Hi everyone, it's been a while since I have posted, but I have been reading along with all of your situations and sending holiday hugs to you all.
The past couple of weeks have been up and down. The holidays have triggered some sadness in me, thinking about years' past. Some of the best, most joyful and loving moments in my M have occurred this time of year. My mind is still struggling to compartmentalize those old memories with my new reality. Hard work to retrain our brains, isn't it?
My good moments have been fueled by an inner awareness that no matter what, I am going to be OK. That there is so much outside of all of this that I have ahead of me. If I focus on the long-game I am OK. If I start to pay too much attention to the path that I need to navigate to get there, I want to crumble with the magnitude of it all.
I taught my kiddos how to ice skate this past week. Our first reaction is to look down at our feet, but where our eyes go, our body follows. So I kept encouraging them to "look up, look where you want to go!". Repeating that over and over again was a meditation for me.
My interactions with H have been tough. I feel detached, calm and grounded during our interactions, but nearly every interaction results in a deserved apology from him to me the next day. I don't think that's healthy for either one of us. I appreciate his apologies but would prefer that he doesn't get to that point in the first place. I am also starting to feel like a whipping post for all of his guilt and shame. Guilt and shame generated from within him, for what he has done and what he is doing... none of which is within my control, but yet I am the one he punishes for him feeling those things.
My IC has helped me immensely these past couple of weeks identify that I am really good at predicting where the (moving) target will be and shooting a bullseye every time. H is really good at moving the target and keeping me focussed on the archery game. I need to bow out of the game. Stop looking for the targets to ace. Shrug. Put down the bow. Walk away. (Detach. Indifference.)
We have had nearly a week apart as he went somewhere and I took the kids away for a local trip to the mountains with my mom. It has been a lovely time for me and the kids. And really nice to not have to interact with H at all for 6 days.
I am really dreading the upcoming interactions necessary to navigate a two-week break from school and the holidays. I realize I don't have good enough boundaries for myself ('haha, obviously!' you are all saying to yourselves). I am working on changing that.
I also have been doing some goal-writing about things I want to do with the children next year (post-pandemic), or things I want to integrate into our new life. It helps to remind me that I am alive and creative and very adventurous, things that H can't take away from me or the children, although he used to be a big part in encouraging it.
I have more to journal but will stop there before this gets too onerous to read!
