and everything would eventually go back to our normal dancing. It’s odd now that I think about it. I couldn’t stand living in the awkward silence, so I broke. But there was still silence, just a different kind of silence. It was the silent song of our dance. Our dancing pattern happened when, like every three or six months? The dance always started and ended the same way. I feel like I tried over and over again. Do you feel that way? Like you tried over and over again? I guess it doesn’t matter.

We are still dancing. Now we dance around each other. We dance around talking, touching, feeling. What happens when the dance ends? What happens when one of us stops dancing? What if it’s you? What if it’s me? Does it look different or feel different?

Do we continue to live in the comfortable uncomfortableness that surrounds us daily because living in the comfortable uncomfortableness is easier than moving our lives into the unknown uncomfortableness. Is that anyway to live? How do we continue to avoid what is right in front of our faces?

I feel like you are living in the shadows of the three wise monkeys; see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. If you turn a blind eye to what is happening to us, you don’t have to worry about anything. If you refuse to hear what I am saying over and over, you don’t have to worry about anything. If you refuse to speak to me about what is happening to us, you don’t have to worry about anything.

But I have a question.

What happens when one of us steps off the dance floor?

Food, please and thank you

So, it’s 10:00 AM. I have been at work since about 7:30 AM. I have checked my email. Nothing there for me to do. I put six bottles of water in the conference room refrigerator. I took two letters to the mailbox and put the flag up. There have been no phone calls to answer. I have heard one of the “professionals” in the office being passive aggressive and complaining about the temperature of the office (that person has a thermostat in their office). I know one female and two males have gone potty. I have shuffled and reshuffled the same papers around my desk about four times. I have organized the wheat thins that I am eating into pairs. I have hated myself 127,568 times for my many faults. I am currently considering getting more wheat thins to eat, because……………why not. If I do get more wheat thins, I will be able to hate myself like 54,789 more times before noon. At noon it’s lunch time. I have fresh, local black raspberries (my favorite) and vanilla Greek yogurt. Totally healthy and good for me. And as I eat that, I will PROMISE myself that this is it. This is the time I make the change. The time is now. Stop procrastinating and making excuses. How do I know that will happen? Because it happens every day, at least once a day. And then the rest of the day I eat my feelings, I eat my mistakes, I eat my unhappiness, I eat my loneliness, I eat my excuses, I eat my fear, I eat my inadequacies. I eat. The way I see my current situation, there is no reason not to eat. I find my comfort eating, I find a long-lost friend eating, I find my emotional support when I eat, I find everything I need when eat. Food isn’t going to leave me. I can’t disappoint food, I can’t hurt food. Food gives my fat suit. I have and will continue to pay dearly for that fat suit. It will help me shut people out, let people see what they want, let people think what they want. With my fat suit on, no one is going to get close enough to see the real me, to see the truth no one wants to see. And, so you are aware, I did not get more wheat thins to eat. I got goldfish. I ate them in pairs.

I don’t even know anymore

It’s one of those days.

I keep replaying the last 10 years of my daughter’s life wondering where I could have done something differently. Why didn’t I realize something seriously was wrong before now? All the what if’s are on a continuous loop in my head.

She came home yesterday around noon time. Our security cameras alerted me to motion in the driveway. I sat at work watching the camera, watching her. I needed to see her face. I needed to make sure she was physically okay. Did she have bruises? Did she have cuts? I obviously couldn’t see all that from the camera. But she was home.

I returned home from work around 4:15. I figured she was in her room wrapped in her blankets sleeping or watching Netflix. I was right. She was asleep. I started dinner, doing the normal daily after work stuff. My son and daughter-in-law stopped over to eat with us (I was trying a new recipe). I went to my girls room to wake her up and see if she was going to eat with us. She did come downstairs. She was pale, looked exhausted and didn’t say much. This was the first time in 6 days that I saw her. She slowly opened up, not talking about the past 6 days, but just the normal banter that happens at dinner. After dinner I stepped out on the porch to get some air and sat down at the patio table. I apparently had dropped my head and was rubbing my eyes/temples when my girl walked out. She asked if I was okay. I was honest and told her no, I wasn’t okay. I seriously can’t even remember everything that was said. It was mostly me talking. Only talking, no yelling, screaming, etc. She told me that within 3 months she would be moving out to move in with the boy and his family. I told her all my honest fears and worries for her. I told her over and over and over again that she would always have a home with us and the door would always be open for her. The conversation was probably 35 or 45 minutes. It was long, it was repetitive, it was emotionally draining. I think it went as well as it could have. I was shocked when she told me she was leaving again that night to go to the boy.

It was a sleepless, restless night. But that is becoming the norm. I stood in the shower this morning and couldn’t remember what to do first. Holding the soap in my hands wondering what to do with it. Every action or motion I make today feels like it drains me just a little bit more. Driving to work I was on autopilot. I think I drove safely. I honestly don’t remember.

I want to be pissed off. I want the anger and rage to take over and push me to the next phase of whatever this is. Is it grief? Is it a sense of loss? What is it that I’m feeling? I want to tell her she owes me thousands of dollars for all the shit I tried for her. All the crystals that help anxiety, the essential oils that help anxiety and depression and the headaches and that help her sleep better, the money on the spiritual healer that she didn’t listen to, the pure sage stuff to cleanse the house and her spirit, the new mattresses and bed linens that had to be replaced because her cat pissed on them (because she doesn’t clean the litter boxes), the new clothes because she lost more weight than she should have and had nothing to wear. I could go on and on. Our savings is lower than ever and I have to pay my school taxes. That’s on me. I was trying to help my girl. All I did was help my girl walk out the door.