Random thought of the day

Do you know how I know that I have ALWAYS dated the same type of males?

There has not been one relationship that I have been in that I haven’t had to fight id Friends is a better TV show then the Simpsons.

Closure

When my ex boyfriend died by suicide I was sent into a gigantic tailspin of emotions, as expected. At fifteen you are supposed to be worried about school dances, playing in this weeks big game or if you should try to get a cash pay job to help save for a car. Instead I was trying to find something to numb the feelings of grief as we buried the boy that I was building my entire life around. That boy was supposed to be my happy ever after, my end game. Instead, we were picking out caskets. His family was amazing for letting me be a part of everything after he died, from reading at the funeral to helping clean out his room. I got to be there as they spoke of memories over and over from him growing up. There was something that I was able to do though and it is something that bothers me to this day.

Twenty years later and I am still battling for closure.

What I have learned is that I am now extremely fierce with making sure that I have closure in every other part of my life. I will cut people off with no chance of me talking to them again when I notice that we are struggling too hard to keep going. When someone does wrong by me, it’s done. No conversation needed. I am well aware there is an extreme level of bitch here but I can’t seem to soften the edges. I need the closure more then I care how bitchy I come off.

I sit sometimes trying to decide what I would need from my ex to get the closure I feel I need. The reason he felt he needed to end everything is clearly at the top of that list but there is more.

Why couldn’t he confide in me? Why couldn’t he see past the things going on at that point? Did he honestly believe that we would be better off without him? Why wasn’t I enough? Did I miss the signs?

I have dedicated twenty years to reading into mental health struggles, tactics, and roads to recovery. I will never question that things go deeper than anyone can understand. I fully understand that it is impossible to answer those questions most the time. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to ask. I think more and more about comments he said to me over the years, wondering if he was trying to get me to see it. It makes me over analyze words coming from people around me, especially my children. One of his hardest problems in life was an incredibly opinionated, overly strict parent. This leads me to pull back when I go for the bad cop approach with all of my kids, nieces and nephews. He struggled with learning disabilities that went under the radar and I feel like I am super quick to suggest to people that bad behavior may stem from a learning disorder the child is embarrassed about. I never realized that it may have stemmed from that until my therapist said something. There are so many other things that I notice could directly stem from him, or even the recovery of him, that I can’t help but smile.

Here he thought that he was trouble and we would all be better off without him, but over twenty years from when we buried him and he still influences decisions that I make now. Those influences keep me working to make sure that everyone around me lives a slightly better life then they would have without me in it. Not being egotistic in the slightest, just meaning that I work to make sure they smile as often as possible all while knowing someone is here looking out for them. Through anything. I will talk openly, as honest as I can, without holding judgement to them when they struggle.

I, of course, will judge a little if they choose to wear socks with sandals. 🙂

I like to think that he know’s he deserves the credit. I know for a fact that his family members are all on similar missions, with similar reasons.

He mattered.

Things I learned today

I learned today that the most popular pet in America this year (maybe every year?) is fish!

This seemed super strange. I have a kid that needed to do this research for a school project and decided that I needed to have this information so I felt the need to share.

You are welcome.

P.S. Cats came in second, which also blew my mind since I would have naturally assumed it to be dogs. Phew! What would life be without kids school projects to teach us random information that we didn’t need to know.

Vacation ideas

I am currently trying to plan out fun places to take my family this year. Some one day trips and looking into longer ones, on more of a budget this time. We are currently debating Wisconsin Dells as a place to maybe spend a week at. Does anyone have any experience there? If so what are places to see as well as places to avoid? We have ages 10 through 40 between the lot of us to consider.

Also we are looking to go more west into Montana or the likes. I love the idea of open skies, amazing sunrises and sunsets. I have a few horse lovers, most four wheeling, dirt bike riding, nature hiking, boat riding and adventure parks type styles. I have posted on all social media platforms looking for the best places to go and am now asking you all. Please feel free to recommend anywhere, even if it is not budget restricted fun. I will save more for the ones I find necessary! I trust you all to give me awesome suggestions!

I would love to have endless money and travel oversees but the timing does not seem right currently.

Thanks for suggestions!

Secondhand Trauma

A very close friend of mine was cheated on by her long term boyfriend last year. I have made a few cryptic posts all over my social media accounts because it was her story to tell so I was waiting for her. She spent almost a year recovering from this trauma. I think she spent the first six months sitting in shock. This was supposed to be her good guy. Her happily ever after guy that fought through her walls that she put up after the last train wreck. This girl has been through the ringer for sure. She has always been a rockstar, but this womans battles put mine to shame.

This last month she has been much more vocal about it now that she is working on the recovery. She has told her parents and siblings finally, giving herself a support system that is bigger then just her and I. I watched this woman rebuild shattered pieces while hiding the truth from everyone near her. She knew that she was going to stay with him. She knew that her family and other friends would annihilate him and pressure her to leave him. She for whatever reason has chosen to stay and is full-heartedly leaning on me to help her get through it anyway.

There have been a lot of things that I have done in life that I classify as hard, but this is getting added to the top of the list. Seeing as I am not in that relationship, I have zero feelings to get tangled up in. Well that’s wrong too isn’t it. I stood up at their wedding for them. I was there the night that she met him, it was me that drove her home from the school dance that was their first kiss and it was me that helped her get through the traumatic start to their relationship. He has grown on me over the years and their babies are some of the best joys in my life. So I am emotionally involved. There has never been a question as to who’s side I will always be on however. I would still be beside her even is she was the one that cheated, lied and broke him to a million pieces like he did to her. So I do have to take that into account.

The sex, love and happy feelings for him keep her in that relationship, but it doesn’t keep me. I am resentful of him, for breaking my rock. I am bitter and making comments under my breath constantly and am now getting worried that my feelings will come between us all now. He wasn’t there to see her having to rebuild because she did it in private. She told me that he cheated because of his own self esteem issues and she couldn’t hammer down on him without being scared he would break more.

So her whole damn world IMPLODES on her, but she has to hold back so his doesn’t?

She makes excuses not to go to therapy, thinking that she can handle it on her own. She writes him letters and burns them because I told her that was what I did to get over the death of my ex boyfriend. She now even writes to herself but I can only imagine she is tearing herself apart in those to explain how he could do that to her. She spends a lot of time talking about the things that she could have been doing better with over the years with him. While in no way am I telling her that seems unrealistic, I am further stressing his role in this instead. He should have pushed harder for whatever change to happen between them long before he looked elsewhere. He should have explained how important those things could be before EVER looking elsewhere.

This man stepped out of his marriage. He started simple, using porn as an avenue that led to more. He had so many warning signs that he was well aware to be stepping over, still ultimately making the choice. What started as innocent enough, turned into verbal communications leading to video chats before finally meeting up in real life. The fact that he was paying for it with money that he could have been using in so many better ways bothers me. She says at least it means he wasn’t in love with her.

I think that he has himself convinced that it wasn’t so bad because he knew this way it would strictly be sexual, not emotional which he considers to be worse.

Over a year in and I don’t think that I have made it an entire day without a phone call or text from her falling apart. I can’t go a single day without hating him. Her entire world is still in shreds and she acts strong in front of her family, their children and other friends.

She hides in kitchen pantries and showers to fall apart but then hides them in a beautiful package to show to world.

When does he break down? When does he have to worry about crying or showing too much emotion to his children or family? How often is he having to lie to everyone around him about things that he had no participation in? How often is he having to lie just to keep those around him accepting of her? The little decisions that she has to consistently make to go along with his deception in mind boggling.

I watch the process play out in her head in almost every conversation with anyone around her and I get infuriated more.

The two of us have given each other a wide berth, taking turns with her time and keeping ourself distanced. He told me he understood why I have such strong opinions here but that it is not my relationship and I need to respect them enough to let them handle it.

Of course I know he makes absolute sense.

My problem is HOW TO DO THAT.

That was a shock

Have you ever stopped and actually looked up the foods nutritional labels? I mean completely stop and look up half of the ingredients?

What I find even scarier is looking at foods made in America vs Europe. The amount of extra toxins that America puts into its food is honestly terrifying. I ignored this for a very long time, but these last few years I have had health scared that have shown me to watch what exactly is going inside my body. I feel like I have heard a lot of people saying something very similar to that, but it doesn’t catch on until it happens to someone very close to you.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a health nut. I did not deep dive down this rabbit hole but being made aware of it made me start making better choices.

I have been on a weight loss journey for a few years that was working quiet successfully until my body decided I didn’t need my gallbladder any longer. This seems simple enough, but trust me when I say this lead to many other things that backslid my weight loss. I was not completely recovered to the point of getting back to the gym and shopping/cooking/eating healthy meals until just about two months ago.

All this to say, pay attention to what you are putting into your body. It’s very easy to ignore it and assume that since it is being sold in all stores that it has to be ok to have once in a while. Sometimes it’s not though, and most of the time by the time that you realize it is not its pretty late in the game.

Stay well everyone.

Therapy Sessions

Does anyone else using writing as their therapy?

I know that I should probably call and get in to see another therapist now that I have left my old one, but I can’t seem to convince myself that it is worth it. I dove headfirst into writing on multiple platforms, and I truly do feel as though this has taught me to work through things better then she ever did.

Don’t get me wrong I have seen multiple therapists over the years, being raised by very forward thinking parents who wanted to make sure that my siblings and I could know how to deal with things from the moment they happened. It was an amazing thought from them honestly, looking back at it now. I of course thought it was beyond stupid at the time, even when I was going through things that I needed to be in therapy for.

That just comes along with knowing better than my parents at any age though ( as any child will tell you is always true).

I do believe that I took this as a challenge in some ways however. I think my guardian angel was mad that my parents tried to get one up on her so she kept putting harder and harder obstacles in front of me.

In the end however this lead to me being a very confident person the majority of the time. I feel comfortable with my decisions, and feel as though I understand other peoples behaviors better than most. I can tell when someone else is going through things, and feel like I have been shown tools over the years that help me talk to them. This of course is a blessing and a curse seeing as I am also very empathetic and tend to absorb their emotions, causing me to have to fight them off as well at times.

The other perk to this has started to occur to me recently though. I notice the things that I have heard over the years from people are showing up in the stories that I write. Short stories or a long piece, blogs or poems it is all there. Showing up without me realizing where they came from. I never stick exactly to the situation but it keeps me from falling into the same loops.

Keep on writing folks