Being Me…

I have been worrying a lot about our situation (go figure - both of us without jobs and we have two small children). Well, that really doesn’t help anything. The question right now is, “What can I do to improve our situation/my life?”

There are things I can do on the financial front.

• I can get haircuts a bit less frequently.
• I can make recipes that stretch food a bit more - things that are filling but take less meat for example.
• I can look at less expensive fruits and vegetables.
• I can make sure that the loads of laundry are full.
• I can look into insurance since we’re going to need to change soon.

There are things on a stress-relief level:

• I can write down my worries at night before bed and pick it up in the morning.
• I can take 15 minutes a day to have peace and quiet or listen to music.
• I can take the time to soak in nice bath once  a week.
• I can get out of the house once a week, even if I don’t have errands that need running.

I realize now that, despite being a homebody and shy, I do actually need contact with other human beings - other women in particular some times, but people in general.

My two closest female friends and I have been trying to get together at least once a month because we realized that we would easily go 6 months between visits. Considering that we live withing 12 miles of each other, that is pretty sad.

I went out today with one of my friends mentioned above and another (male) friend. My other girl-friend couldn’t make it this month, but we decided we needed to keep our momentum and go out anyway. This is the third month in a row that we’ve gotten together and I feel so much better. I am energized after each of these days, regardless of what we do or how long or short our visit is. I have to admit that the addition of a guy to today’s visit changed the outing a bit, but not in a bad way - we just talked about different things and the atmosphere was a bit different. It was great to catch up with him as well - I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him since last June.

I do hope that we can keep this going. All of us seem to be in better spirits, less stressed, and laughing more than we were before we started this. Sometimes we vent, sometimes we just talk about things unconnected to our problems, and sometimes we just laugh. All of it is good. I’m grateful for my friends, I’m grateful for time out of the house, and I’m grateful to be reconnecting. I’m grateful that I’ve realized that I too need human interaction beyond that of my immediate family; it is good for me.

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne

I’ve really had a hard time lately. It seems like the depression is overcoming even the medicine that I’m on. I’m trying so hard to keep myself busy, get exercise, eat reasonably healthily, and so on. I try to get a reasonable amount of sleep. I’ve tried everything I can think of to fight the stress and so on. I’ve got to work on my attitude.

I’ve always been told, “God helps those who help themselves.” I am putting out my resume now, trying to get a job that I definitely don’t want. As I said earlier, I am trying all sorts of things to keep me going in the mean time. Maybe I’m fighting the current flow of my life too hard. Maybe I need to work on accepting the fact that I may go back to work. Maybe I need to stop looking for happiness and stop fighting my current situation so hard.

That doesn’t sound right; I’m not sure anyone else would understand what I’m talking about. I don’t mean that I should stop looking for work, or stop exercising, or stop trying to get more sleep, and so forth. I mean that I’m fighting getting a job, I’m fighting giving up school, I’m fighting being the strong one for now. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m being selfish right now, more so than I had realized. I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is, but adjusting my attitude can’t hurt.