feel love thumping at the doors of my heart again

[flowmom]

The challenge is to keep that stuff packed up and put away, and not let it creep up on you in your new life. The most important thing is to become strong and centered in who your are. Not dependent (at least emotionally) on a man to keep you happy.

Absolutely. I don't think that dependence was a problem for me in the past except once I became a parent. I wasn't dependent on stbxh emotionally to an unhealthy degree -- if anything we didn't lean on one another enough. But I put up with too much because I was dependent on him financially and because I was fixated on staying together to be a family.

So I have heard quite a bit about guitarist. Tell me about you, what drives you? What are your hopes and dreams for yourself?

Thanks for asking . Hopes and dreams have always been hard for me. I've always had trouble allowing myself to do that, I think to protect myself from disappointment. I'm letting go of the past, focusing on the present, but there's no clarity about the future right now, not even glimmerings.

I can tell you about things that I'm working on for the short/medium term:

Financial well being:
I would like to be financially independent and have a reasonable financial plan in place for myself and my children. It feels like a really HUGE goal. I've been working with the counsellor on procrastination and we are still trying different things. No breakthroughs so far. But I feel like there is some internal shifting going on. Practically speaking I need to put more consulting hours in, develop a budget, and do some medium term financial planning.

Friendships:
I want to work on my friendships. Something that I want to enjoy now and in the future is a solid group of friends to share life with. I love giving a dinner party and having a relaxed evening of conversation and connection. My parents have awesome friends and I'd love to learn how to pull off their somewhat bohemian and relaxed style of entertaining and cultivating friendships. I have some good friends, but it's not easy to pull off those great, memorable gatherings. I also need to figure out some new friends. Honestly, I feel like I have less to offer without a husband . I've noticed that socializing by myself with a couple doesn't work that well - the husband often feels left out (or bored or ??). Not always easy to figure out the dynamics.

Sexuality/Femininity:
This is something that I'm not willing to drop in my life ever again. Whether or not I am in a R, I can't really be myself unless I am able to tune into and express this part of myself. Obviously being in a new R is awesome for this department, but there are things that I want to do to cultivate this for myself. I like wearing cute clothes and I want to maintain my new weight and size. I want to exercise so that I feel good about my body and so that it feel strong and vital. I want to find ways to express my sexuality that don't depend on a man. One way is dancing. I've had fun doing that with Smart Sister lately. Tomorrow I'm starting a dance class -- women only "soukouss sweat". It's a Congolese popular dance style, and apparently it's a good workout too, so it covers a lot of bases. I hope it works out because setting up childcare for it has been quite daunting.

Mothering:
This is never ending. I need to move forward with getting interventions for S7. And D4 may need something too. They are doing well in general, but there are a lot of behaviour issues. It can be totally exhausting solo parenting them. I feel very sad to be a single parent. I was always really clear about wanting to share the joys and hardships of the experience with another adult. Single parenting often feels like drudgery when there is no one else to pick up the slack or lighten the moment.

Christmas
I want to find a way to lower my expectations around Christmas...without it being depressing. For the past 4 years we've had INCREDIBLE Christmases. We've gone to snowy rustic cabins with another family and developed incredibly lovely, simple, child-centered rituals. The other family has plans this year and I don't know if I can pull off the cabin thing with the kids by myself (don't think I want to anyway). So it has the potential to be pretty sad . Stbxh doesn't want to celebrate xmas together with me and the kids in any way, so that will be a challenge.

Home
If I'm staying in this home, after living here for 9 years with stbxh, I'd like to figure out how to make it really mine. Some fixing, painting, decluttering, and decorating is in order.