The weekend was full of ups and downs it seemed. I hate the days like that. I am not a huge fan of change, so it makes sense that I like my mood and my feelings to be relatively even without the highs and lows. If I were to draw a picture of what it felt like on Saturday, it would look like an ecg and you would see v-tach. Up, down, happy, not happy. Angry, not angry. Sad, not sad. Come on brain, snap out of it. I guess that's just the nature of the beast when dealing with things like this. The worst part is not being able to put a name to it. You can't just say, "This is why I feel sad so I can do this to fix it." It's just there. It just is. But it still sucks.
So between taking classes and teaching classes, I've spent the last 4 Saturdays in a class room. Finally a weekend to relax showed up. I started thinking about ways to pull myself out of this funk I've been in, and I thought to myself, "Self. You should paint the living room. Paint it a calming color. Then after a long day, you can sit down with your knitting and your kindle and relax." Sounds legit, right? Once the wheels started turning, there was no stopping them. I wanted to paint the living room. Travis didn't want to paint the living room. So, we compromised and painted the living room. Initially, he was not any help. There is a method to my madness, though. I was not worried. I knew I wouldn't be tackling this job alone for long. He was working on the wainscot project in the kitchen, paying virtually no attention to me. As far as he knew, I was still in the thinking phase of my redecorating mood. Alas, I pulled the couch away from the wall, taped up the edges, and spackled the nail holes in the wall with concrete patch. I honestly did not know you couldn't do that. He walked out to the living room, took one look and said, "What the crap are you doing?!" I jumped, startled, "What? I'm spackling." I hadn't paid much attention to the label on the container. Perhaps I should have, but let's just be honest. Even if I had noticed what it was, I still would have assumed it was fine. It said it would patch stuff. And that's what I was going for so why not? I shooed him away and began my project. He returned with actual spackle and fixed the holes, told me to let it dry, and went back to what he was doing. Now what, I wondered. I sat down and watched the spackle dry. (Hey, feeling down isn't always conducive with wanting to do anything productive. After a few minutes, I assumed it was dry and started rolling the grey paint on the wall. I'm me, so of course I got it all over the baseboard and I wasn't getting it on the wall evenly at all. Now, if I was really putting forth great effort it might have gone better, but this was what I was willing to give at that time because I really just wanted Travis to do it. He emerged from the kitchen and said, "Oh my god, just let me do it." I said okay, and sat down to watch him. One wall in, I realized something horrible. I didn't like it. The paint was not as grey as I had hoped. It was more of a baby blue. No, that will never do. Back to the store we went for different paint. This time I was happy.
Painting continued into the wee hours of the morning. Since I was basically of no use, I sat on the displaced furniture and talked to Travis while he worked. I don't want to sound unappreciative. I'm very appreciative of all that he puts up with, because honestly, it can't be easy. That's one of the things I've really realized along the way to learning more about myself and who I am. It's easy initially to like me. I know that much. At first glance, I'm confident, kind, funny, and compassionate. I know that. It's when people really get into my heart that I have a hard time. I always have felt that if they truly saw my heart, they would see too much. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I know what my flaws are. I know why I do the things I do. I don't know how to fix it though, and that's the problem. I'm planning to talk to someone who went to school to handle people like me. I have a long list of things that I want to change so I can finally be happy and content and know that it's going to stay that way. When Travis and I started talking, it all just came out. I'm my own worst enemy. I cut myself down and I legitimately believe the things that I say to myself. People pay me compliments fairly regularly. Whether it's in person, on Facebook, or through a text message or email, I hear nice things a lot. But I don't believe any of them. People tell me that I'm funny. Okay, I believe that a little bit. People tell me I'm beautiful. I don't see that when I look in the mirror. I see a 30 year old lady with dull hair and dull features. People tell me I'm amazing and I deserve to be happy. I don't believe that either, so when something comes into my life that could be a gateway to happiness, or at least supplement a happy life, I destroy it. Times that should have been happy and exciting in my life were not even close to being happy or exciting. For me, it was full of nerves and predictions that everything would implode. In my mind, the worst case scenario has already happened. That's where I live. I think I approach things this way because I'm so afraid of that worst case scenario, that I think if I beat it to the punch I can get ahead of the 8 ball. Like ripping off a band aid. Then if the worst case scenario comes true, I can say, "Ha. I told you so." And subsequently I can lick my wounds (I know they are self induced at that point) and heal. Will I learn for next time to be positive? Hell no. Every time it happens I become a little more jaded. A little more sure that the world is going to hurt me at every opportunity. I'm a little more sure that people will give up on me. Why shouldn't they? Who wants to be around someone like this? It doesn't matter what the situation is. I find the negative possibilities and I focus on them. Eventually in many cases those possibilities turn into the reality because I'm too busy tending to what is going wrong and not paying attention to what's going right. Is it too late by that time? Usually. And again, every time that happens, I just become more jaded.
When I found out my job was in jeopardy in 2004, from the moment I left my office until the day I handed in my keys and my ID, I lived in a box. I couldn't take care of my daughter. I couldn't afford anything because in my world, I had already lost my job and it was all done.
When we put in our offer on our first house, I was a basket case. There's always some hesitation when making a major purchase like a home, but there should be some happy anticipation, shouldn't there? I was positive the offer would be rejected with no counter offer made. To rid me of that possibility, I insisted, and I mean INSISTED that we offer the full asking price. My dad was sitting at the dining room table with me, Travis, and our realtor Karla when I said the dollar amount to make the offer for. His eyes just about bugged out of his head. "Glena Renee, that is the full asking price! You have to negotiate. You can get a better price." I didn't care. I didn't want there to be any reason for them to counteroffer or reject it, so we offered the full asking price. (Actually $5,000.00 over and we built that in as our down payment, but that's just fluff.) My dad wouldn't even look at me for the rest of the night. I felt awful because he of course has more experience with buying and selling houses than I did, but it was the only thing that would reassure me. Except it didn't. And that's another problem. I can never just be content about a situation. If one issue is resolved, I move on to the next. Nothing can be taken at face value. I'm always sure it will be taken away. Again, I can make some assumptions as to why I feel that way, but getting out of that world is what gives me trouble. When I feel myself start to relax, the worries about what could go wrong creep in again. It's almost like I'm not happy unless I'm worrying, and that is sick. If I am not worried, I worry about what I'm forgetting to worry about. If there's really nothing to worry about, then I create something to worry about. When I had to have surgery in 2009, my children were basically already orphans. It physically hurt my heart to look at them because I was positive that I was going to end up having ovarian cancer and I would die. After I was out of surgery and everything was confirmed to be perfectly fine, I worried about a post surgical infection and any time I felt any wave of not feeling perfectly healthy, I panicked.
See, the thing of it is, this is stuff that I've always sort of made fun of about myself. Then the reality hit me that this could actually be driving people out of my life. Again, there are days when I feel like I'm not worth anything and if anyone truly saw my heart and everything that is wrong with me, they would see too much and they would be gone. Perhaps I need to realize that the people who are supposed to be in my life would never do such a thing. Perhaps I'm too hard on myself. Perhaps I do need to learn how to relax and just let whatever is going to happen happen. Is that possible? I think it is. It won't be easy though. It's going to take a lot of work on my part and a huge drive to change and make myself into the person I want to be, and the person people think they know. I like that girl. I want to be her.
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