Moving Forward

[adinva]

I'm feeling emotionally mixed up this week. I think the pressure of being positive all through my annual meeting has relaxed and the more accurate feelings are swirling around now as I wind things down and deal with the regular small insults of transitioning to the new management.

I shouldn't see them as insults but each little one smarts just a bit. I'll get through it, and I'll learn a lot, but it is a weird situation. On the bright side, some of the craziest parts have already been transitioned over...

I am trying to manage my emotions by conscientious exercise, but the extra layer of them is driving me to consume macaroni and cheese and fruit snacks and spoil my great progress in Weight Watchers. There's a bright side to that too. That I recognize what I'm doing and can try some other things (journaling) to see if the exercise needs a boost. Also on the bright side, I'm back at my "lifetime" weight so I don't have to pay anymore and even the macaroni and cheese hasn't *yet* gotten me outside that range. Close but I can turn it around.

More of the source of my turmoil is my s16's best friend, who practically lives at my house, his mom has left. I just found out, when I asked him how his mom was, hadn't heard from her in a long time. He said she was gone 20+ days in December (that sounds like something he might have repeated that maybe his dad said), he hardly sees her anymore, and she has an apartment nearby. I checked in with her, and she's moving into the apartment this coming week. I don't know where she's been staying. She's in incredible pain and says her kids won't speak to her.

This brings up a lot of painful memories for me. I think the physical moving out was the most painful of everything I've been through so far. It was like ripping the skin off my body. The empty spaces in the closet were devastating. The kids' pain was heartbreaking. I cannot even imagine being a feeling person on the moving-out side of that situation. I feel mostly for my son's friend, but he is stoic and says he's OK.

I wish I could have learned more to be helpful to them, but if I've learned anything it is not helpful. It is that people will do what they will do, they will justify anything, some marriages are cr*p and should not continue, and sometimes there are just no words that help. I can't very well comfort the H; I barely know him and there were a lot of problems in his M caused by him. I feel more loyalty to the W but I don't think she made the best choices all along the way either, and our lifestyles are too different to be very close. I feel the most loyalty to the kid and I don't even know how to ease his pain. When he first saw me after H left, he gave me a hug and said everything happens for a reason.

All I did was suggest to the W to keep reaching out to the kids, that I understood the horrible pain, and that I'd lend an ear if she needed to talk.

I can recall how I felt when my H moved out, and a person who did that much for him at that time (at THAT time) would have felt like a betrayal of me in my view.

I can remember how I cried with gratefulness at the one person who when I told the situation didn't give me a platitude but told me I was awesome, she loved me, no questions asked, no "who's fault was it," no "have compassion for H,"...just I love you and will always and I'll take you out for a beer. I could not do this for this W. I feel bad about that.

Other stuff. I feel like a bad mom because my S13 won't come out of his room. If I go to say hello he says "OK Bye." He wants nothing more than to play video games all night and sleep all day. And I've been so busy, it's kind of easier... It's a struggle. He doesn't want to do stuff with me, his friends are mostly online even the ones who might go outside with him are online. He's looking much better, says no one calls him fatty at school anymore. He commented to his psych that his anxiety had increased, and with the medication adjustment he says he feels much better, so I'm glad for that. I need to find him a better counselor but in this area good ones for kids are hard to find and have waiting lists. On the bright side, when he misses the schoolbus and I drive him to school he talks to me and he's a stitch! We communicate really well and enjoy each other.

S16 seems good, no complaints there. I just input the 1,000 events coming up for his lacrosse spring and summer schedule and paid the $900 summer select fee without looking at my bank account balance. It took a couple of hours of my Saturday to get all that stuff organized and make sure all his forms were in because tryouts start at 7am Monday. He was cleared from his concussion last Wednesday so he's been working out like a fiend to get back in condition.

I haven't seen or heard from H since I returned on 2/9 and he stayed for lunch. However, someone from his work left a vm on my home phone asking for help on a project - so I passed the msg on to him and asked him to correct his record with the company since this is not a number he can be reached at effectively. Then I got some mail for him from his company, and texted him that it was here and asked him to correct his address as well. He went from college to living with his mom, to living with me for the next 20 years. He has never had his own place, his own address, and now he's living out of someone's house like a 22-year-old again. But even when I was 22, I had my address registered with the post office. Whatever. What he does is not my concern, I just find it annoying to serve as his message center and I don't want to do it anymore.

So with all that, I notice that my usually positive personality is leaning toward complaining and negativity, and my general state if I'm not thinking about what or why, is near tears and distracted and edgy. Heck, I started to cry in the death scene at Rapunzel last night and could barely stop when he was miraculously revived. How embarrasing.

Of course on top of all that, I have to get my tax stuff to my accountant (late), work on my separation stuff (late also), and work on my finances again (dread). And clean my kitchen.

I know the answer. It is to pick one small thing and get it done and move on to the next. I'll feel better, and the grip of anxiety will start to relax. I think the emotions just need to be recognized and they'll dissipate. It'll get better.