Self-Care

Two posts in less than a week! I feel like I am off to a good start with this re-blogging 🙂 (She says before other things took priority and now its been longer than that…)

One of the things that I learned over the course of the last year is that I need to take care of myself better (read: at all). Not to the exclusion of anyone, more as a “You can’t pour from an empty cup” or “You can’t save anyone from drowning if you aren’t breathing yourself” kinda way.

I spent a large part of the last decade assisting M to deal with PTSD and other issues to the extent that I didn’t realise how much situation managing and administrating that I did every day and for all situations, in and out of the house. The short answer is: All Of Them. As a result, I had nothing left in my tank for myself and just accepted that that’s what it was and prayed that someday it would get better for him and then for me. In the end, I had an empty cup and couldn’t breath and I’ve spent the last year recovering.

And then add my new life situation where now I’m the bonus parent to 3 boys when I haven’t had children before…well, lets just say that “Learning Experience” is quite possibly an understatement. I just spent Sunday coordinating ALL the laundry and house deep cleaning and spraying all the soft things that can’t be moved because of a house-wide lice infestation brought from the other house. Super fun. But guess what? Once you get past all the ick factor of lice, it wasn’t bad. Really.

We talked, as a family, because #1 was upset that it was #2’s fault because #2 (and #3) is 50/50 with us/their mom and frustrated because, truly, who wants bugs in their hair? We discussed feelings and frustrations and treatment and how much work it was going to be and what we all were going to do to tackle where we were in the moment and for the rest of the day. And we did it. All of it. And it was a LOT. I made chili in the Insta-pot and it was DEVOURED along with the cornbread. All the clothes were washed – Thank Goodness for the local laundromat and their HUGE washers making this job so much easier. I didn’t sit down for anything from 9am until 7.

No one yelled at anyone. No one got snippy until the VERY end and that was hanger more than anything and dinner was being served. Everyone helped with all the things. Eyes were open and everyone looked for ways to help before sitting down and being “done” or saying that there wasn’t anything else to do. We acknowledged that we were all tired and doing more than what we expected to be doing on a Sunday and that it wasn’t a great deal of fun…but it was okay and we did it and it was good because we did it together. There was no ‘fault’, just functioning family. No anger, just acceptance and moving forward together because what else can you do right then?

So where does self-care come in? I had a well-deserved Bloody Mary while I had my hair being combed out because I had little not-friends too. Because I have been rebuilding myself over the last year, I had the mental space to work as a team with my family because I felt supported and acknowledged for what I was tackling in the home for all of us. #1 and #2 felt supported and acknowledged for the TONNES of laundry that they were doing and not doing any of the fun things they normally are doing to relax on a Sunday afternoon. D felt supported and acknowledged for being the one out at the laundromat and being the pack horse between the two…and having to go back again since the laundromat could do a cycle in 37 minutes and our home washer took 1:15 to do the same thing. We all went to bed early but went to bed happy for a full days work and feeling good about ourselves and each other. We cared for ourselves and for our family as we battled the wee beasties and reclaimed our home together. Self-care at its finest.

Challenge and Response

Welcome to my blog. It’s a good blog and has been around for a while but I, over the last few years, have not. I make attempts to get back into it and then feel overwhelmed with all that has happened that I feel I need to catch you, my dear reader, up on that then I just…stop.

So here we go again because that’s what we do – we carry on despite challenges; we gird our loins and dive in; we leap, knowing that we soar and even if we don’t land where we intended, its still better than staying with our feet firmly planted or scared to move. Faith in those that truly love us makes us brave and bold. Faith that we have experienced things and know our own mind and heart makes us strong and secure. Faith of a better day today than yesterday because we put in the work and the time.

This is my Answer year. Actually, its my Answer year part 2. See, I just had my 42nd birthday and, as we all know, the Answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. But how do we really count ‘years’? We honestly count them AFTER they have already happened. I didn’t just start my 42nd year on this earth, I just completed it, but that’s not how most people think so I’m calling this my Answer Year part 2…primarily because my first version was so big that it deserves a second go-round.

Breif Synopsis of Answer Part 1: 2 days before my birthday I admitted to myself that I could not go another year around the sun in an unhappy marriage and I asked M for a divorce. I felt like I was drowning while doing all the saving and I couldn’t keep on swimming. It was as amicable as it could be with broken dreams and emotions high but I truly feel it was and will be the best thing for both of us. All I will say further on this is that, in the end, M left with Han while Mochi and Clutch stayed with me. I do think about him and hope he is well because all I ever wanted to give him, to grow in him, was happiness. In nearly 13 years, I learned that you can’t always be pouring from your cup into someone else’s and still have anything to drink for yourself. It was a hard and painful lesson.

During this process, I reconnected with a childhood friend that I hadn’t seen or spoken with for 30 years, nearly to the day, and we started talking daily. He was going thru a divorce too and there are kids and it was not nearly as amicable as mine, however, having a friend who truly knew what I was going thru, who understood what being lonely while being married was like, was a great source of strength. We talked. A LOT. And found in each other a partner like never before.

During all of this, I was planning and working on my career future…I was working closely with my leadership and advancing myself, I had great mentorship and I felt really supported and like I was with a great company, fabulous people and was part of an amazing team…

And then the company that I was working for sold the building that I was working in to a company with a far less than stellar reputation. A great business deal for the owner, to be sure, but completely devastating to my anticipated career path and I felt that I couldnt ethically stay with the new company.

And, in typical SisuGirl fashion, I made a change. A big one.

I moved from Washington to Oregon in April.

I moved from a house on acreage outside of town to a duplex in town.

I left work in WA with a company that I couldn’t respect to work with a small company run facility that I loved that wasn’t the right fit either and left that job after 6 weeks because the same job opened with a company that I really love right in my new town, literally blocks away from my home.

I went from rock/alt rock to modern country.

I went from being 6 states away from ‘family’ to being in the same town as (some of) them.

I went from seeing ‘family’ maybe once a year to seeing them weekly.

I went from being single with dogs and no human children to being not single with dogs and 3 boys.

I went from looking to escape into Social Media – Instagram was my drug of choice- to quitting and enjoying books and knitting as part of daily life once again.

I moved from missing my faith and feeling the gap to being part of a community again and feeling great joy at being fulfilled with devotion.

I stopped drowning as I tried to help others swim, swam better than I have in years and now joined a team that feels like I should have ‘always’ been a part of it.

And all this before my Answer Year began. So now I am feeling a bit more settled. A bit more like I have a handle on what days look like and what I expect of myself in this new life that I am learning to lead. And, yes, I know how riddiculous it sounds, that I have a handle on life as a 42 year old woman who has never had children stepping into the lives of boys 15, 12 and 10, not to mention their fathers life…

Hence, dear reader, I am back. Back to blog, back to getting my thoughts out of my head and onto space where I can see and read and hopefully understand things better as I work it out as I write. I don’t know what this is going to look like, I just know that in the last year, I have reclaimed more of “SISUGIRL” than I have felt in years and I am happier now then I have been in ages and I want to share my joys, my challenges – self-inflicted and life, and my thoughts with you. I hope you come back for more.