The Way It Is

I haven't posted in ages because I really haven't had too many good things to say, I don't have Internet at home, and I haven't had a phone with a working camera in a while. After thinking long and hard about posting I decided that it would be better to post than to not because maybe others can share their experiences or I might be able to bring someone else comfort if they are struggling like I'm struggling. So here goes...

I have so many things to be thankful for. I have my health, clothes to wear, a full time job, people who love me. But life right now just sucks. The biggest areas I'm struggling with is my child, my finances, and my anxiety. That pretty much has a trickle effect on everything else.

Where I'm at with the little one...
She has always been a super intelligent being. She is very aware of what is going on around her. She picks up on things quickly, and she is the strongest willed child I think I've ever encountered. She is incredibly vocal and I'm very passive which makes it hard for me to fully relate to her. She is a mess behaviorally, throws the biggest fits, says the meanest things.."I'm going to squeeze the blood out of your body" "you are stupid" "you are not a good mommy" "you are nothing" " never going to see you again" I'm never going to live you again" "you are never going to be my mommy again, only Jessica (dad's girlfriend) is". She hits, bites, kicks, even spits in my face. I've tried the love and logic method, I've tried breaking her will. I'm out of ideas. We started counseling in hopes of getting some help. Her counselor said that she is just super intelligent and has a very strong will so we are going to start a therapy for both of us in hopes of equipping me with some skills to channel her behaviors and we will go from there. She has also been getting migraines and headaches. Headaches come almost daily so we are working with her doctor to try and figure out the cause of the headaches/migraines. Hopefully there is a link between her migraines and behaviors and we can come up with a way to prevent them.

My finances...I have a full time job that I absolutely love. It's a hard and very demanding job at times but its very rewarding and not a day goes by I don't leave feeling like I made a difference. But, it just doesn't pay enough. I live a simple life, we have an apartment, we don't go out to eat, shoot I can't even tell you the last time I bought a bottle of wine and I would love some Merlot! We just don't buy things we don't need. The right rear blinker in my car has been out for months. In addition to my full time, 40 hour a week job I also nanny 7-10 hours a week and I donate plasma as much as my schedule allows. But I still can't seem to pay my bills. My student loans stress me out. I just don't have money to pay them. I've exhausted all options for forbearances and deferments. They call and call and I still don't have the money. It stresses me out and makes me sick to my stomach. I have loads of doctor bills that I can't keep up on. I'm just at a loss.

These two significant challenges has brought on more anxiety in me than I have had since 2 years ago. I have been having anxiety attacks that just plague me and no one to help with Lily when they happen so I just leave her to fend for herself until they are over or do the best I can to pretend to function while they are happening. No one to hug me or comfort me, to tell me it's going to be ok when I'm in the midst of an attack. I've been depressed and couch ridden because I have a hard time coping.

Life just sucks right now. That is all.

Here's To The Rest of My Life

I'm finally where I want to be. I'm finally in the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. I spent nearly a year and a half transitioning, healing, moving forward inch by inch. I most definitely haven't met all my major life goals yet, but I'm finally at a place where I feel like I can not only embrace my life, but enjoy my life too. After 15 months I was finally released from my marriage legally. After 16 months I was finally at a place where I felt the next necessary step was to get a place of my own for Lily and me. I find out in the next 3 or so weeks if I have been accepted into grad school in the fall. If I'm accepted I will start school this summer. I'm hoping for that and excited for the next adventure. If not school, then just doing what we are doing and enjoying our life.

We are adjusting well to our new place. It's in the perfect location for all 3 of my jobs and for school when it starts. We are close to a lot of great areas and a big grassy dog park. We have a stellar view of the city and beautiful trees off our deck. It's the perfect size for us. We have our animals here with us and they are adjusting fairly well. My cat thinks he is ready to go outside, but I disagree. My dog is having a hard time being back in the kennel when left alone and she is having a hard time with being on a leash all the time and having to. E designated potty breaks as she has had a pet door and a yard her whole life. I'm thankful for the dog park I discovered near by. Today we walked there. Peaches definitely needs to get more exercise and walked on a leash more because by the time we got to the park she was tuckered out. She rested for a bit, drank some water and was good to go running off the leash. Lily had fun too. We played "busy bees" and flew around the park picking dandelions. It felt good to be there, running free with not a care in the world with just my daughter and our dog. I'm excited to make memories in our new home, be active walking and going up and down this crazy set up stairs to get to our car. Don't worry, to actually get in to our apartment, it's only 1 set. Here are pictures of our first visit to the dog park.

A Year

A lot happens over the course of a year. A lot happened in my life in 2011. I look back and I see healing, triumph, failures, fun, sadness, more healing, new friendships, new jobs, new career focus, new community to be a part of. So much of my life is still the same. I'm still trying to get back up on my feet, still trying to gain my freedom to move forward, still discovering losses I never knew existed, although those are fewer and further between.

I look at 2011 as my year of healing and I'm embracing 2012 as my year for rebuilding. I have redefined my life focus for the time being. I'm simplifying my life to revolve solely on my walk with Jesus, my daughter, my finances, and my future stability. I'm taking a social sabbatical to focus on these things and these things alone. I'm going to try to update on my blog, but will be omitting Facebook here in a week or so. I won't be in a tremendous amount of communication with any form of social circle, because that is outside my focus. I'm excited for my rebuilding period. I'm excited to see who I will be at the end of this next chapter. I'm getting stronger and stronger and I'm loving myself more every day.

Horses

After 3 years of absorbing life around her, Lily has finally found something that she is passionate about. Horses. She absolutely loves horses. She dreams of riding a big horse one day. Her favorite show is a cartoon about horses called Horseland and her favorite movie is Flicka. She talks all day about horses. She imagines she is a horse and gallops around. She rides on the back of me pretending I am a horse. We have 2 dogs in the house and she puts saddles on them. The saddle is a long strip of toilet paper. She renames the dogs, giving them horse names. Our dog, Peaches is Calypso when wearing the saddle. I found her the very best pair of cowboys boots that she loves. She slept with them the first night she got them. She also received some little tiny horses that look real and she loves those. Along with a bigger horse that came with a Barbie. She has a stick horse that she rides around the house. As we drive to and from work every day, passing big open fields she looks for horses. She doesn't just look for any horse, she hopes to see a wild horse. It will be my goal to get her some where this spring to ride a big horse. If the passion continues I would love to get her riding lessons and even possibly owning a horse and caring for it. I am so excited she found a passion. I never in my wildest dreams imagined her to love horses.

How Many Times Must One Trip...

Before they finally stop to remove what they are tripping over?

This is the question I've been asking myself lately. I was on this super charged high for quite a while. I was feeling Jesus around me every where I went and in all that I did and said. It was such an amazing feeling. A little over a month ago God really started to speak to me on obedience. He showed me how in my past I have lacked pure, 100% obedience and that is what lead to the collapse of my marriage. I have made every decision in my life hastily and from my own head. I have prayed, but never truly listened. I never truly heard God's voice or let the Spirit lead me. So, since the end of my marriage and after a great amount of suffering I finally surrendered all that I am and all that I have to God. Everything was going really well and I felt more alive and more complete than I had in my entire life. I was praying and receiving confirmation on every single area of my life. There was one moment in church one night where I was worshiping and I had this vision of me physically throwing all of my cares up to God while I physically felt Jesus' arms around me and His hands were holding my arms as I was tossing each care, one by one to God. It was such an amazing feeling. At that moment after my vision I felt complete peace. I still haven't felt the burden of those cares I tossed up to God. I was on this high of feeling God's presence for a while and I was feeling so good that I, somehow forgot that it takes work to keep that connection. Like in any relationship, you have to do the work to stay connected. So over a 2 week period I began to lose that feeling. God was there alright, nudging me. I let Satan get in yet again. I failed to let God write my life plan and began to make my own decisions again. About a month ago God really spoke to me about letting Him write the story of my life. He gave me visions of how my life would be if I let Him do the writing. It was a beautiful story. One I was so excited to be a part of. In fact, I started journaling the story because it was just that amazing. God clearly told me that if I was not obedient then He would pull the plug on this beautiful story. I am not sure where my head was, but when I started taking the control back of my own life God truly did strip that story from my heart. He removed all the signs and evidence of this story ever coming true. I was knocked right on my butt. I was devastated to say the least. I was again brought before God and questioned on my obedience. I had to answer to God about that and I FINALLY understand that when God told me to be obedient, He really did mean it. I am ready to put my own strength behind me and truly surrender all that I have and all that I am to God for the last time! I am ready to give my self and my selfish desires up for a life written by God. I have no idea if the original story will be brought back. God did say it would come true if I was obedient and I was not. So, time will only tell if He will bring that back to me if I make this turn around and keep myself connected to Jesus. I pray He does bring it back. But, I do know that He alone knows best. I will find joy in whatever God brings me in my life.

Hey readers. How have you been? I have been without a computer for a few weeks. My netbook was infested with a nasty virus. But, it's fixed now thanks to a friend of mine. All I had to do was bring him and his fabulous family dinner. Score!

On a serious note...I've been doing a lot of thinking about my thoughts. What is that called, metacognition? Thinking about my thinking. Anyway, in the last 6 months I have not once looked back and missed my marriage. How sad is that? I would think that I would miss it, miss my husband, miss being married. Nope. My pain, anger, sadness, etc has been over what he did to me, not what I lost. I wrote out all of my loses and the main one, the lose of losing the husband himself, is actually more of a gain. What makes me sad is the realization that I never had a loving marriage. Neither of us loved each other to the core. You know that deep, solid, unconditional love, the can be seen from the outside by everyone around? That love of being on the same team, embracing each other with adoration, the pleasure of bringing joy to the other? The love that is backed by deep passion? I've loved only one person to the core romantically and that person was not my husband, not the person I created life with. What makes me sad, is seeing couples that have that "to the core love" and knowing that I didn't. Knowing that I didn't love him to the core before I married him. I loved him, but it wasn't to the core, it wasn't with every fiber of my being. I thought his claimed loyalty and my surface love would be enough. Lesson learned.

Acceptance and a clear focus

I'm pretty tired of living a life on the surface, always pretending to be someone I'm not. I've spent my entire life living on the surface and more than that I lived my entire life begging to be accepted by other people. I remember a couple instances from my childhood. In my church I was one of the only kids that came from a single parent household. My mom did such an amazing job giving my brother and I the best life she could. I'm proud of my mom and I'm proud of how I was raised. But, I never felt fully accepted by my peers at church. I was in constant competition with the other girls. The other girls weren't competing, but I was. I wanted to be like them, to have a mom and a dad like them, to dress like them and have nice things like them. In my quest to be like them I worked really hard to learn as many memory verses as the other top girls in Sunday school. I would memorize and recite, but didn't truly learn what the memory verses were telling me. I did it to get the sticker or whatever the reward was. I did it for acceptance from my peers, not to truly learn the word of God, thus getting to know God, Himself. The other story is quite similar, in that it's another story of me wanting acceptance. This time, the setting is the public school I attended. My peers at school noticed I was different. I didn't say bad words, I was a good kid, always listened to and followed directions. One day out on the field I was surrounded by a group of my friends and they decided to point out that I didn't swear. So, they dared me. All of them. Now, maybe this doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, but I desperately wanted to be accepted so after a few minutes of prodding and persisting, I said my first swear word. It felt so weird to say. Unnatural. Anyway, I'm sure most kids and adults crave for the acceptance of others. But, as a child of God, the only acceptance I should have needed or wanted should have been God's acceptance and I already had that. I had that when He sent His son to die for me. The meaning behind that goes deeper when you have your own children. Could I send my own child to die, even if it is for the salvation of the all the people of the world? It would be tough, but I'm not God. I won't ever have to be faced with that decision.

The sad part about both those stories, is those were just the beginning of my need, my desire to find acceptance. I've been desperate for acceptance since my childhood and it has lead me to some very unhealthy choices. So, as this new year begins my focus will be on embracing God's love for my life, accepting myself and loving myself. This is where the social sabbatical comes in. I want only to nurture and strengthen my relationship with Jesus and my relationship with my daughter. I want to eat healthy, remain active, read, have quiet time daily. I don't have a lot of expectations. Just commitment to what is right in front of me.