Written in two parts.
MORNING
I've been sleeping badly for the past month or so. In my teens and 20s, I'd often have trouble falling asleep at night. Now that I'm in my 30s, I'm waking up too early and can't fall back to sleep. I can only guess that there's too much on my mind. Writing angsty poetry used to grant me a few months of normal sleep. I don't write poetry anymore. Or fiction. That part of my brain is hiding somewhere, probably afraid of my own harsh criticism. I've had to express myself in nonverbal ways: costumes, mostly. I also have some designs in mind for workout t-shirts and tank tops. It's the first hobby I've had in a long time that doesn't have some practical purpose attached to it. Growing vegetables provides fresh food. Writing is a way for me to make money. Cooking dinner at home is cheaper than getting takeout all the time. Costumes . . . are fun. That's it.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm drinking coffee at my desk and feeling sluggish, looking at the clock every few seconds to make sure I won't be late for work. I opted to get up this morning instead of tossing and turning for an hour. I've been thinking a lot about issues with my mother that I thought I had resolved. Childhood issues are like HPV. You don't know you have it until some uglyass plantar warts show up on your feet. Then you spend weeks, months, or even years trying to freeze them off. You feel so much better once they're gone. But the virus is still in your body. It can send up new warts at any time, without warning, and you'll have to either freeze those off too or just deal with them. HPV never goes away. Even worse is how contagious it is. If you're not careful, it'll spread to other people. One damaged parent can pass down the same damage their child, who then passes it down to their child and so on until or unless someone breaks the cycle. This is why I'm afraid of motherhood. I want to break the cycle, and the only way I see that happening is if I remain childless. I could be wrong, sure, but what if I'm right and end up sending another fucked up person into the world? Procreation is not in my immediate future, thankfully, but I will have to make a decision eventually.
AFTERNOON
I want to process this deeper stuff before my counselling appointment this week. The reason I share it here, I think, is to feel less alone. I spent my entire childhood and most of my 20s feeling as though I could not talk about this issue. It's taboo in our culture to speak ill of mothers. They sacrifice so much for us, and we're supposed to be grateful to them — even if they damage us irrevocably. We're supposed to shut up and deal with it. And that's the rule I followed for most of my life. Not anymore. In my late 20s, I came to realize how abnormal certain aspects of my childhood were. I spent several years working through my emotions. I've mostly forgiven my mother. I thought the issue had been laid to rest. But as I examine my broken relationship with my ex, I see connections between his family dynamics and mine. The best summary I can think of is that we both have an immature parent who treats others badly. The kids are expected to show understanding and compassion, while the parent's behaviour is tolerated. There is always some justification for why it's OK for that person to treat their child poorly. Most infuriating of all (to me, anyway), is that he or she does not face any consequences. I suppose one consequence is having a strained relationship with that child, even once they've hit adulthood. Even then, I'm not entirely sure if they're aware of (or care about) said strained relationship. In my mother's case, I'm pretty sure she thinks everything is fine. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
How is any of this relevant? My ex still has that mindset I used to have, that willingness to lay down and be walked on for someone else's comfort. I refuse to live that way. We have different ideas of what respect is. To me, it should go both ways regardless of one's age, gender, or station in life. It's possible to respectfully disagree with someone, to say "no" without being a bad or selfish person. He doesn't see it that way, and he would have me lay down in the mud so he can then lay on top of me while we both get walked on. His life would be easier if he had someone to eat the mud for him. Perhaps that sounds overdramatic, but that's how it feels to me. And I think I put up with too much from him because I've been conditioned to do so. Despite breaking away from that mindset of "other people matter more than me," I still have that voice in my head that says "maybe you're wrong" and "maybe you deserve it." It takes time, effort, and sometimes professional help to change an ingrained thought pattern. And I think it's normal to slip back into it sometimes. We fall down and get back up. We all have our demons.
I left work early today. I feel like shit due to lack of sleep and apparently from something I ate, as I found out when rushing to the toilet not too long ago. I'm going to climb into bed and listen to podcasts until I fall asleep. I'm not going to the gym today. I've been going 3x a week for the past 3 weeks, so I guess it's okay to go just twice this week. I need to start running again soon. I cut back on it due to some sciatic nerve pain I experienced last month. I forget if I mentioned that in my last log or not. By the time I asked my doctor about it, the pain had faded away, so she couldn't really do much except advise me to "be really OCD about stretching." The temperature is finally above 0 this week and the pavement is clear of snow and slush, so I'll try to run outside this week. Not much else to report, except that it was my birthday on the weekend. I'm a Leap Year baby. Yep. A real birthday this year. Despite all my angsty whining on here, I had a pretty good weekend. I dressed up for an 80s dance, and afterwards stayed at a friend's place playing video games until 4am. And then playing them some more the next day. Also took my Jeep to the car wash yesterday and hosed off all the sandy, frozen slush and snow and road salt gunking up the undercarriage. It was glorious. I'm sure there's a clever line I can make about how that's a metaphor for my life becoming all sparkly and clean, blah dee blah, but that would be bullshit. My life is a dirtyass mess, and all I can do is kick off the gross parts that are sticking out too far to ignore. I'll look for the power hose later.
Thanks for reading.