Tag: doing the hard thing

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Pick up the flashpoint.

tec

I felt so much clearer after I wrote on Thursday. It was almost alarming how quickly I felt clear again.

I called the tax guy and made an appt for the following day and by 1:30pm yesterday, our taxes were complete and filed and printed. And I have a copy now that I can submit for my student loan deferment at the end of the month.

Breathing.

I also had some calming thoughts regarding L and my stress paths. It doesn’t really matter how these things unfold. I can do my part and everything else is out of my hands. Sure, maybe there was things I was “supposed to” do sooner. Or maybe those things are right on time. Even if they keep me (or L) from something else. How can we know what is supposed to be? Maybe everything that is is supposed to be.

So, I’m breathing.

And I still haven’t talked to Chris about any of it yet. Because life upheaval and his dislocated shoulder. But I feel better about it without the conversation yet and that is the point.

I haven’t even leapt into the dislocated shoulder conversation here!

It is finally (presumably?) back in place. He has an ortho appt in a couple weeks. He hurts a lot. (Understatement of the year). He can’t take the anti-inflammatory til he finishes the steroid or else it causes severe nausea. But here he is with unfathomable inflammation causing an incredible amount of pain. Furthermore, the pain leads to lack of sleep and the lack of sleep leads to seizure activity. He’s his own walking nightmare right now.

I’m in my element with all of this and I know all of it is completely out of my hands and so all I see in this situation is the universe saying to Chris, “I’m not making myself clear here, son” and then shazam! Clear picture comes into focus. Make boundaries (especially to protect you from you). Delegate. Let people help you. Learn new ways to realize your usefulness. Let who you are define you, not what you can and can’t accomplish with one arm.

And, honestly, I just feel blessed to be along for the ride on this one. Chris is kicking ass and taking freaking names in the self-development department. Yeah, it totally sucks and there’s some kicking rocks, but mostly? Mostly he is stepping up and well surpassing all I’ve always known he is capable of.

He was thrust into this seemingly impossible situation, and knew he had to shift mindset or drown. And in the face of it being so. freaking. hard., he is freaking doing it anyway. And I think that is so freakin’ awesome. I couldn’t be prouder of him.

We both have had such fundamental progress during this quarantine. We are thrivers. I’m so in love with us and our relationship and all the goodness we are capable of.

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Why are you running away?

tec

Part of my sponsee homework this week was to flesh out my higher power a bit more. Not necessarily to share with Beth, but to have a more tangible and articulated foundation for myself.

Chris and I had this two hour conversation tonight that rocked my night. I love those nights where we set up the computer to watch Heroes, but then fall into deep, connected conversation instead. The world falls away and it’s just him and me in this moment.

And it wasn’t until we had this two hour long conversation that I truly grasped the validity and necessity of forming and articulating your higher power. In part for myself, which I’ll expound on in a minute, and in part for Chris because he’s been in this process of working his fourth step for a couple months now. And it’s completely his journey and I want him to walk it as such, and at the same time, I know it’s been a hard process–one I don’t have experience to speak on–and it’s been on my radar that he hasn’t written anything yet. I imagine it’s a crazy hard thing to sit and explore and he’s so incredibly brave to even go there. Tonight, with our talking, as I articulated my higher power and he shared how he’s been fleshing out his own, I realized the beauty of the sequence of the first four steps.

How can you write out a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of yourself alone? That sounds terrifying and traumatic. That’s not a process I’d want Chris to endure without a solid higher power. You got a clear picture of your higher power tho? That sounds terrifying and completely doable. That’s the experience I prefer for him.

I haven’t done my fourth step yet. I’m not there. Tonight’s conversation was pivotal to all of this tho. I was saying how I had this solid higher power picture. I was saying my foundation is solid. So freaking solid. But also, I’m a sponsee for a reason and I don’t claim to know all the things. Beth wants me to be able to come to a point of articulation. Cool, I can comply with that. And I even said to Chris, “so while *I* feel I’m set with my higher power picture, Beth, she’s the poker and she comes in to poke at my views to show me what’s strong and what needs work.”

I know my place. Even when I want to snarkily boast about my evolvedness.

So I eloquently tell Chris about my higher power.

My higher power is the universe. I unquestionably view the universe as a thing that will always take care of me without exception. It is always looking out for my best interest, and the best interest of all.

As an added characteristic, I also view my higher power as a parent, who, when I come to it, vulnerable and broken and damaged and hurt, it will always show up with open arms, always wrap me in comfort and will leave no room for me to believe anything except that I am all-loved.

That is my higher power.

(Pretty cool, huh?)

And then, I played Beth in my head for a moment (poke poke poke) and considered “ahh, my higher power only works in the present.”

OH MY FREAKING GOD–

(No pun intended.)

I have spent all this time with a freaking kickass higher power and I only let him play with present me. Oftentimes I think about including him in future me stuff, but it’s not really in a tangible way. Never do I let him interact with past me.

This is where I call upon my inner Julie and allow her to say, “what would it mean to you that the universe was looking out for past Jill?” That past me-the scared little girl me–is safe with the universe. That she was being looked after back then, as well as right now–if I so chose to dive into the psyche of all that.

And I guess my immediate, involuntary response is, “Fuck you, you can’t be trusted. She got hurt and you didn’t look out for her at all.”

……

Well, that was unexpected. I probably have some work to do there. That was very honest and vulnerable of me. I was expecting to go somewhere else with all that. I was expecting that posing the question would bring a sense of relief and provide an immediate safe haven where past Jill could come out to play and heal.  I expected immediate growth here and the opportunity to wrap it up in a neat little bow and call it a day. Figuratively and literally.

Instead I think I’m just going to call it a day and sleep instead. And think on this again tomorrow. There is time for forgiveness in tomorrow.

xo.

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Illuminate the blackest nights.

tec

It’s fascinating what a difference a day makes.

Thursday was a day. Thursday was such a day. It hurt. It was also a day of growth that propelled me into today. Maximum amount of growth from a maximum type of experience.

This morning someone said something that reminded what Chris and my communication looked like at the start of our relationship. There was an obscene amount of us being present for one conversation, but experiencing two wholly different conversations. Our very different sets of experiences and baggage provided very skewed filtered translations of our words.

I’d repeat back to him what he said, but really what I was repeating back was what I heard (how I translated it), and he wouldn’t understand what the hell I was talking about. Or worse yet, I’d tell him and he’d get mad I took it that way, which only served to make me feel more terrible. Or sometimes I would have said something once and maybe even off cuff, and then a year later he’d be like “well, I’ve never done this thing because this one time you said you didn’t like it”…. and I’d have no recollection of saying that and would have had no issue with this random thing he wanted to do, but had never done.

We spent a lot of time navigating that. Until we maybe didn’t have to navigate it so much? And we were just on the same page most of the time.

And then life, as it is wont to do, got bigger and deeper and more layered. And perhaps we took the communication for granted and the translators surfaced again unbeknownst to either of us.

There are things that I felt on Thursday–things I wrote–that are totally valid. And then there are other things that were filtered through a broken translator. Things that were filtered through pain I have compartmentalized and avoided. It doesn’t make them any less valid. It doesn’t make them any less real. It just makes them…not the truth.

Part of the defective translator is my long past experiences and apparently not having properly explored them. There have been times I felt slighted or dismissed or overlooked and I react from those moments. Not because I’m mad. But because it hurts. I support him because it’s in my nature to do so. I want to feel it in return. He is supportive in other ways, but it’s not the same to me.

Another aspect is a fresh wound. The fresh wound has been something I haven’t wanted to peel the bandaid off of to look at yet. I haven’tbeen ready. I don’t know what I’ll find exactly and also I don’t know whose help I’ll need to employ. Will a nurse do? Or do I need a surgeon? Can the wound be cleaned and heal with time or is the whole limb a lost cause? Will the body survive the loss of limb? So, I keep the bandaid on.

And mostly it is fine.

Every now and again “mostly” leaves and “not fine” shows up.

For now, I know that no matter the solution I choose for healing it, I need to make the choice soon.

I tangented tho. The point I was wanting to make is that Thursday I translated communication through my pain (and maybe Chris translated through his something as well) and I was inaccurate. He didn’t think the enneagram was stupid and he didn’t think me stupid for having interest in it. He took a quiz today and listened to some of the Rise Together podcast episode about it and seemed genuinely interested in it, just the way that I hoped. And I hoped it because he is such a bright light and for too long he has been trying to dim himself.

And I guess now begins some me/us work because all the things I’m feeling and protecting just under the surface only serve to dim bright light as well.

I’m nothing if not the girl who finally catches up to remember I practice what I preach.

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Don’t complicate it.

tec

I love this blog. I often think of it ridiculously fondly and I’m just so glad it exists.

I also love my daughter’s boyfriend. He feels like a genuinely nice boy. More on that when I’m better slept.

It’s 11pm now. I’m out of decision juice. I’ve been out of it for a good long time. In fact, I’m pretty sure I started the day out of it. I didn’t sleep enough and that skewed my everything. Chris stopped taking an addictive (and no longer necessary) medication on Friday. His morning dose was the last one and this three year battle is finally coming to an end. It’s going to change so many things for the better and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

The side effects are terrible tho and will continue to be for a little while. Far less terrible than the damage of being on the drug. I’m so happy for him and relieved and…cautious. Especially because of his seizure disorder. So we’ve taken it one minute at a time this weekend. It also meant I was up til 3am this morning, and the dog woke me to play at 7:30. And now it’s 11 and I’m still up.

All that is to say that I didn’t have the energy to stop making decisions today. (Counterintuitive much?) Decisions that go against my greatest good. I kept consciously making decisions that went against what my brain was telling me to do. There were good moments too. Practicing moments. Where I didn’t decide and just let all the things be. I reminded myself I had nothing to decide. And for that I’m extremely proud of myself. Tomorrow is another day. And I feel good about it. But first, so much sleep.