Weekly Update: Monday again?

It seems like we just had a Monday and here we are back with another one. I'm super sleepy and super sneezy today. I'm sure that the two aren't connected but if they are, I'm going to go take a nap.

Man, I wish I had a great segue with speaking of naps... but I don't. I do have a Roger here though which is nice. I really wish he were staying longer than just until tomorrow. It hurts knowing that he's not going back to campus but doesn't really want to stay here either. He says it's because the dryer doesn't work and the shower is always cold. I can't argue that. It's true. I'm hoping to get a repairman out for the dryer once I finish this next project. As for the shower, something keeps tripping the circuit that the water heater is on. That's something that the owner will have to deal with which means that I need to keep dealing with the house so I can make that happen.

I guess that leads to the past week. I struggled some with being removed from Indie Volt. They didn't even talk to me about it, they just didn't send me the link to join the show. I wasn't surprised, but I was hurt. The owner and I have supposedly been friends for years. Four days before I made the post about working with anyone affiliated with a hate group, we drove two hours to his kid's birthday party and hung out all day. Now, he's making digs about me on his show and/or letting others do the same thing. One of his hosts unfriended me on social media, the other tried to take a few swings at me on my own post. It's disheartening to realize that people you thought were good people aren't really good people at all. The whole thing made me really sad.

There were other bits of drama...like a creative team that I worked with telling the publisher that my lack of communication was part of the reason they were pulling their book from being published by them. I gave these guys every possible way to reach me, including my phone number. They never used it. I really don't like being thrown under the bus like that.

Speaking of sad...(yeah, I had to use that.) I sold my flute yesterday. I hadn't made a really solid effort to do so because part of me felt guilty. My grandmother bought it for me when I was in high school and even though it wasn't something I enjoyed playing (open hole) and it had no real monetary value (low-end instrument), she had bought it for me. Then, I remembered what it was like clearing out her house when she got sick. I don't want that for my kids. There's no reason to hold onto things that you don't love. She wouldn't feel bad that I sold it to a young woman who was insanely excited to receive it. I have to say that her excitement did make me smile. She was so grateful that I was selling it to her.

I wish all people were as awesome as she was. I've been trying to get rid of three totes full of craft items for months. There has to be close to $500 worth of items between the three totes. I listed them all three totes for $30...then $20...nothing. I listed them for free and I've had at least ten people ask about them. One went so far as to ask if I'd deliver them to her for free. That was a big solid no. First of all, I doubt they'd all fit inside my car. Secondly, at least offer $5 for gas...

Anyway, someone is supposed to pick those up in about ninety minutes. Hopefully she shows up. It's going to hurt to let them go that way, but at least I'll be reclaiming a chunk of my front porch. I keep reminding myself that space has value as does the peace that I feel looking at something tidy and not all junked up. My front porch totally feels all junked up right now. So does my house so I'm going to be trying to work on that at least a little bit each day.

Man, I am terrible at transitioning topics today but I'm just going to pretend that since they're all about me, that's okay. I've been neglecting me...or maybe disrespecting me is a better phrase for a bit. The other night, I cracked open a brand new notebook and I wrote a list of 10 things that are important and that I need to be focusing on. Oddly enough, jackassy people didn't make that list. Things like taking the time to read or build Lego (self-care), spending time with my boys (family), and working on my own career did. Building myself an emotionally healthy atmosphere also made the list. It's a good list and one that I can go back to when things feel like they're spiraling. I can go back and say...what's really important? and then focus on that.

For now though, I need to go log a new project and get some work in on the current one. Keep being amazing, my friends, and taking care of yourselves.

Saying Goodbye to the Past

For the past 2.5 days, I've been sitting in front of my laptop skimming, clicking and sighing. I've been clearing out the "everything else" folder in my one gmail account. It's been a task that I've been putting off for far longer than any one task should be put off for. Why? Well, multiple reasons:

1) I knew it would be tedious. Just like I struggle with hoarding tendencies in my non-digital life, I do with things like email. I knew there was a lot of emails in there and clicking on each little checkbox was going to be boring and take a lifetime.

2) This is just one of about four that need to have this done and I felt like if I did one, the next step would have to be moving on to another one.

3) I was afraid of what I would find in there. My past hasn't always been stellar and this account goes back to about February of 2006.  That's a lot of life. That's before my divorce. That's before I moved to New York and back to Michigan. Since it seems I never deleted anything, this made me anxious.

Still, I needed to do it and for whatever reason, I decided on Tuesday to start hacking my way through the 41,000+ emails that were in there. I created some new "folders" and dragged and dropped things. I deleted things, first by clicking 25 little boxes and then by clicking the select all after I'd moved anything I wanted. I got through about 21,000 on Tuesday. It felt pretty good but I could feel my anxiety rising. By last night, each new group of emails was a struggle. I was starting to see emails from or about people who I had once considered good friends who turned their backs on me. I saw Facebook notifications about friends who had died and their posts. Still, I pressed on and today was the hardest. So many emails were like that. I came across an email with the funeral arrangements for a friend, emails from people I love who no longer have time for me, and more. Still, I pressed on and right now, unless an email has come in, the "everything else" section of my account is empty. I still have to go through the "All Mail" section to clean out some things that didn't show up...like everything from before June 2009 which didn't show up. It can wait for another day. I finished the task that I had set for myself.

It was hard. It was harder than I thought it would be. There were times where I'd just stare at a name in my inbox and re-live losing that person. I dealt with the pain of losing friends to death and to losing others to life. I'm glad that I waited until the time felt right and didn't force myself to do this when perhaps I wasn't strong enough to handle it. Now, it's done and while I feel a bit wrung out, I can put all of this behind me and move forward in my life because if nothing else, we should always be moving forward even if it's one tiny baby step at a time.

If you feel like you're ready to tackle something like this, I'd love to tell you what worked or at least helped me. Hopefully it will help you and help you to say goodbye to some not so great pieces of your past so that you can start to take another step forward:

1. Don't open each email. You may be tempted. Don't do it. Don't relive things to that level. Acknowledge it and delete it.

2. Batch delete. Save yourself some serious time and find all of the emails from a sender and if you don't need them, delete them all at once. I deleted over 1,000 from Facebook with a couple of clicks.

3. Be gentle with yourself. If you start to get overwhelmed, it's okay to take a break. It's okay to walk away from it for as long as you need to. I had to multiple times. Remember that during this, you are what matters.

....And always, no matter what, remember that you're not alone, no matter how many icky emails there might be in any account, someone loves you and you always have a place in this world.

"Silly" Anxieties..

This afternoon, I'm going to get a haircut. Big deal, right? Nope...well, yes, it kind of is to me and I don't know why. It took me a couple of hours to open up the website and to set the walk in time. Now, I have about two hours until I have to leave and I'm back and forth about keeping the appointment. Why? Because the idea of going in and having my hair cut for the first time in over two years is freaking me out.

"What if they cut it too short? What if I don't like it? What if "he" doesn't like it? He likes it long and I've kept it long for him."

That's all followed by:

"Hair grows back and it will probably grow back healthier. The he that you're thinking of just told you that he doesn't want to even see pictures of you so who cares what he thinks. It's your head, your hair, and you're the one who has to deal with it. Did he ask you before he got his cut? No and he didn't really care what you thought about it. You need to do this for you. You deserve a bit of pampering. He deserves a kick in the ass."

The one voice in my head is often pretty damned straight forward and I can always count on it to tell it how it is, even if it can be a bit on the mean side. In some ways, I'm very thankful that it's there. It helps to cut through the bullshit that the rest of my brain is creating sometimes.

Does this mean that I won't be anxious as all get out driving there, parking, walking in, and telling the girl, "I have no idea what I want, just wash it and make it look pretty." I've been assured that it's okay to do that and that they'll be excited to just be able to do their thing.

Why am I sharing all of this with you? Because we all have these "silly" anxieties and it helps to know that you're not alone and I'm not alone. This week has been an especially hard one for me with a lot of things breaking or breaking down in my world. I know that's part of the problem. Still, I can take a lot of deep breaths and get through it. I remind myself that each moment is a chance to start the day over.

So, if you're having an anxiety attack over something that seems silly to you, don't let that negativity build into the anxiety. It's okay to feel anxious over some little thing. Just know that you'll get through it and come out the other side.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye...

Welcome to day 2 of things stuck in my head. I don't know if all of you have read my last few posts, but if you haven't, I encourage you to go back to them. All of these are interconnected, as you will hopefully find as you read through them.

Today's topic is one that's been on my heart for a while now. I'm seeing a lot of people having to deal with others that are so toxic that it's making them either physically sick or emotionally so. I want to tell you my story.

About nearly six years ago now, I publicly declared myself an orphan which confused a lot of people. Both of my parents are alive and well. From the outside, I had always had a great family life. That was from the outside though. From the inside, things weren't so pretty. My parents abandoned me (and my sister) with my grandparents when I was very young. My father had left me with his girlfriend when I was a toddler and I was horribly physically (and emotionally) abused. My parents weren't parents. They were sperm and egg donors. Once that part was done, they wanted nothing to do with the actual raising and effort it takes to raise a child.

Fast forward a lot of years and my grandfather had died and my grandmother was very sick and in the hospital. I was called by my mother to rush up there because she may not make it. I did and that's when the guilt laying started. She wanted me to somehow fix everything but there was no way that I could. My grandmother did get better and was sent to a home to rehab. During this time, it was discovered that her house was filled with bugs and that she was a semi-hoarder. My mother and my uncles turned to me and expected me to drop everything to clear the house. The problem? I had two small children at the time and it was summer break. My uncle would guilt me into helping by throwing out how she'd raised me and done everything for me and yet wouldn't allow my children into the house and would tell me how if the police stopped by, I would lose my children. I couldn't afford daycare and their father (who I was divorced from) worked all day. I couldn't win. My one uncle, the one I thought was reasonable, wouldn't stand up for me and bowed to whatever his younger brother wanted. I couldn't win. So, I did the house...and once she got home, I visited whenever I could.

Fast forward from July when she came home to March when she died...as soon as she died, it fell on me to start going through the hundreds of boxes that we had stacked in the garage when we cleared out the house. It was my job to be there every weekend...oh, and I had to create piles. Trash, donate, and if there was any chance it was worth anything, it had to be set aside because my "family" was selling off anything of value, even if my grandmother had wanted someone to have it. They tried to sell me an antique desk until they realized they'd have to do repairs to sell it. After that, I could just have it.

I lasted until May...at that point, I walked away. I walked away from that entire family and other than twice when I had to, I haven't spoken to any of them since. Was it an easy decision? No. I had every social standard whispering in my ear that family is forever, that you only get one set of parents, and everything else we've ever been taught about family. Was it the right decision? Yes. I discovered a couple of years later that I have PTSD that began when I was a toddler and was only added to by my "family".

It's not just family though. Sometimes you have to walk away from others that you care about and that you love because they've just become toxic in your life. I have one friend that I have to do this with. We were once very close but in the past year or so, he's turned into someone that I no longer recognize other than a brief glimpse now and then. When I comment on a post of his on Facebook, he almost always belittles my comment or turns it somehow so I look like a bad person. It's gotten to the point where I question myself and that isn't acceptable.

I'm going to say this and I want everyone to listen....A friend is not someone who makes you feel bad about yourself or who makes you constantly question who you are as a person. That isn't a friend. Get away from it. Run. Don't walk. These people are hazardous to your health. It's going to be hard. It's going to suck. There may be tears. I know I've shed a lot of tears as I've hit the unfriend button and cut people out of my life. It's not easy. Heck, even with my parents, even though I know just how toxic they are (and what I put here was just a small taste), even though I have no idea where they live, how they are, etc ....the fantasy of having proper grandparents for my children lures me in and every so often I reconsider. Then, I remember that my own children asked if they had to have them as friends on Facebook or talk to them. They will never be the grandparents that I wanted for my children and if I want to be a grandparent to my future grandchildren, I can't expose my own children to that.

It's incredibly hard to say goodbye to yesterday, to the happy memories, to any of that, but what you have to remember is that if that person isn't the person in those memories, you're not saying goodbye to your friend, but to someone who has, by choice, become toxic and a stranger. I'm not always great at following my own advice, but you have to take care of you first. Just like on an airplane with a child, you have to put your own oxygen mask on first in case of an emergency. Take with you the happy memories but leave the ugly in the past.

Just remember:
1. It's okay to feel sad that you're having to let go of either what was or what you were hoping it would be.
2. You're not melodramatic or an attention whore because you want people to invest the way you have.
3. People who are happy to have you as their friend, to do for them, aren't the people you want to have around if they're not acting like your friend or there for you when you need them.
4. Broken people are broken and it's not your job to fix them. (This one is a reminder for myself because I sometimes seem to collect these people...dang big heart!)
5. It's okay to walk away if a relationship is no longer healthy and a good thing for both people.

And most of all...remember that you're not alone. There are those who do love you and who are your friends and even your family, even if you weren't born into it.

PS I'm not going to lie. As I've typed this entire post, I've had one song in my head...and I bet you can guess which one.