Soul Food

My real life family sort of sucks. And by sort of I mean definitely. And a bunch. In fact 'sort of that means definitely' so much that after years and years of trying to repair things after a particularly ridiculous argument that involved me being kicked out of the house as a teen (for reals I was an awesome kid and did nothing wrong) and many years before that filled with an alcoholic and, quite likely, bi-polar mother I realized that as many times as I'd been convinced things could get better I'd also been disappointed. And once I made that realization I decided to move on from the emotional equivalent of watching the Twilight movies. I was putting a whole lot in and not getting anything out of it other than headaches and the distinct impression that none of this was ever going to make any sense.

And now I have a new family. We don't share DNA and I'll never have their nose or eyes but they are so the people who I was meant to spend holidays with and come to when I need guidance and nothing makes me happier than being home with them and helping the girls pack for a trip or helping the woman I think of as my mom and one of my closest friends clean the kitchen after dinner because that's what families do.

After a rough couple weeks and a draining day yesterday I text my "mom" (let's call her S) asking if I could see them soon. Within five minutes I had a call from the littlest munchkin asking me to come over for lunch this weekend. And I happily agreed.

What I thought would be an hour or so visit turned into a nearly five hour one. When I was leaving S said "I hope this felt good for your soul." and that's exactly what it did, fed my soul.

Reflections and Resolutions

When I was about 18 my then boyfriend's mom told me that as you get older time seems to go by more quickly because each day, month, year becomes a smaller percentage of your life. At the time I thought it was a bit of a silly theory but as I've gotten older it's proved true. I remember when the months seemed to last forever and now they fly by.

2010 for me both lasted far too long and went by way too quickly. In the beginning of the year I was dealing with the geographical loss of a few friends and that was fairly difficult for me. Then I had a friend attempt suicide. This friend was my best friend and the only person I've ever been able to speak so openly and honestly with. After his attempt he disappeared from my life. He's still alive but has decided to not speak with me any longer. I don't fault him. He may just need time to work on things, he may blame me for not doing something sooner to help him be okay...I don't know. I miss him and love him dearly and I hope one day we can know each other again but right now that's not reality. After I lost this friend I went through a really rough time. I went from being extremely busy and social to creating a life that involved work and sleep and little else. I ended up losing more friends because of how little involvement I had in their and my own lives.

I've mentioned before that I started therapy this year and it all essentially came from that incident with my friend. I mean, to be sure there was a build up of things and I definitely needed therapy long before this year but I guess things came together in just the right way to completely break me down and make me get help. And even though 2010 was the worst year in some ways it was also the best because I feel like a real person now, a feeling I didn't even know before. What I considered normal was so high strung and scheduled and pressured that it was only after feeling the way I do now that I understood I perhaps have never felt normal my entire life. It was freeing and grounding and amazing. And I'm so thankful to have that now.

I'm also thankful for Craig who was such a good friend when I was the worst of friends. Craig allowed me to talk about things that were serious or to just ignore everything in my life and be distracted for a bit. He also stuck around for months when I didn't want to hang out or return phone calls. He would have been completely justified in walking away from our friendship and he didn't. I'm not sure he'll ever know how much I appreciate that.

I don't think Lana realizes the significance of herself in my life either. After nearly a year of being opposed to creating any kind of new relationships because of this stubborn insistence and fear that any person in my life would leave me this girl stepped in and broke down those walls for me. And I'm having a ton of fun with her.

This past year also proved that I do have a family in the family I nannied for. The girls are in my life in a significant way and going over to have dinner with their family makes me feel at home. It's one of my favorite feelings. I love being with them. I love helping and knowing where everything is and just feeling a part of these people. I love being expected to be there on holidays and the hugs I get when I walk in the door and that I'm the first one asked to watch the girls when their parents go out of town and the fact that they don't have to tell me anything before they leave because we're that close.

I'm glad last year is over and that I have a feeling of beginning something new but I also hope that this year continues to help me grow and learn as much as the past one did. Just maybe sans some of the rough parts. And while I'm not big on resolutions because I feel it's a setup for failure I do have some things I want to work on.

I want to make dinner for someone once a week. A real dinner and it doesn't really matter who for. I love cooking so much and I don't want to continue to let life get in the way and keep me from doing something I love.

I want to write a blog post every day but I realize there's no way that's going to happen. I think a goal of a post five days a week is practical.

I want to start working out regularly. But I hate the gym. And I especially hate the gym in January when everyone has resolved to work out. I instead am going to play Just Dance on Wii every day for at least a half hour. Don't make fun of me until you try dancing to Justice's D.A.N.C.E. on that game. I guarantee you'll agree it's a legit workout. Plus I'm totally going to gain some moves.

I want to create. I need to do that and so often it slips away. I am going to be sure to draw, paint, glue, something at least once a week.

And I think that's a good start. There are other things I could put on this list but I want to actually do these things and not feel overwhelmed or obligated. So, here's to 2011!

Oh, I also have a really fun daily photo project I'm going to do for the next 30 days so keep an eye out for that.

Asking For Help

So, I don't usually write about "serious things" but lately I've been feeling really thankful for my friends. This week alone I have a friend who brought my packages into my apartment for me when I wasn't there, another friend who is hanging a chandelier for me and putting up with my not understanding tools or wiring or anything at all related to this light and my impulse to buy it, and another friend who is going to come over and sit in my apartment and wait for my groceries to be delivered because I'm not only too busy to grocery shop but I'm too busy to wait for groceries to arrive. And while my friends are truly amazing and deserve bunches of thanks a part of me is really proud of myself right now because I'm asking for help. Which is a new thing for me.

There's a long back story but basically my parents are a little (read: lots) nuts and kicked me out of the house when I was a teenager. I know it sounds hard to believe but I honestly was a great kid and hadn't done anything wrong. I've made a few attempts at a relationship with my mom but it's just never been worth all the ups and downs and headaches that come with it. I've always described it to people like, if that was a relationship with a friend or boyfriend everyone who loves me would be telling me to get out. And while some people have lovely families the one you end up with is really arbitrary and mine just happens to not be that awesome. I'm not going to let the fact that I'm related to someone mean I need to make myself stressed and upset over a relationship I get nothing beneficial from.

So, this relationship, or non-relationship, I have with my parents has sort of fucked me up. Not like extremely but enough that I have a major part of me that insists I must be able to care for myself in every aspect of my life. It doesn't really lend well to asking for help with anything. And it sort of sucks because I won't ask for help until I'm at my breaking point and by then it's too late to really matter.

This past year was really rough for me with a lot of friends leaving my life which left me feeling all those feelings I had with my parents again. I felt even more determined to do everything myself and a bigger refusal to let people into my life, because, in my mind, they all would leave anyways. And then, I was driving one day and I couldn't breathe. It was pouring rain, really hard even for here, and I couldn't pull over and I just felt like I couldn't make myself do the most natural of things and just take a breathe. When I finally did start breathing again I realized it was time to ask for help.

I know this is maybe a sort of taboo thing to reveal but I feel it's important to be open about this. I don't think making people feel bad for getting help does any good whereas being open may allow someone else to feel well and that would be awesome. So, I started seeing a therapist. Who was really bad at her job. So I stopped seeing her and started seeing someone else who is amazing and everything I thought I didn't want. I was not keen on seeing a male therapist because I thought I wouldn't be able to be as open as I would with a female doctor and I didn't want to see a psychiatrist because I'm not that cool with taking medicine for a cold so I didn't think I'd want to be taking something daily. But after some time and some of the medicine I was so opposed to once upon a time I started to feel better and realize how not normal I had been feeling before. I started relaxing and not feeling like any mistake I made would make people leave me and I stopped being so insane about schedules. And all of a sudden now, I'm able to ask for help. Which may seem like a small step but is huge for me. And luckily I have amazing friends willing to give me that help.