The thinking of it

We  have a Step Challenge at work...Step To It...or something like that.  We have teams and we calculate how many steps we get each week and the winning team gets something really special.  I'm looking forward to competing in my step challenge because I've needed the excuse to get out and walk...the weather hasn't been keeping me from it...just plain and simple laziness (and the tightness of my pants is beginning to tell me that I can't eat like I did when I was pulling all the time).

At any rate, that's the long explanation for saying that I went for a 40 minute walk after work today.  That's a lot of time with myself to think.  To not be distracted by hobbies or tv or Pearl (sometimes even Zora is cute enough to keep me from having to think).

I won't say I'm avoiding...that wouldn't be quite right and would indicate some sort of purposeful action NOT TO think...I've just been through so much recently and grown so much and changed so much...and have new responsibilities at work (that I love, btw, but they are new and I am learning) that I've simply stopped thinking about things...about the divorce.  About the pain I felt in July when it all fell apart.

But today, on my walk, I had to think about something and what I thought about is this:

"I'm not sure why it hurt so badly"

I can still feel the shock of it and remember how the emotional pain hurt me physically.  How I couldn't eat for weeks...the physical act of chewing food made me want to throw up.  How I couldn't stop crying for days and my hands shook so badly that I couldn't knit or crochet.

I certainly remember all of that, but now...today...as I was walking around in my beautiful neighborhood, I honestly couldn't remember why it hurt so badly.

It's a testament, that thought, to how much I've grown to love myself.  That scared, sad, lonely, miserable girl who was married for so long...she didn't love herself.  She loved HIM.  She loved others, but she didn't take the time to get to know herself and realize what a beautiful person she is.  She thought that by living through others she would find fulfillment.  It's what I was taught, how I was raised to believe.

Loving myself.  Doing for myself...that was selfish.  But what I've learned instead on this long hard journey is that I'm worth taking care of...and by taking care of myself I can become valued by others...but if I'm not, that's ok because I know my own worth and find fulfillment there.

---------

Today's picture is of the cowl I finished last week (I think it was 4 days start to finish) using the March club color for the Rockin' Sock Club: Gran's Kitchen.  The pattern is 1950s Ice Box Cowl.

I love the cowl...the yarn is amazingly gorgeous.  The stitch pattern on the cowl is very pretty.  But there's a design flaw that makes it curl in on itself and that's disappointing.  I'm not the only one who's had this problem...but I won't unknit it to fix it.  I'll just spread it out and show folks when they ask :)

The writing down of it

For any of you who have been through the kind of loss and separation that I've experienced this year, you know...you know that there's a soft kind place called denial that comforts you and helps you through the worst of the pain.

Denial is a safe place.  A place where you can hold yourself tight and stay safe and become comfortable with yourself...the thing that's outside of denial, well...you don't have to pay attention to it, do you?

Denial is a warm place.  A place where you are protected from the cold winds and the harsh climate of reality.  A place that is cozy, comforting and, if not happy, at least it's not terrible.

Denial may be the place that allows us to stay alive.  By denying the things that are going on around us we build some kind of protective walls from the anguish and pain that if we had to face it head on would certainly break us.

Denial is the place that we go to heal from the awful...and as we heal, we start to tiptoe outside of denial.  Often we have to go back, but more and more we become aware that the awful isn't going to kill us anymore and we can approach it.

Look it in the eyes.

Stare it down.

And cry.  Feel sad, feel scared.  Feel alone.

But we aren't in denial anymore, and we know that it's there if we need to run back to it.

-----

I think, too, that each of us has our own kind of denial.  Some people throw themselves into work or hobbies or their children in order to avoid the hurt that's waiting for them when they're done with that project.

Or they pretend that the thing that's real--the awful--simply isn't.  (that's me).

Some folks turn their backs on the real and walk away from it.  They acknowledge that it's there but they deny its power over them.

-----

Facing reality has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  Staring down demons that were there in my life...the ones that made me miserable, the ones that made me pretend that I wasn't miserable.  The ones that hurt me day in and day out and I denied their presence and their pain because it was simply easier to go on...more comfortable to put on my blanket of denial and pretend that things weren't what they were.

I can't pretend any longer.  I have to say it...to write it...to tell people the truth.  The awful, sad, painful truth.  And while I know I'm ready to say it, I know that others may not be ready to hear it.  Their own blanket of denial is protecting them from whatever demons lurk in their lives.

So, I sit...and I write it down...and it hurts and it scares me.

-----

But I came to a realization last week.  One that I've kept to myself because it's so precious.  One that has made all the difference in the world to me.  One that has made me happier than I think I've ever been in my life.

I'm safe.  I've built a space for myself, here in my apartment in Reno, in my wonderful job at JBW, with my new friends and colleagues, with my old friends and colleagues, with my family, with my therapist, with my pets, with the demons from my past...a space that I've created by facing the reality that I have...here and now.  The one I'm living.

There are still things that may hurt me, people who have the ability and probably desire to do something harmful to me.  But I can decide how much to let them in and in knowing that little truth.  Knowing that I have power.  That I can build, and have built, the boundaries around me to hold me safe and protect me--AND NOT DENY MY PRESENT OR THE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE AROUND ME--I have become something that I treasure.  Something that I know that I will do whatever it takes to protect MYSELF.

This one thing...this knowing...these boundaries...this safety.  It's monumental, paradigm shifting.

Simply amazing.

-----

And I'm so proud of myself for it all.

Feeling Groovy, Sock 1

I finished the first of the socks last night.  I love it...sort of.  The pattern is "ok"...not bad...definitely turned out fun, but I just don't know how I feel about slip stitches on socks.  We'll see how they wear before I give a final verdict.

I'm desperate to finish them, less because I want them done and more because I WANT TO START THE NEXT PAIR.  Cookie A socks...in a gorgeous peach colored Anzula Squishy.  A luxury for my feet, let me tell you!

Not to mention the blast I'll have in the knitting of it.

News:  Biker dude showed back up at knitting group last week.  He continued to be amazed by me, but didn't speak.  I'm kind of terrified of the whole "talking to a guy" thing so not sure what, if anything, I could do at this moment...though I do have to say I'm curious.

I had color themed carts today at work.  Not all one color all day, but each cart was one color.  It's always interesting in JBW world.

-----

Also I'm writing.  Which is why I'm here less. Some pretty powerful and amazing things have come through my fingers.  It feels good to get it down.  I know it's not "the thing" that will be whatever it is that I'm doing--(i.e. this is prewriting in its most primal form) but boy is it valuable to me.

I'll share one of the bits.  I don't know what to call these things that I'm writing.  It isn't poetry, and I'm not sure it's connected other than it's my thoughts, but it's there and it's been very healing for me and I do want to share some of this with the world:

In the beginning there was calm.

Calmness that let me think and breathe and see.

 Calmness that allowed me to stop and realize my worth

 Calmness that gave me the strength to do the things I needed to do to move forward.

 Calmness that prepared me to be loved.

 Calmness that allowed me to truly love others.

 Calmness that defeated anxiety.

 Calmness that reached out to others.

Calmness that gave others the strength to breathe, see, realize, do, love.