1) Make time to listen to your friend talk about nothing and something.
2) Tell your friend you still love them - medicated or not.
3) Look at all of your friend’s photos of their kids/dogs/hobbies
4) Remember you friend’s special dates
5) Spend time with your friend
I haven’t much to say these days.
I am feeling OK. I go to therapy every week. I am adjusting nicely to my fluoxetine (Prozac). I even went out with my co-workers friends the other night.
Just trying to get through each day because I still have so much stress going on in my life right now. I am just working on dealing with all of it.
Thank you friends who have still been there for me even though I’ve been distant. Thank you friends who have listened intently while I throw up my emotions all over the floor.
I drive a red Prius instead of a van now, but it looks and smells like a soccer mom in here. Practice Tuesdays, clinic on Thursdays, game on Saturday mornings, micro soccer also some how on Saturday mornings. Emails that all 20 people “Reply All” to - going back and forth just about every day.
When I’m not in the office I’m glued to my iphone trying to answer emails and cross things off of my ever growing to do list. Trying to find to time to do anything else but play catch up is just about impossible and school hasn’t even started due to the teacher strike. So of course PTA and Health Committee stuff are just waiting to pounce.
I’m taking the fall off from school so as not to overwhelm myself and so we can pay for a new bed again. (We are going to get a real king bed with no grand canyon in the middle and let the kids have these.)
Every Wednesday I rush off to the other side of downtown Bellevue to see my therapist after work. I always feel more distorted when I leave than when I got there. I feel like a crazy, spoiled person every time I go there. I feel like I’m going to get help for petty problems as I pull into the lovely office park. I’m not starving, dying, diseased, or ill! I think to myself as I sit down on her white couch to tell her about how busy and stressed out I am from being a working, sometimes in college, house is forever being remodeled, soccer mom.
Oddly though, I find myself more content rushing around like a some what crazy lady. It is kind of like a video game where you have to get all the points as you overcome various obstacles like shin guard chewing dogs, missing shoes, and those stupid weeds that keep coming back. I throw my head back and laugh as my husband says he’ll be working all weekend.
It is so hard for me to find a happy medium, ever. After stating my goals, I did get into a slightly better cleaning mode than I had been in. Cross your fingers for me that I will continue to improve. The next day I also rode my bike to work. Go me.
More of my awesome bike gear arrived at the Issaquah REI for me to pick up and now my bike is all decked out and ready for some serious riding. Except for my water bottle holder, I can’t freaking find it. Oh well though because I have a step over frame and there is no where to put it.
Getting out of bed more seems to be helping my mood. I’ve also been avoiding bad news and conflict as much as possible while I am in such a fragile state. I am not watching the news. Talus (my former golden retriever) is going to a new home again. I can barely type that. I so cannot deal with that right now. I don’t even have the energy to state what I really think about the situation.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how stressful our lives are. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to move far away to a sleepy town and drive my kids to school in my pj’s in my van and then eat crackers and color with the other children I’d like to have.
That so is not ever going to happen. So of course I can’t just exist in the mediocre state that I am. It isn’t good enough. I have to strive to attain something bigger and better. Telling me to settle down is like telling the world to stop spinning. It isn’t going to happen.
I read somewhere that we should share our dreams even though we fear public failure because it helps us be accountable and because we can often find support this way. I didn’t find this to be true when we moved from Kent to Bellevue but whatever. Maybe my new Bellevue friends will be more supportive.
My dream is to buy a small piece of land on the island and build a smallish (1200 sq. ft) modern, really environmentally friendly house tucked behind some tall old trees. I don’t care about a view of the lake, I would consider myself fortunate to live on that island at all.
My last dream was to move to this city (which of course may be my demise) but after all of the talking and planning, we made it here. Pretty good for two kids from White Center neither of which has finished college (so far). Despite the unbearable stress this house has caused, the downstairs is just a little bit of paint around the edges, away from being done.
I find the chaos of all of the toys, in a perfectly imperfect new playroom quite peaceful.
