Dear Anita,

Given that this experience is so special. And given that “life” gets in the way, work, the hustle of NYC, small talk with others – I want to preserve this the best I can.  Therefore I will reflect on this some more with you.

I think of it as the-calling-of-the-wild emotional experience , that which precedes going out into the world and exploring, that wagging-of-the-tail, the desire and expectation of good things ahead of us.

You know, I don’t think I have ever felt this – well not in my registered memory.  I am sure as a child, that anticipation before going to a theme park the night before.  The anticipation before anything exciting as a child.  But as an adult – nope – just fear.

Fear before events, not worst case scenario fear, just vague dull – lack of joy.

Onto the next:

so if you want to help him, change your behavior with him and the atmosphere at home, just like you did that Friday evening. Do it on a regular basis, provide him a safe, calm home.

He says this so often, your words exactly.  If he says it, AND you say – well, it must be true…lol!

Jokes aside, this is it Anita.

So let me explain a little background about the potential relocation.  It is entirely based on his job opportunities (as my market is much more open).  My starting a business was never to make it so that he didn’t have to work – it was that I could be the owner of something down the line and become my own boss with my own flexibility in the next 5 years.  Of course that is only a plan if we see ourselves in NYC or the like longterm, and setting down roots here.  Which is not out of the picture.

BUT – there are currently no positions open in his field, or anywhere in the near future aside from where he is at.  He works where he does and manages to make the most of it, but I see it as a dismal option.  I have spent time with a few of his colleagues and their wives.  I see something clearly, his other 2 male colleagues, close to our age work there because they will never move out of this area. For example, person A already has 3 kids and his wife is a die hard NYC or nothing person – which leaves him no choice apparently. Person B has a wife with a flexible job, but they also have children and are happy with their suburban home and commute.

Point of the matter is, could it work? yes.  Is it ideal – no! Especially because we don’t have such constraints.  No children yet, 2 incomes, and in laws (his parents) who are entirely supportive.

So you say – so others say – run with the wind!!

But of course it is not that simple given the climate of his field – but there is apart of me that always believes, if the timing is right, it will work out IF it is meant to.  I always have believed this.  You can’t push it, but hey if it’s meant to be it will be.

With that said- I am not the type to sit around and wait for life to come to me, quite the contrary, to a fault often.  In this case I am going to re-contact my prior contacts in the Long Beach and San Diego area.  And then proceed to Austin and Denver.  We will take it from there and try our best to see whats out there.  Who knows, in the meantime a great opportunity may even open up around here, it isn’t always easy to predict.

So that’s that – and yes no business at all.  That feels good, go to work and come home, and make a positive environment. That’s my job – that’s the job of CC.

So NOW…

The relinquishing of SCC, the visual stepping out of her snazzy wonder woman costume into a slim nude colored dress: clean lines, simple silhouette, and natural.  That is my visual – I think you will like it, I wish I could show you exactly what I am visualizing.

Her birthday was so very long ago, but it is time for her to be – done.

What has helped me move away from SCC over the last 2 weeks?

First and foremost….limiting contact with others.  I beat this like a dead horse over and over.  But here I am saying for another time, it is not how much you talk to others per se, but also how much you absorb their life/dramas etc.

See Anita, since we last spoke about weddings before my London trip, I haven’t spoken to S at all.  Not because I am mad at her, not because of anything – but because I don’t want to.  I would have felt immensely guilty prior – knee jerk to check in, always keeping in touch, here and I have for over 10 years. Well – there’s a change in pattern.  CC is busy now.  Busy with building her own life, the rest can wait.

It feels good to not have an extra info that I don’t need swirling around my head.  Whether S has picked her photographer, what this person is doing for their birthday, what that.

WHO THE F CARES!

In a general sense this is normal friendship talk.  But in my context: as I said this morning – my life becomes occupied by the lives of others. The wedding of S, the relationship of Y, the new occurrences with Z.

So what happens to CC? She becomes an after thought – and then what about husband? After After thought…

In order for CC to be reborn, and relinquish SCC she must see what worked – it did!! So much happened in July, so many emotional disturbances with people who are unkind/strange/ or whatever – so much learning.  So much giving of CC to these unworthy people.

She learned from it.  It isn’t just about not giving to these people, it is about not giving her delicate energy away to ANYONE right now.

Yes, that’s right – it is hers to keep…

Dear Anita,

yes we have considered moving out west whether it’s west coast or Colorado etc. his parents are supportive and would be happy to visit or even relocate in the future if we need (if there is future children etc)

his market is extremely specific and therefore difficult. He is not a general surgeon so there aren’t loads of jobs open. And in and around any desirable metro area it is extremely difficult. There are openings often in rural areas, which we would not be interested in.

As far as the training, he was enrolled in an extremely competitive and prestigious training program fellowship. It’s just that he wished he could have focused on it more versus mental drama. He was able to complete it successfully – there was no issues.

The job market is truly a supply and demand scenario and a specific market that’s all. All of his colleagues in his specific field go through the same. Some moving rural, some staying in cities like NYC or LA where jobs that aren’t ideal – and everything in between.

My job market is great!

Dear Anita,

What is important to CC? Her priorities, right now (I am letting this flow without edit, to see what comes out)

1. Time to herself
2. Quality time with her husband
3. For her husband to have a job in which he is respected and is able to perform his trade without mental torture
4. To spend outdoors, with her family (husband and dog) and stay active

Anita, that is all that comes to mind now.  Maybe, because that is all there is..wow – could be. In the first one, time to herself, it includes spending time having our exchanges

Dear Anita,

Yes I do. And for the first time in a very long time I will be home on my comfortable couch with a nice cup of tea able to write to you. Stay tune for the list in the next post…

Dear Anita;

Good morning. Thank you for reminding me this about the concept of calm.

I have been Emphasizing outside people plenty of this month so far. Often feeling like there are flies, needing to swap the flies away in order to be able to relax. Swat Swat Swat.

What’s the firm, myself without flies. I know that there are certain triggers of mine that have nothing to do with other people. For example, I have mentioned this to you before, there is the PMS aspect of it, before my cycle in which I know that I have increased distress, emotional disturbance, and insomnia. Ive tracker this on my calendar for almost a year now, and almost every month it is like clockwork. At least to a point I know that I can correct this and I can make sense of it. I read online plenty, that is important during this time if you are aware of it, to give yourselves even more self-care for that week or so.

Well interestingly, yesterday I started experiencing this, a few hours I read your last post.  I went home from work feeling pretty crappy for lack of a better term, emotionally and physically. But I also wound up in the sense that I didn’t feel so exhausted that I could fall straight to sleep. I looked at my phone and there you have it, my director told me I could have the day off tomorrow, it was a light day at work and they didn’t need all of us to be there. How wonderful! A day of rest – and how timely. I made some food. When my husband arrived home he said to me what’s wrong, I explained to him and he said since you feel like that why don’t you just lay down, will eat dinner and then you can go straight to sleep. I would usually fight it. Find it plenty. I didn’t.

After dinner we watched some program, I can hardly remember and I fell straight to sleep.  Like clockwork I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning, as I usually do at least these few days out of the month feeling very imbalanced. I thought annoyed, I feel angry. I thought about how this is not a condition that affects most people this severely, why do I have to feel like this so terribly a few days or a week out of the month?! Then I felt sorry for myself that I suffer this way when it’s not like the other part of the month is peachy keen anyway. Lastly, I do what I usually do, I intellectualized it. I got back on the Internet and read about the reasons why this happens to certain woman, and some of the treatments for it. I have gone through this cycle almost every month. The last which is reading the treatments. I know that I don’t want to be honest any sort of medication if I can avoid it. So the last thing I read was about what was written above, be aware of those few days to a week out of the month and try to be focused on self care possible.

I fell back asleep.

When I woke up again the first thing that came to mind is this: We can’t fix everything, but we must believe that if we try we can have some benefit.

Let’s take me over all, of the healing journey. And then you throw this other aspect into it. On my healing journey at least once a month I feel much worse. Perhaps it is predictably Boris, but it still is worse. Often during those days I feel like I am knocked off the journey, and it takes that much more effort to climb back on.  But you know what a few days will pass and I feel like myself again!

I thought about high school, a lot of young girls will get their first cycles, and be sent home from school because the cramps were so bad. I thought about college and having roommates that would be stuck to their heating pad and popcorn and movies during those weeks. I thought about myself. Never. None of this. SCC always. Didn’t matter what day or time of the month. Never down.

Thought about countless examples looking back of them and saying I’d love to make it but I’m having a really off day today can we reschedule / or the like.

It all came together. People take care of themselves. They don’t fight it. I have incredible incredible difficulty Anita, Stopping when I don’t feel 100%, and then if I put myself over the edge I become resentful.  I have never protected myself, sure in my 20s and earlier I never experience the symptoms I’m experiencing now, but of course I was tired of course I needed breaks.

And now – Hormones change as you approach your 30s and 40s, life changes. Sometimes your body tells us enough is enough need a few days to just stop. Hibernate if you well. Doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, lawyer, housewife, a painter, a single mother, a writer, anything in the world. The body is the body. It doesn’t matter why even sometimes.

What about myself in the middle of the night last night, going through many phases. Annoyance, frustration, desperation, and lastly intellectualizing. Wanting to know a reason for what I was going through, the science behind it.

At the end of the day what mattered, I needed rest! I needed to sleep in past 6 AM for once, I needed not to rush to work. I needed to make myself a nice cup of tea and have some fresh fruit in the morning. All things that will nourish my body. Isn’t that right?

There is so much of an emphasis on woman pushing through, woman living in. The media and the landscaper out there it tells women that they can do it all. They can be CEOs and be super moms and still fit into a size two. There is nothing out there that tells woman that they should take a moment for themselves. The hilarious thing now is that the yoga culture in the meditation culture is so severe that people flock to it with anxiety. The rush rush rush at work, and then rush to yoga or whatever it may be -And then expect to feel better with the cycle over and over. They don’t. I don’t. It appears to many people that it’s a weakness to not be able to do it all, it definitely is for me, and especially when you look at the infrastructure that I live in in 2019 with young career women.

Best thing that I could have ever done was to delete all social media accounts one year ago, my husband as well. There is no point of knowing useless facts about other people day in and day out. Next most important thing I could’ve ever done, outside of no contact with my parents, is surrendering.  I have told you a recent while ago, that I would be OK with taking time off from my work, or going down to less hours, if it came to it and an ideal situation arose. I don’t want to try to “power over” my own self.

So anyway, here I am, having a day off that was entirely unexpected. And the timing! Do you wanna know something funny Anita, you won’t be surprised. One of the first things I thought about when I woke up not feeling so great this morning, I thought oh man I have a whole day off and I don’t even feel great, I won’t be able to utilize it! That SCC instant thought.

I then thought about it again and said how fortuitous to have a day off when I don’t feel so great, maybe I can actually learn how to rest. 🙂

Dear Anita,

I take from this the concept of being alert always, and feeling irritated these days when I have to be in scenarios that are not work related.

Sure one may say – oh if you attend a dinner you don’t have to be alert per se, just relax!

Well that doesn’t apply to me!

Sure one may say – oh if you hang out with this person, you don’t have to be alert per se, just relax!

Well that doesn’t apply to me!

If I extricate this all out – my “alertness” problem will not disappear.  Say if I am on a deserted island just my husband and I, our unit, the inner circle – I will not all of a sudden be able to act as the best person I can be.

So many times per day, as you say, the fear is re-activated.  It is that line we spoke about the line between fear and escape – which leads to frenzy.  Focusing on that line, what does that line consist of?

I observed it this weekend, when around others (in this case my sister) the line consists of turning into performing SCC, that does not have an off switch to go to snooze/un-alert mode.

Often after this, CC feels emotionally drained, so even after the individual or situation has passed, she does not feel now alert to the REAL important thing, her current life and husband.  The over alertness was wasted on nothing. Alert for what? Nothing.

So now that I actually have to attend to something important, which could be merely sinking in and relaxing with my husband – the alertness was exhausted.

Now here I am set up to be more irritable.

What about when no one else is around/involved:

I woke up Saturday in an off mood.  Feeling sleepy, sluggish, and irritable.  It happens, whether it’s related to hormones, food, stress – just life.  I realized this about my self as I quickly got up so we could take the dog to the dog park before the heat become to oppressive.  On my way out, I saw that one of the buildings had outdoor workers polishing something on the front of the building.  I thought: “goodness why would they make them do this today! With a heat index of 105! these poor men”

I offered to get the men some water bottles.  When I caught up with my husband who was heading to the park. I was irritated! God, who would make those men do that work today I continued, on a mini rant.  He looked at me and said, It’s great that you got them water – but what else can we do.

And I Realized it, I started the day off triggered, no matter what or who came in my direction I would have snapped.  It was a kettle about to boil over.  I recognized this, literally shook my head physically and said – you are right – let’s start over.

So shall we get something cold to drink ourselves, before heading to the park – he said yes, sure.

Dear Anita,

Good morning. Wonderful point that is new to me, I was racing to be overwhelmed first, as to take away this feeling from my mother.  Oh how many examples come to my mind now that you put it that way!

Your Social Super CC role was born out of your need to prevent your mother from getting distressed and overwhelmed by becoming distressed and overwhelmed yourself and doing what is needed to prevent that from happening to her

yes, and so now even though mother isn’t around, she is lurking in the shadows, the mother voice. “over-attending” to my sister even when not asked for still comes as that practice pattern.  Let’s make sure she is fine, extra fine, so that mother doesnt worry.

i know that will take practice.  I also know that I have had enough challenges in July thus far, starting from the horrific wife coming over, to the London cousin event.  I have had my work cut out for me thus far in July in regards to outer people and inner circle.

How often we take away from our own ability to do something by repeatedly self-sabotaging.  I won’t blame myself entirely, as my entire distress and “overwhelmingness” comes from my mother feeling this way – and then I taking on that role.

I have done a good job of keeping distance since I’ve returned from my trip.  Not attending to others.  My sister’s example came to mind this weekend when I spent a few hours with her.

My husband mentioned the following day, that he notices progress in my sister – but still finds that he doesn’t like the person I “turn into” around her – like a master entertainer who can’t sit still and relax.

I took it to heart this time, seeing to it that all of July has given me many examples of triggers..