No more denial, time to get to work

[MRay]

Update time. This is mostly a motivational post trying to remind myself what I am supposed to be doing. W and kids are on vacation with MIL, and I haven't seen W or kids since Monday. Between her being sick and not being together on Easter and now this vacation, I haven't had much contact with W recently. No contact during the vacation except her texting they arrived safely and I responded with, "I hope everybody has a great time." They'll be back tomorrow, and I'm heading out of town myself to visit my sister and catch a baseball game. I'm hoping to leave the house before they get home, and I won't be home until late Saturday night or possibly Sunday so it will be almost a week with no contact.

Emotionally I've been pretty down this week. I throw a lot of my energy and GAL into my kids, and without them here I haven't been doing enough for myself. I've always done a lot with them, but I need to get better at doing things for me. I'm pretty introverted, and finding people I enjoy being with is difficult. I love teaching classrooms full of people (they're adults as I teach at a university), but it can leave me drained when it comes to my being able to tolerate people I don't want to be around. I need to just put myself out there and find some people with similar interests to my own. I have some ideas, I need to just suck it up and go do it.

I'm hoping W will have missed me at least a little bit after the week, but I know that's bad. I can't have any expectations of her. I don't plan on bringing up the time we've been apart beyond telling the kids I missed them and asking them all about their trip. Maybe I'll take them to the park and talk to them about it there so W doesn't think I'm trying to manipulate her in some way (I swear everything I do is some type of manipulation to her). I am determined to show W nothing but strength, happiness, and me enjoying my life and thriving. I know I can only really do that if I get out there and go do it!