It became real today that I'm not on vacation. That I have actually moved home. That I now have a different set of problems, ideas, life goals to live with. Two of my best friends live in the same house as my ex-husband. A home I still partially own, even though the divorce decree states that I own no stake in the gain or debt from the property. I drove down the main street to pick up Brandon tonight, and all of the plum trees were in full bloom. They've grown so much in the last 3.5 years. They almost form a full canopy over the street now. There's something to be said about a full cover of beautiful pink blossoms. It's part of the reason why we bought the house. It's weird to be a stranger in the house. It still has all of the paint colors I picked. The two clocks with Vancouver, and Japan time are still on the walls. I don't really feel a longing for it. It's just strange that a place that I made my home is not that way anymore. It makes me want a home of my own. One that will be built to last.
I am trying to learn patience right now. I feel like I'm doing a really great job of it...but that's based on only a few small instances. I am realizing how much patience I have for children. That's not something I thought I'd ever say, but living with an almost 4 year old is teaching me a lot. Mostly that I can love so unconditionally, it's amazing. Nolan has my whole heart. All of it, without abandon. Today, he went down for his nap. I fell asleep before his nap, I'm not afraid to admit that, even after I slept for 12 hours last night...but he spent the day playing at a friend's house, and then napped when he got home. I missed him so bad during his nap, that around the 2 hour mark, all I wanted to do was wake him up so he would cuddle and watch a movie with me. I love hearing him ask if I'm going to be there when he wakes up, even though Roy, Alissa and I have explained that I will be here for a few weeks.
I'm learning patience in other areas of my life. I don't know if I'm holding on to an idea that I should let go of, or if someone bigger than me is showing me another life lesson. It's hard sometimes living in my head. I always rush everything. Need answers now. I take the first good offer, not always the best one. I hope I'm seeing this clearly as an opportunity to grow, instead of my blind want for something. I've been praying hard about it, that it's not only my will, but the will of God that will be done, but the feelings still remain. It sometimes makes me uncomfortable to feel/think/pray this way. I think the changes in my life, in general, make me uncomfortable. But I guess growth does that to you.
Oh barf. It's too late. Tomorrow is my first day at my new store, and I should really sleep. Everything will be okay, and life will continue moving on as it always does. It's just kind of that way.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
just thinking...
Today I got a phone call from the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Department. My heart sank. The first thing I could think of was, "Who died?" Followed by, "What did I do wrong?"
Turns out it was a background check for my ex-husband. I tried to remind myself of the way I used to feel about him, instead of how I currently feel, because I didn't want to royally fuck him over. The officer doing the background check was incredibly thorough and asked a lot of probing questions. This was the most I've thought about him since before Christmas. After further thinking about it, I think some of the things I told the officer I felt about him are lies. I like to think that he is one of the most honest and patient people I've ever met...but I don't know that he is. If I ever get married again, I am going to have to work through a lot of trust issues when it comes to finances. I don't know if I want to fully share my money with anyone else ever again. I'm also going to be paranoid about someone else pulling away from me. I've worked through almost every issue...but those are the two that remain. I'm terrified of meeting another man that wants to be "strong" for me. That's not what I want at all, and I always made that abundantly clear.
It's strange to think about him. To realize that I don't think about him. Someone I promised my life to. Strange to remember how I felt after we moved out of the house, and thought I'd never want to get married again. To feel how I feel now. More free than I've ever felt. Free from the walls I built around my own heart. Our whole relationship I tried to learn to let him in, told him everything about me, but I was always so afraid of being hurt. I went to counseling. I learned to make sacrifices. I moved away from all of my friends, to a place that had nothing to offer me aside from the man I pledged my life to, only to be isolated and neglected. It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
I still remember sitting down at the co-op before I moved to Mt. Vernon, with Taylor. We had dinner, and she told me about her family. Things she'd never told anyone, and she looked up at me and told me she loved me. I remember that terrifying me, wanting to crawl into myself and run. How could someone who I had met only four months earlier love me? And a friend. Someone who didn't want anything from me, didn't want to sleep with me, be with me, impress me, win me over. She just loved me because I listened. Because she loved what I was about. That naive, blonde, 21 year old girl loved me for who I was. It took me another month, but she was the first person I called when I was crying myself to sleep. When I couldn't eat, couldn't bare to be alone. It took being terrified of a friend telling me she loved me to make me realize something in me was irreparably broken and had been my whole life. To grow the balls to change it.
I don't think I knew how to really be loved until last summer. I don't think I knew the meaning of freedom...and strangely, with all of this I've also learned to be comfortable by myself. I still have some strange walls to tear down, but that's the next step. I'm terrified, and excited all at once. Everything happening around my move home could not be more planned, and perfect. The week before my birthday, as I was driving home from watching Taylor at open mic night, it started snowing big, fat, beautiful flakes. Snow always reminds me that there's someone bigger than me, watching out for me. All of the times climbing in the early morning, as the sun rises over mountains, and you just feel someone there behind you, but you're at the end of the group. So, as the snow hit my windshield, I just laughed. I asked God for two things for my birthday, to come home to Portland, and something else that I think he's working on. That weekend I got a job offer. I took it, even though it wasn't what I wanted. I am terrible at leaps of faith, but how could I not? As I started getting anxious about it, and thinking about looking at other jobs, someone at my level in the store quit. I am perfectly sliding into that position next week. All of my anxieties about moving home have been taken care of, too. I have a place to store my stuff for free for a month, and one of my friends is helping me get my car down there. I am terrible with change. I start to rebel, and try to control everything in my life through rebellion and wild antics...but I have Roy, Alissa and Nolan there. I'm going to stay with them for a month to help calm me, help me transition, and give me time to find a place of my own that I will really love. The big guy upstairs has been all over this transition.
So the next step. The thing that terrifies me is getting back into a church. I haven't been a part of a church family since I lived in Longview. Too burned by too many people. When I met Kapper, one of the things I loved about him was his faith. I thought I'd return to church, but then he got burned and turned his back. Fuck, that was 5 years ago. One of my absolute favorite things on this planet is worship, and I suppose I have found my weird, individual ways of doing it on my own. Talking to God on the side of a mountain. Crying while listening to music. Praying silently in my head. But a part of me has been breaking lately. Last year on one of my trips home, I went to church with Alissa...she wasn't even leading worship, but it didn't feel foreign. So I'm going to try going when I move home. I'm apprehensive. I'm terrified. Last time I was home, Alissa broke out her guitar and started playing some new worship songs they want her to learn, and tears welled up in my eyes. I miss it so bad. So this is me. Tearing down a big wall a year, I guess. We'll see how this one goes. I think it's going to be harder than learning to love/be loved...but part of it goes hand in hand, I think.
Ha, if you had told me this would be me just a year ago, I wouldn't have believed you. Look at me go.
Turns out it was a background check for my ex-husband. I tried to remind myself of the way I used to feel about him, instead of how I currently feel, because I didn't want to royally fuck him over. The officer doing the background check was incredibly thorough and asked a lot of probing questions. This was the most I've thought about him since before Christmas. After further thinking about it, I think some of the things I told the officer I felt about him are lies. I like to think that he is one of the most honest and patient people I've ever met...but I don't know that he is. If I ever get married again, I am going to have to work through a lot of trust issues when it comes to finances. I don't know if I want to fully share my money with anyone else ever again. I'm also going to be paranoid about someone else pulling away from me. I've worked through almost every issue...but those are the two that remain. I'm terrified of meeting another man that wants to be "strong" for me. That's not what I want at all, and I always made that abundantly clear.
It's strange to think about him. To realize that I don't think about him. Someone I promised my life to. Strange to remember how I felt after we moved out of the house, and thought I'd never want to get married again. To feel how I feel now. More free than I've ever felt. Free from the walls I built around my own heart. Our whole relationship I tried to learn to let him in, told him everything about me, but I was always so afraid of being hurt. I went to counseling. I learned to make sacrifices. I moved away from all of my friends, to a place that had nothing to offer me aside from the man I pledged my life to, only to be isolated and neglected. It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
I still remember sitting down at the co-op before I moved to Mt. Vernon, with Taylor. We had dinner, and she told me about her family. Things she'd never told anyone, and she looked up at me and told me she loved me. I remember that terrifying me, wanting to crawl into myself and run. How could someone who I had met only four months earlier love me? And a friend. Someone who didn't want anything from me, didn't want to sleep with me, be with me, impress me, win me over. She just loved me because I listened. Because she loved what I was about. That naive, blonde, 21 year old girl loved me for who I was. It took me another month, but she was the first person I called when I was crying myself to sleep. When I couldn't eat, couldn't bare to be alone. It took being terrified of a friend telling me she loved me to make me realize something in me was irreparably broken and had been my whole life. To grow the balls to change it.
I don't think I knew how to really be loved until last summer. I don't think I knew the meaning of freedom...and strangely, with all of this I've also learned to be comfortable by myself. I still have some strange walls to tear down, but that's the next step. I'm terrified, and excited all at once. Everything happening around my move home could not be more planned, and perfect. The week before my birthday, as I was driving home from watching Taylor at open mic night, it started snowing big, fat, beautiful flakes. Snow always reminds me that there's someone bigger than me, watching out for me. All of the times climbing in the early morning, as the sun rises over mountains, and you just feel someone there behind you, but you're at the end of the group. So, as the snow hit my windshield, I just laughed. I asked God for two things for my birthday, to come home to Portland, and something else that I think he's working on. That weekend I got a job offer. I took it, even though it wasn't what I wanted. I am terrible at leaps of faith, but how could I not? As I started getting anxious about it, and thinking about looking at other jobs, someone at my level in the store quit. I am perfectly sliding into that position next week. All of my anxieties about moving home have been taken care of, too. I have a place to store my stuff for free for a month, and one of my friends is helping me get my car down there. I am terrible with change. I start to rebel, and try to control everything in my life through rebellion and wild antics...but I have Roy, Alissa and Nolan there. I'm going to stay with them for a month to help calm me, help me transition, and give me time to find a place of my own that I will really love. The big guy upstairs has been all over this transition.
So the next step. The thing that terrifies me is getting back into a church. I haven't been a part of a church family since I lived in Longview. Too burned by too many people. When I met Kapper, one of the things I loved about him was his faith. I thought I'd return to church, but then he got burned and turned his back. Fuck, that was 5 years ago. One of my absolute favorite things on this planet is worship, and I suppose I have found my weird, individual ways of doing it on my own. Talking to God on the side of a mountain. Crying while listening to music. Praying silently in my head. But a part of me has been breaking lately. Last year on one of my trips home, I went to church with Alissa...she wasn't even leading worship, but it didn't feel foreign. So I'm going to try going when I move home. I'm apprehensive. I'm terrified. Last time I was home, Alissa broke out her guitar and started playing some new worship songs they want her to learn, and tears welled up in my eyes. I miss it so bad. So this is me. Tearing down a big wall a year, I guess. We'll see how this one goes. I think it's going to be harder than learning to love/be loved...but part of it goes hand in hand, I think.
Ha, if you had told me this would be me just a year ago, I wouldn't have believed you. Look at me go.
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