Musings

In my dreams, I'm as happy as I am now, but I'm free of expectations. I'm done thinking, thinking, thinking about people's perceptions and the things they care about, that I convince myself matter to me too. I have all of these things taken out of my control. Someone smacks me and tells me that I'm fucking stupid for stressing about whether my tile floor is perfectly clean, if my son has a balanced meal every single mealtime. I'm an idiot for weighing myself two or three times a day. I shouldn't care if the neighbor sees me naked on my porch swing, because it's my back yard and I could do anything I want on that porch swing... and maybe I should.

In my dreams, I work out what it is I want...

I'm totally controlling when it comes to feeling held down and suffocated, but feel tremendously rejected when he doesn't want and try to hold me down. I can't stand a guy who beats around the bush or doesn't tell me his feelings and what he wants. Man up, demand what you need, but don't be surprised if I flake on you afterward???

I'm restless and hate feeling like I'm boxed in or have too many expectations of me. I also need purpose and a goal at all times. I don't want to feel like I'm floating. I need something to ground me. So, I need responsibility and a goal, but not the type that I am required to do???

I'm unpredictable but I like the things around me to be predictable. I expect total freedom from my husband, and demand his trust, but I tend to be mistrustful and uncertain when he exercises the same freedom. I'm a hypocrite. I have double standards. I want to be able to do whatever I want, but I expect others to be definable, predictable, and to make sense to me???

I'm an emotional cripple. I don't get depressed often, but I do get restless, fidgety, want something I can't define... and that makes me across the board with my feelings. Plus, I take it out on everyone around me. I try and pick fights. I ask for things that are unrealistic so I can push people away when they can't deliver. I get masochistic and set people up to hurt me... So, I'm fragile but I still want to be handled without care???

My husband is the complete opposite of everything you read above. I spent so many years in violent, self-destructive patterns of behavior. He was my platonic best friend... sitting in the wing, watching, worrying, remaining my loving friend no matter how reckless and ridiculous I became. Once we became a couple, he stayed despite drinking benders that lasted days and resulted in my not coming home, falling down in the lawn, making out with anyone and everyone around me, getting arrested... He stayed. He stayed!

I grew up. I slowly and painfully started to respect myself. I graduated college with Highest Distinction, started making healthier decisions... and started to learn to love myself. It was a slow process, and many of the behavior patterns remain today.

So, in my massively intense project of chasing off the people who love me most, I started to resent my husband staying. I mean, I started to think he was pathetic... not manly enough for me. Who stays when they're being treated that way? So, I started pushing him away... I mean, I'm a fucking genius of forced solitude. He still stayed. Not only that... he continued to love me, despite my convincing and frequent attempts to make myself unlovable.

In the end, I realized it was me that was pathetic. Really, deeply, pathetic... Here I am... this wildly flailing wind storm, circling above a calm island.

He grounds me. I just needed to accept that we don't have to be the same. He doesn't need me to stop being the beautiful disaster that I am, and I don't need him to share in my chaos. We can live independently together. He can let me be me and still love me, and I can borrow some of that peace.

I'm not trying to glamorize my marriage. We have plenty of problems... I guess I'm just trying to say that the healthier I become, the greater my realization that I don't need to spend my life proving my validity. I don't need to fix the contradictions I list above... Maybe it's okay, as long as I'm healthy and the people around me love me. Maybe. Maybe I'm worthy of it all. Just maybe.

Today, I woke up with a strange thought running through my mind... and it contributed to this musing. I thought:

I'm fluttering in the wind, a marionette hooked to a sunbeam.