Choices

Discontent is the first necessity of progress.
- Thomas Edison

I think I have used this particular quote somewhere before...and while I still hold it true, I have to ask myself, when does my progress begin?  My discontent is nearly constant, occasionally retreating only to emerge again. 

Over the past few weeks, I've felt it creeping up on me...a sense of melancholy, general discontent.  I have no reason to be melancholy.  I am very happily newlywed to the best man that I know, I have a good job, we have a nice apartment.  Money is tight, and usually gone just in time for the next paycheck, but we're not starving, and we have what we need. 

But, still...the melancholy.  I try to hide it, try to push it away.  I can usually reassure my husband that I am fine...and really, I am...I'm just a little sad lately.  I don't know if he'd understand if I tried to explain it...I am not sure I understand it.  I simply feel heavy in my heart, and I want to cry for no real reason sometimes. 

Depression.  Though, I hesitate to actually call it that.  I prefer "melancholy".  Because, it's not all encompassing.  It's not this persistent black cloud following me around coloring my decisions...

I have been thinking lately, too much, about choices I have made.  I tend to do things rashly, on a hope and a prayer.  Should I have left Texas?  I had a very good paying job there...I most definitely made the right choice in leaving my husband at the time, but should I have left what had become "home" over the previous decade?

I thought coming to MN/ND would be a salve for my emotional wounds.  I thought being around my family would help me and magically make things right again.  I was so very wrong about that.  It's like I didn't come home.  That's how I feel...I could turn around and walk away without a word, and none of my family would even notice for...months, perhaps. 

I am not really happy here, but I'm in no position to do anything about it anytime soon.  I feel guilt for bringing my husband here...though he seems to thoroughly enjoy the temperature. 

I really am beginning to wonder..will I ever be content?  Will I ever find that place to settle down, call home, and feel happy to be there? 

The First Day...

      “Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'”

So, I found my guy.  The guy that calls me beautiful.  The boy that kisses my forehead.  The guy who states daily that he is so lucky...The guy that loves his geeky girl so much that he wants to take her to SDCC and show her off as proof that there IS indeed someone out there for everyone...nevermind that she is technically one of them and really doesn't count as anything that impressive...in her mind, at least. 

I found my guy, and I've never been happier in my entire life.  I finally feel complete...like I've found my home.  I'm loving this feeling. 

The past year of my life has been topsy turvy, to say the least.  Many parts of it were utterly hellish, and while a valuable lesson or two were taken away...I never want to experience some of those sensations again.  But...the bad...the bad doesn't even begin to compare to the good. 

I married the best man I have ever met on New Years Day.  It was a "Las Vegas" wedding, quite literally a walk-up...but still completely PERFECT.  I would not have done it any other way.  And, in choosing New Years Day to be our wedding day...yeah, the perfect choice to be our First Day.

He really is the other half of me.  We often say the same thing at the same time...think the same things, even make the same gestures at the same times on occasion.   I found a man who compliments my personality, who is the piece that I really didn't know was missing, until I met him.  It's something special to be able to progress from friends to something more, and I am thrilled that this is the way our relationship progressed. 

To me, he is perfect.  He is everything I want.  I feel content.  :) 

Thank you, Daniel.  My husband.  For making me so incredibly happy. 

Emerging From Hibernation

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this(or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death."”  - Anais Nin

I am hibernating.  I have been hibernating.  I was cocooned in a false sense of comfort, of security.  I know this.  I actively let myself be lulled into this "comfort", of being "home."  Home wasn't the answer, and I know this definitively by the restlessness, the impatience in my heart, in my soul.  It's time to wake up.

I must be destined to be a travel nurse, because I find myself getting that restlessness about the 3 month mark after being any one place.  I was held captive by circumstance, by a relationship that was more or less doomed from the start...but, bright eyed optimist that I was, I was set on my course, dedicated to what I felt was my purpose.  13 years in my "prison", and now...near anxiety attacks at the thought of being held anywhere for too long.

There are people that are doubting my choice.  Some not very nice comments have been made to me, by people I love very much, because of my decision to take a travel contract and leave this "home" I have established.  My "emotional stability" has been called into question.  I can't even express how badly that fight hurt me.  I'm never happier than when I am traveling, and right now, being here, being stationary, is making me restless.  So, to have my "decision making ability" questioned, because of a hiccup in my personal life...well...thanks. 

One of my best friends asked me not long ago, "Mandy.  What are you going to do when there is nowhere left to run?"  My response was short.  There are now 7 billion people on this planet.  There is always somewhere to run.  I want to run.  I look forward to moving every 3 months again...seeing new places, meeting new people. 

I have a WIDE support net.  I make friends easily, and I am fairly well traveled.  Yes, I've been "down" lately, and personally, I think I have a fucking right to be.  My life has been a little bit topsy turvy for the past year to two years.  Just when I thought I was standing on relatively solid ground, there went the rug.  Right now, I'm a hell of a lot better than I was 2 weeks ago, and each day is easier and easier.  Staying here...that's the trouble. 

I find it funny how I can be MORE lonely when "surrounded" by family and friends, than when I am on the road...but I am.  It's oppressive, right now, this loneliness.  And I hate it. 

Traveling makes me happy.  I want to be happy, and I want to stop ALWAYS thinking about how my decision is going to affect someone else's happiness.  For once, I want to do something for myself, and feel no guilt.  I am resisting the guilt on this point.  I have no ties, nothing tethering me to this point on the map.  Nothing tethering me anywhere...free as a bird.  And I am counting down the days (19) until I can take flight again. 

Recovery

“There is nothing in the world so wonderful as to love and be loved; there is nothing so devastating as love lost.”

Love is an addiction.  It gets you high, you focus on it to the point of excluding other aspects of your life...friends, family, job.  You find this person, you connect, and suddenly, your world revolves around them.  You make plans, you laugh and scheme together.  They are the first thing you think about during the day, the last thing you think about at night, and most of what you think about at all points inbetween. 

And then...one day...it's just...gone. 

And, usually, really, just one of you is left standing there with a shattered heart, confused mind, and horridly vacillating emotions. 

Then comes the withdrawal.  Worst case, it makes you physically ill.  It's worse than having your loved one die.  The dead can't willingly ignore you.  They can't purposefully prove that they don't care, maybe never cared. 

Then comes the part where you make an utter fool out of yourself.  Fixated on what you must have done wrong, to make them so abruptly fall out of "love" with you.  How, seemingly overnight, this person that swore they couldn't be without you, doesn't even acknowledge your existence.  You. Are. Nothing. 

And your brain is very smugly telling you "I told you so.  I tried to warn you."  Yes, brain...you did.  But, my simple, girly heart beat you into submission with a Louisville slugger, and now you've earned the right to say "I told you so." 

My eyes and my ears betrayed me.  I know it was too soon, too soon after betrayal and loss to invest myself, yet again, in someone else...but...words are my strength, AND my kryptonite.  And I was utterly swayed by pretty words.  And then destroyed by their absence.

In my case, my "withdrawal" was compounded by some serious illness, both legitimate and psychosomatic.  But, I have no excuse for my behavior.  I truly couldn't help myself...desperate, pathetic.  Wanting so badly to talk to him again.  Words...and the pain of being ignored.  The realization that, in all probability, you never even cross his mind. 

So, you make the choice to start recovery.  Rehab for the broken heart.  Where in the HELL do I begin that process? 

By writing.  I have hesitated in writing this.  I don't think there is a chance he will read it, and I hope he doesn't.  This is me, getting this out of my head.  This is not intended to hurt anyone.  I worry things over and over and over until I drive myself insane.  I stress myself out.  Writing...helps me deal.  Write it down, and hope it blows away on the wind, like Dandelion fluff...

I am ready for these feelings to float away on the breeze.  I want to move on.  I am trying. 
 

Whatever gets you through the day...

“Time doesn't. All that Time does is make it more distant, put more space between you and what happened. It doesn't heal anything. I don't know how or what does the healing, but it isn't Time.” - Mercedes Lackey

The last 9 days or so of my life have been...unpleasant.  Scratch that, they've been a clusterfuck of epic proportions.  I never get "sick."  I get run down, tired...I have days where I don't feel my best...but truly sick?  Rarely.  When I do, it usually is a scary thing for me.  I may be a nurse, but, like MOST nurses, I don't deal well with being sick.  I am resistant to seeking care.  So...by the time someone forces me to a doctor or an ER, I'm in trouble. 

This wasn't as dangerous as the time I had strep, fever of 104 and a very angry doctor yelling at me, an asthma patient, for not coming in sooner because my throat was dangerously swollen. 

But, 2 liters of fluid via IV later....

Anyway, I am feeling better, thinking more clearly.  The other stressors going on in my life during this week have been..addressed, and I feel relief.  I am still hurting, but the hurt is lessened, and is being replaced by understanding.  Progress.

Once again, I got lost in someone/something else, and myself took a seat at the back of the bus.  My head...was/is a mess.  I only know of two cures for that, in my world....writing, which is this, and cooking.

Cooking...is a magical thing.  It really is.  Sure, you can ignore the recipe, fly by the seat of your pants and hope it turns out to not be a disaster.   But, there is...comfort in the recipe...the steps you follow.  The measuring, the cutting, the methodical process.  Once you've been someone who cooks for awhile, you can deviate from the recipe with confidence, add your own touch.  You learn to eyeball a measurement without actually breaking out the spoons and cups. 

This is why I love cooking.  It helps me regain my focus.  I haven't really done any cooking since I moved into my apartment.  Not REAL cooking.  I will fix that next week. 

I need to establish a routine again.  Just for awhile.  I need to organize.  :)    Whatever gets you through the day, right? 

I disagree, with the quote I've used.  Time does heal....it's the distance and space it provides that is the healing factor.  Time facilitates. 

The art of "okayness"

Right now...I am not ok.  I will be, because I always am, in the end....but for the moment, I am not "OK".  I will say I am "fine".  I will say, "Don't worry about me."  I will put an incredibly convincing smile on my face for the world to see, and you will believe me. 

But....I am lying. 

I am screaming on the inside.  I am crying when I am alone.  But, I won't let anyone see that, because others can't help you heal.  No one can take your pain, and if you let them try, they only exacerbate it.  Tenfold. 

But, I will keep lying until that day when I AM "ok".  I don't know when that will be.  My own stupidity keeps leading me into situations where "not ok" becomes the norm for me.  I really should have gone into acting, because truthfully?  I'm REALLY fucking good at it.  Hey!  I guess I DO have a talent. 

My patients will comment on my "beautiful smile" and how kind, and caring I am.  And, I AM kind, and caring.  I love my job, and I am so thankful I have it.  Even when I have a patient that frustrates me to the point of going into the bathroom and letting out a string of profanities that would make a sailor blush, I usually have another patient that I can channel that anger into a little extra TLC for....

The beautiful smile part...well, I work nights, it's dark, and a lot of these people are febrile...they don't see clearly.  Nothing "beautiful" about me. 

So.  I'm not ok.  But, you don't have to worry about me.  I will be fine.

No one panic, if you bother reading this at all.  These are just words, and words are my release. 

Gratitude

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

I have been feeling particularly blessed lately.  Thankful beyond words.  This is a new feeling for me, one I am definitely not used to experiencing on a regular basis. 

A few months ago, I couldn't imagine feeling this way.  My outlook was...bleak, to say the least.  I have always tried to look at events in my life as lessons, regardless if they were good or bad experiences, every thing is an opportunity to learn and grow.  But, that pain...I never thought anything good would come from THAT. 

While now, I can look upon it and say with certainty that I learned a valuable lesson...I never, ever want to experience that again. 

Today, 5 or so months later, I wake up in the mornings with a smile, I say a little thank you before I get out of bed.  I am home near my family again, I have a great job with amazing coworkers, I have an apartment that I am quite fond of (and will really love once I get..you know...furniture and stuff)...and I am entering into a new relationship with someone who makes me laugh daily, who makes me feel special, and I have good friends surrounding me.  My life, IS truly blessed.  I feel peaceful, and content. 

I can't wait to really get going in my new life.  I finally feel like I have the potential to do much, and nothing holding me back.  I'm no longer mired down in my worries of the day...of every day.  I limited myself so much, because I didn't feel good enough to do what I wanted to.  I still have those moments, but they're coming farther and fewer between now. 

My life is going to be an adventure, and I cannot wait.