Toughing it out!

Happy weekend everyone! I hope that today finds you all having a beautiful, restful weekend. I am having an interesting one to say the least. Last night I ordered my plane ticket to come home to Indiana. I couldn’t be happier. I love the idea of being where everyone knows me and enjoys me somewhat. I am getting very homesick although I know that I’ll be over that after just a little Indiana visit. I am getting excited now that the ticket is bought and all is in the works. While I am home I am getting a bunch of pictures taken with my family (mom and dad family) which will be really fun and I promise to post them on the web-site as soon as everything is back. I am glad to be getting some photos done since we haven’t had family pictures in like YEARS. I was probably 9-11 the last time I was in a family-type photo.

Things have been interesting this week and as always I am trying to roll with the punches. I am currently looking for someone who is able to take me to the airport (LAX) on December 23rd. I am nervous, as there are no takers currently. I would like to leave out of Santa Ana but the tickets are so much cheaper out of LAX. Well anyway, I am pretty excited because Josh and I are going out to dinner tonight at Red Lobster. Red Lobster happens to be one of my favorite restaurants and Josh happens to be one of my favorite people. Ideally a great night is ahead.

Last night after we worked our brains to their capacity, Josh and I went down to Tustin to eat at Fazoli’s. Now I know that you are realizing that Josh and I always eat together. Well, that’s our bonding experience. That is how we best relate to one another. God is so good to give me friends who have passions like I do. We had a great time eating our favorite fast-food Italian and hanging out. We ended up scoring a free giant cookie and the world was a better place.

Today has been a hard day for me. I have realized so much about myself in the last year that it has slowly started to take a toll on me. I don’t know how else to explain it but to say it’s painful. I am getting in situations where I want to be my old self because that comes naturally and I end up not being able to do it because it hurts me to do it then it hurts me not to do it. Honestly, I am just in a lot of pain emotionally and physically right now. If any of you have tried to overhaul your being and change things about you that you know are harmful, you completely understand what I mean. For example, let’s say you are an avid nail biter. (This is a very minor example) Let’s say that you have bitten your nails for 20 years and today you decide to change that habit. You would slowly try to establish a habit of letting the nails grow or cutting them with clippers to stop chewing them. Upon starting this it would be annoying to not bite them but slowly it would drive you insane and you would want to bite them all the time and instead of biting them you start pulling your hair out (literally). This is painful to you physically but it fills the hole of the bad habit of biting the nails. Essentially you have replaced a bad habit with another bad habit. Before you actually get rid of the habit, there are several of these painful phases that you must go through. Eventually you don’t bite your nails you don’t even want to but the battle on the way was rough. That is where I am at today. I know what is best for me but I also know what my first instinct is. Since I am not doing my first instinct, I am annoyed, bothered, in pain, desperate, and longing for more. Eventually I know that the RIGHT thing will feel better but for now, it stinks!

Work is going well. I just finished up one of the most stressful weeks at Richmond that I have ever had. I ended up staying late most nights just to get things caught up for when Christopher is back in my hands. He got back on Friday from Camp and is with his mom for the weekend. I miss his little face but I know that by Wednesday I will be worn out again. He is a lot of work but very rewarding. Things don’t seem to be going very well for my boss at home so please pray for him if you get the chance. Also, please pray for a campaign that we are doing here at Richmond in order to cultivate more business. It should be very successful but that is what we need prayers for.

The quest to understand what divorce has done to me is getting more and more intense. I obviously have mentioned my extreme selfishness in the past. I feel very strongly that it is good to think about you and overall take care of yourself. I don’t encourage thinking about yourself so much that you forget that others matter, however. I am one of those people that thinks about others and loves others very much but thinks about how that makes me look therefore making it a selfish matter again. I am really working on the selfishness that was created out of my distorted childhood. I am not saying that either of my parents is selfish at all (although I am not saying they aren’t), but rather looking at how the divorce shaped who I became and what I thought of the world around me. I am so completely terrified of 2 things, first of all being hurt and secondly, being alone. These both stem from the childhood because my childhood was created out of a load of hurt. There was hurt that my dad wasn’t around, that new step-dad was angry and mean most of the time, that my mom’s unhappiness NEVER went away, and that I longed to be wanted and felt the opposite. I again am not saying that I wasn’t loved. I was very loved and I know today that BOTH of my parents love me and support me greatly. Today is not the situation that I am trying to correct. Today is a by-product of a very hard childhood. I sometimes wish I could go back with the mind I have now. I would be alert to abuse; neglect, carelessness, and selfishness and I would fight it with all I had in my mind. I can’t do that though. I can’t even go back one day much less about 20 years.
Anyway I am getting a little overwhelmed with all of the changes that have come about but I would really like you all to pray for me as this is a hard time for me. Thank you so much and have a great weekend! ~Shalom~