It's December 28th do you know where your resolutions are?

Now that I've caught up on the gazillion items in my reader I have a moment to blog. Noticed three specific themes while reading other blogs. 1. Best of 2009, 2. Christmas, 3. New Year's Resolutions.

I can't really do a "best of" because I don't update the blog enough. My blog is not "best of" worthy. Maybe one day..when it grows up to be a real blog.

Christmas....I'll get to that.

New Year's Resolutions...don't really do them..but I do promise to update more.

Christmas - Hubby and I left Long Beach on Thursday for the drive to the Sacramento area. It took us only SIX hours which is our best time yet..and that's with a gas stop. We're staying with one of my brothers and his wife and the rest of my siblings and their kids all joined us for Christmas. It was awesome..fourteen kids. We had a great time opening gifts and just laughing. I laughed a lot. It was sad that my dad wasn't there, but that's on him. There were a few emotional moments. My sister brought over some baked goods, specifically some specialties my mom used to make. I hadn't seen those since before she passed and I shed a few tears while enjoying the tasty treats. My sister in law gave us all this beautiful poem framed about loss and memory. All of us teared up at that..but again..it was ok. Christmas is for memories and my mom helped us make a lot of those. For that we are very blessed.

Initially the husband I planned to spend the holiday on the road. We had originally planned an extended road trip but my brother persuaded us to spend the holiday with him and my siblings and I'm glad we did. We did part of our road trip anyway and took off on Sunday for Santa Cruz.

I love Santa Cruz. It's always been one of my favorite places and hubby has never been so it was fun to share it with him. We did some exploring and shopping. And of course we ate at the wharf..an overpriced dinner that catered to tourists...but what the heck. That's when the trip took a weird turn.

I haven't talked about it much but the husband and I have been doing very poorly. Poorly to the point that growing old together didn't seem like an option. I don't want to go into details about the issue...but it was a big one. And it's grown worse over the past several months. Our relationship had deteriorated to the point that it was just difficult being around him. I hate that. It takes a lot of energy to be unhappy and I was very unhappy. And I did try to let go...but everytime I did I was reminded that the issue still existed and it wasn't going to go away. I have tried talking about it to him but that didn't seem to work either and I truly had given up.

So...before we went to dinner he asked me why I looked upset and I told him that I was sad because here we are on this little trip away and it's impossible to truly enjoy it because things aren't right. Once we sat down to dinner the discussion began and it wasn't a great one. It just didn't seem like we were hearing each other. At least the restaurant was slow and we had an entire section to ourselves. Once we finished eating we told the waitress that we were just going to sit back and finish our bottle of wine and she left us alone for a bit.

The final straw of our discussion was when he told me that he realized what needed to be changed but didn't know if it was worth attempting because perhaps I had already given up....and that's when I reminded him that if it was truly important to him..it wouldn't matter if I had. If our relationship was truly that important he wouldn't stop to think about if it was too late..he'd try anyway.

Then there was total silence for quite a few minutes. He realized that I was right. I had to explain that by his lack of response in the past I had to assume that he just didn't care. Because if he did care, wouldn't he do something?

Now..everything isn't all honky dory and we didn't go back to the hotel and make out like teenagers because this is real life. And this is a real problem. It's going to take some time.

But it was nice to feel that he "got" it.

We got up this morning and headed to San Francisco where we did some more shopping (I know, but I really needed those boots...and the pumps...) We had a fabulous lunch and a very nice afternoon.

We still have a lot of work to do. But I feel better about things. Being angry, hurt, and upset does take up so much energy and even though I don't believe in resolutions I do want to be happier in 2010.

The one thing that I did accomplish this year was I finally received closure on losing my mom. It's still hard and I still have bad days but I feel better. I've reached a point where even though I miss her so much every day I feel her close to me. I feel her in the things I say to my kids that she said to me. I feel her when I look at my brothers and feel so grateful I have them in my life. I feel her when I look at my sister and realize that she just isn't my sister anymore, but my friend.

All in all...the trip was a success and I enjoyed my Christmas. Tomorrow morning we hit the road to go back to reality. SIGH.

Happy Holidays

Are you ready for Christmas? Because I'm NOT!!!!



But I'm not in a panic yet.



The kids leave Saturday morning to go up to their dad's. Hubby and I leave on the 24th to go up north. Ironically we'll be just a few miles away from the boys so we've opted to get together up there to open gifts rather than try to open them up here before they leave. In the meantime I have every minute planned.



Thursday night - Beav's play

Friday night - celebrating friend's birthday at wine bar

Saturday night - girlfriend dinner

Sunday - our annual open house (tons of food shopping and prep to do)



I'm really looking forward to getting up north. We're getting together with my brothers and my sister for Christmas dinner. It will be kinda weird without my dad but I'm so looking forward to getting together with them and having a real family holiday. I was truly hoping Thanksgiving would do that for me but that day went horribly wrong.



I can't believe that I'm actually looking forward to Christmas. I never thought that would happen for me again and I'm so thankful.

It's A Wonderful Life...Isn't It?

I seriously underestimated how difficult Christmas would be. Thanksgiving was tough, but easier because I was with my family. Knowing my sister, brothers, and my dad will all be together while I'm here, well, it sucks. I was hoping going to the Christmas Eve service would help but I ended up crying during the whole thing. This has just been a sucky week and felt like it was seven days instead of just three. Part of my biggest issue with grief has been my inability to control my emotions. It's as if I'm on hyperdrive. A consequence of this is that I constantly second guess everything I feel and do. If something upsets or angers me, am I legitimately upset or angry, or am I overreacting? I go through this process with EVERYTHING and its excruciating.

A secondary effect of this condition is that I tend to excuse the bad behavior of other’s. If someone mistreats me, is rude, etc, I tend to make excuses for them. Because, maybe I’m just being super sensitive. Or maybe they’re having a rough day. OR MAYBE THEY’RE JUST BEING AN ASS.

That’s what I really need to realize.

I’ve been doing this with some of the girls I work with. I’ve tried hard, maybe too hard, to be friendly, part of the gang, etc. It’s not working. My boss came out of her office the other day and announces to me that we (the billing dept) need to do a better job of collecting copays. We need to make sure that we’re doing a better job of telling the girls up front which patients on the schedule have a copay. So I mention that ever day I do indeed mark copays on the schedule up front. The same schedule that the girls at the front desk have to check every time a patient signs in. So then my office mate says that perhaps we should make a point to check up front for the patients so that we can collect the copay. I tell her that is seriously f’d up. How can we do our job and get up, leave our office, and check to see if the patient is here? It’s just as easy for the girls at the front desk to check off the patient and let us know. Of course the reasonable expectation would be that the girls at the front desk would actually ask for the copay, but they seem to have some aversion to that.

Anyway, the next day I received the silent treatment from half the girls in the office. It felt like I was in high school and seriously pissed me off. This would be the same day I brought in my Christmas gifts for the office staff. They couldn’t break their silent treatment to say thanks.

On the flip side is my overreaction to things. I tried to make what I thought was a joke to a friend and she sent me an email letting me know she didn’t appreciate. I immediately responded with an apology and then literally spent the rest of the day agonizing over what I had done. Which is ridiculous. I made a joke, there was certainly no ill will intended and she didn’t like it. Why am I beating myself up about it. She let me know how she felt, I respect that. We’re friends, best friends, and this really isn’t the end of the world. But for me, it’s like picking at a hangnail. I just can’t relax and let things go.

I just can’t keep putting myself through this. It’s exhausting and stressful. I just keep thinking things will get easier, but it doesn’t. Maybe I should just accept this and learn to deal with it.

In other news I think a skunk has set up residence under my house, more specifically under my bedroom.

Sigh.

Thursday Ten

1. Taking a week of off kickboxing kicks my ass. I’ve only gone twice this week and tomorrow I have my session with my trainer. I have a feeling that I won’t be able to walk afterwards. However, as I see the scale go lower, it’s all worth it.

2. I really don’t know what to do about work. I’m afraid to make any big decisions because I understand that emotionally, I’m not all there. So part of me isn’t sure that I’m unhappy because of all the other circumstances or am I unhappy because things at work really suck.

3. I’ve been working on a list of pros and cons. That’s normally how I make a lot of decisions.

4. Pros – flexibility, if I need to leave early, come in late, it’s not that big of a deal. I can work part time so I can go to school. It’s close to home, no long commute.

5. Cons – everytime someone in the office doesn’t want to deal with something, it gets pushed onto to me. Everyone seems nice but they really talk shit about everybody behind their backs. I can only imagine what they say about me. The office isn’t conducted in as professional a manner as I would like.

6. The biggest (possible) con is that I’m unhappy. But am I unhappy because of work or because of the other stuff or is it a little bit of both?

7. Can you tell that I totally OVERTHINK things? Ugh, it’s a horrible trait. I do it during kickboxing too, and that’s a bad trait to have when someone is wearing boxing gloves and is looking forward to punching you.

8. The hardest part of all of this is not being able to get a handle on my emotional state. Normally when things are tough I can talk myself into a positive state of mind. I normally NEVER waste time feeling sorry for myself. In fact every morning I get up and think to myself that ‘today will be a better day’ which lasts for about two hours.

9. But heck, at least I keep trying.

10. This weekend is the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade. I hate to deal with all the people and the crowds but Einstein is in it and what kind of mom would be if I stayed home? Other than that, it should be a quiet weekend. I hope to finish the rest of my Christmas shopping because this is the LAST quiet weekend I have before Christmas.