The first step

How do you get a friend to take the first step to changing their lives?

I have a friend who's in a high stress place in his life. He started to make the changes but has lost momentum. He is now stuck in a holding pattern that is not good for his mental health.

Problem is the next few steps that he needs to take are going to suck. He needs to move, or at the very least pack his ex-fiances stuff up and make "their" house "his". He needs to break out of this pattern of work, sleep, work (even if it's just an hour at the driving range).

When I met him he was confident (you could even say cocky), positive, cheery, energetic and adventurous (and many more things). Those wonderful traits have been dulled down. His confidence is waning, his positivity is next to nill, he has become totally hard on himself. Even when he does something amazing (like quit smoking) he finds something else to beat himself up about. To get him out to do anything is impossible. I've stop asking because I'm tired of being turned down.

Any suggestions would be great as I'm beyond worried about the path he his heading down.

Honestly I don't know what to do. Suggestions would be wonderful please :)

Something old revisited

Here is something I wrote many years ago. Reading it reminds me of so much. What do you think?

A Shark I could watch you dance forever. The way your body moves with the music, Like a shark, slow and deliberate. You close your eyes and let the music take over. It's a beautiful thing to watch, A shark swimming towards its prey.

Friendship

Friendship. It is a rare thing. A true friend is almost like a unicorn, a mythical creature. Note I said almost. I have watched my circle of friends dwindle as time passes. Now in my early thirties I look at the small circle that is left around me and am amazed by who is left. These jewels, amazing, beautiful human beings have stood the test of time. My newest friendship being a year old and my oldest one being 26 years old.

What I find to be the most amazing part is where some of these friendships started. How they have managed to stand the test of time, and I mean a hard test, is mind-boggling. One friend I spent one week with 10 years ago. We haven't been in the same city for 10 years yet he is one of my closest and dearest friends. Another one, again going on 10 years, we get together for coffee every so often and its like no time has passed. We all lead completely different lives, our jobs aren't even related. The only thing keeping us friends is the simple pleasure of a good talk.

I think I find all this so amazing because I fell off the face of the planet for the last 4 years. I am just re-entering society. When I met my soon-to-be-ex I did what a lot of girls do and absorbed myself completely into him. Stopped talking to all my male friends, spent more time with his friends then mine. Now I am coming out and these people who I missed terribly in my life have reentered it as though no time has passed.

I am forever grateful to these rocks, part of the foundation of my life for not forgetting about me and for taking me back.

Being Alone

I figured something out today. I'm afraid to be alone. The other day I called my ex-boyfriend from years ago. One I know that is detrimental to my emotional health, one I cannot trust with anything least of all me. He is narcissistic, manipulative and a cheat. But in his way he loves me and I know I can get the attention I have been craving. My current friend who has occupied my head and heart since my split has become busy. No time for me. It's not his fault he's working and I am not for an instant angry with him for that, but this has left me alone. He has not been able to give me the attention I have been craving. At first I was angry with him, as my past post implies, but after some time and he's had more time to open up to me again I have a better understanding of the pressure (to put it mildly) that he has been under. However, this still left me with a void. Wondering why I never seem to be enough for the guys I fall for. So I go back to my staple. Back to what I know. Back to someone I know loves me in his way. I call him we talk for 10 min the whole time I realize that he can't give me answers, that I am looking into trying to get what I need from the wrong place. What I need is to look inside myself. I am the only person that can answer why I am never enough for the guys I fall in love with.

What it is though is that I need to learn to be comfortable being alone. I don't have to like it, I just have to accept it and be comfortable with it. I am hoping that with that I will stop looking to others to fill my needs. That I will be able to  find what I need within myself.

Here I go. Wish me luck!

How much can you take?

How much can one person take? That is the question of the day. I feel as though I have been fighting back a nervous breakdown for the last few weeks. It's there bubbling under the surface. I can't concentrate, I can’t sleep. My patience is at an all time low.

I've spent most of my life putting my needs behind everyone else’s. When does that stop? What I needed more than anything this past week was a friend. A particular friend, the one who has been a shoulder for me through my split. Problem is that he wasn't there and I couldn't ask because once again I had to put someone else's needs before mine (this is about the only time that someone had a decent excuse). I wanted to scream that I wanted one night, one night of connection, hell one phone call where I didn't feel as though I was the pest. I just wanted to feel appreciated and wanted. I'm surrounded by hate. My ex-husband hates me. There is no other word for it and that hate is clearly visible in every interaction we have. Last week I was served or so I thought by him. He handed me a bunch of papers telling me it’s for the house but it name me as an opposing party, asks me for all my financial information and tells me to get independent council. NO explanation, no nothing. What would you think, excuse me for being naive but my brain goes right to he's lawyered up and now it’s my turn. I finally got into see the lawyer and he explained everything to me and it was better but still. This is not uncommon for my ex, to not explain things or even tell me what is going on. Even during our divorce I'm still the one trying to keep everything together. I'm still planning daycare and our schedules, I'm the one who makes sure my son has winter clothes, that everything is packed when he picks him up and etc. He is currently on vacation with our son. The second time since July. I miss my son terribly, so much it hurts. I cry myself to sleep almost every night since he left. On top of all this a bomb is dropped on me. A person who has been my support tells they need space. Then the next day apologizes and tells me he's sorry. Problem is that one sentence was the equivalent of an emotional atomic bomb. I'm barely holding myself together as is and then that. Now I've been in limbo for the last week with no idea what to expect when the dust settles. Again putting my needs aside, waiting for yet another person to decide for me how my life is going to play out. Is fate taking the decision-making out of my hands because I have not made good decisions in the past?

What is next in store for me, I'm scared to ask. I don't know how much more I can take. Crying and breakdowns are becoming the norm for me. My family expects me to go to their place (an 8 hour drive with my son) for thanksgiving. I never thought about not going as it’s a birthday/thanksgiving gathering and we have never missed it however honestly it is the last thing I want to do. I need out of the city, yes, but what I NEED is time away with just my son. Away from everyone and everything that needs something from me and/or feels the need to tell me what I should be doing. Even my cats are on the take from me bandwagon. I can't sit down without one of them in my face.

How do I stop it? How do I get my ex-husband to back off, to stop pushing me until I crack (which by the way is what he is doing). I’m trying to be nice. To smile, to not let him get the better of me but there really isn't much armor left. What do I say to my friend? Is he in? Is he out? I want him to be in more than almost anything but only if he wants to be. My family, I go to them for support and advice but how do I draw the line between advice and them telling me what to do?

I feel like for the last few weeks I've been in a nosedive and no matter how hard I pull back on the joystick I can’t pull out.

My Life

I find myself sitting in my new basement suite listening to the silence, missing my son terribly. Its only been one day but its hard. I think the hardest thing about my separation so far is the sharing of my son. It kills me to not see him for 3 days. It kills me to know that I will miss some firsts as will my ... (what to you call your husband who is not quite your ex-husband... an almost-ex?). This little boy magically become my end all be all. Even with the fighting, and yelling. The kitchen stand-offs with a 2-year-old are great fun. “Clean up your trains please” with a firm “NO!” in response then it goes from there, ending with my son normally whimpering as I make him put each piece into his train box. The bedtime fights, the bath-time fights, the nap-time fights. The relief when he finally goes to sleep. Then the moment his dad picks him up, I am sad, counting down the moments till he’s back.

I had a mom the other day tell me how it must be nice knowing that I get a few days to myself. Funny there was a point when I thought that it would be nice too. Now I know the reality, it’s nice for about 2 or 3 hours then it sucks. I know your likely thinking “if this is so hard then why not work it out with your almost-ex”. That ones tricky. He is a good guy however we don't work. I wish we could have worked as no-one gets married, has a baby and buys a house hoping to get divorced but once all that happened we changed. We 180’d in opposite directions and became people who did not get along. Our only common ground was our son as we both love him with everything we have but that was it. And unfortunately that wasn’t enough to make us happy, and all of us (my almost-ex, my son and I) all deserve to be happy and living in a happy household. I was not going to have my son grow up in a situation where we stayed together because of him but be surrounded by tension and anger and parents who didn’t speak.

So here I am blogging away only 27 hours left to go!

Adulthood

They always just say its hard.

How you wish you were still a little girl with next to no worries in comparison to the things you worry about now. With each stage of life comes a new set of worries, a new set of decisions. You make these decisions with a new set of players. You follow your heart, make decisions that are right for you.

Then you have kids, or one kid in my case. A whoops, an accident or as its been stated something that was my fault. And everything changes again. The thought of anything harming that child, of anything happening to that child, of anything coming between you and that child is unimaginable. The force is so strong that you are even willing to give up what you believe in the moment to be true happiness in order not take the chance of losing them. You have to stop following your heart, start thinking things through. Thinking not only of how it will affect you and your partner but most importantly your child. You have to weigh all the options and sometimes the option that you would have chosen in the past and even the option that your heart is set on is not the one you can choose. The players have changed and you no longer make the rules.

They always just say its hard, they never say how hard.