So, today is a great day in our household. I have been avoiding spending the money on a new computer for about a year. My wife has had to suffer through my bad moods every time I had to interact with the old one. It would take an hour to boot, sometimes turn itself off an finally refused to connect to our wifi. Finally she pulled the trigger that I wouldn't and bought me one.
Since she knows me, she knew that the way to get me to agree was to just to give me two choices and say "which one?" Then we talked about it for 5 minutes, which is the max amount of time that I ever want to spend shopping, and she bought it! Now I'm blogging on it because it doesn't make me angry just to turn the computer on.
Other good things about today:
I hid 8 Easter eggs around the house and Satu found them all before dinner. I like to have an excuse for a fun game like that. I love how Satu is always down for a funny face or a game of hide and seek. I love being with someone who doesn't hide her curiosity or her joy. She is easy and kind.
Satu had a good day at work because the team sang happy birthday to one of their own and all the customers clapped and cooed. I can imagine how the mood lightened there and how people felt connected.
Today was a day full of laughter and happiness.
I am currently not having a panic attack and it is almost 7 o'clock. Prime fretting time.
Spring happened tot the front yard, but not the back. All the front yard bushes made pretty pink flowers between the time we left for work and the time we got home. Kind of like we got robbed in reverse and came home to find that our home got decorated with spring flowers.
I don't have to work tomorrow, so I get to have a cup of coffee with my wife in the morning. Mornings with her are probably my favorite thing in the world. There hasn't been any chaos in your day yet and you can really be together without distractions. Also, she seems so harmless when she's asleep and doesn't squirm when I snuggle with her.
We are having a quiet, stress free night at home. No cell phones, no fuss, just two women in love. She's my best friend. She's the person I never get tired of and the only person that I always feel like myself around.
I hope the rest of our lives together is filled with these wonderful, completely normal days. It's what I live for.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
I feel like we are dating
I have battled with anxiety and depression for most of my life. Why are they connected? Are they connected? The only thing I know for sure is that they are connected in me. I have a soft spongy heart. It feels empathy for everything alive and everything that has ever or will be alive. That's just me. It's the me I am used to.
Oddly, it is when things are the best that anxiety kicks in and I worry that I don't deserve my beautiful wife or that I am at my best moment in time and will never feel this lucky again. What if I miss this? What if I'm not good enough?
As difficult as my brain and my weird chemicals can be, as crippling and uncomfortable, I understand them. I know myself like this.
Right before I left the Marine Corps, I started to have terrible, night time panic attacks. Partly, I think it was the stress of more responsibility at work, partly it was the helplessness of being stuck in a terrible squadron and partially it was finding a life that felt like me and mattered for the first time in years,
Today it is spring in Ohio. The first flowers (crockus) showed up overnight and announced themselves. I felt like me again. Not the sad or panicky me, but the me that felt optimism and pleasure just sitting in the sunshine. I began to think maybe I could just not take any anxiety medicine.
Maybe I could just hold on to this spring day in my heart and be the emotional, but predictable person that my wife fell in love with. Maybe I can experience sex again and the way that my body used to buzz with desire.
Then I crashed. I put food in my body which always makes me feel tense lately and then the sun set. When Satu came home I was already starting to feel a little swing in my mood. The beer I started in the sunshine felt like a celebration when I opened it, but felt heavy before I finished it. Instead of being fun for Satu, I cried. Then I felt selfish and stupid for being sad in front of her.
When I started this post I felt like I did when Satu and I had first started dating and I was waiting for her to come over. My heart open and excited.
Why doesn't that feeling ever stay now? The happier I feel during the day, the worse I feel at night. I hate having to sneak off to a quiet room to get my shaking under control. Right now I feel like Satu deserves someone less complicated and I am worried that I am blowing it.
I took the medicine this morning. I hope it works. I just want to feel like myself and not be the kind of complicated person that you'd rather avoid. I also need to sleep. Last night was the second, almost completely sleepless night. The more of those I have, the farther I feel like I get from my real self.
Satu, please just stay in love with me long enough for this boat to hit the smooth water again. It's going to be okay. These crazy emotional storms are kind of like when we were dating though. I'd be working my boring job and suddenly get overwhelmed by an un-anchored emotion. Then it would wash away.
How do I get back to a me that feels right without coloring over all the blue skies and the spring flowers that feel so good and without being a see-saw when I see the one person I love more than anything? I don't want to keep sleeping alone while she is lonely in the house too.
Maybe I could just hold on to this spring day in my heart and be the emotional, but predictable person that my wife fell in love with. Maybe I can experience sex again and the way that my body used to buzz with desire.
Then I crashed. I put food in my body which always makes me feel tense lately and then the sun set. When Satu came home I was already starting to feel a little swing in my mood. The beer I started in the sunshine felt like a celebration when I opened it, but felt heavy before I finished it. Instead of being fun for Satu, I cried. Then I felt selfish and stupid for being sad in front of her.
When I started this post I felt like I did when Satu and I had first started dating and I was waiting for her to come over. My heart open and excited.
Why doesn't that feeling ever stay now? The happier I feel during the day, the worse I feel at night. I hate having to sneak off to a quiet room to get my shaking under control. Right now I feel like Satu deserves someone less complicated and I am worried that I am blowing it.
I took the medicine this morning. I hope it works. I just want to feel like myself and not be the kind of complicated person that you'd rather avoid. I also need to sleep. Last night was the second, almost completely sleepless night. The more of those I have, the farther I feel like I get from my real self.
Satu, please just stay in love with me long enough for this boat to hit the smooth water again. It's going to be okay. These crazy emotional storms are kind of like when we were dating though. I'd be working my boring job and suddenly get overwhelmed by an un-anchored emotion. Then it would wash away.
How do I get back to a me that feels right without coloring over all the blue skies and the spring flowers that feel so good and without being a see-saw when I see the one person I love more than anything? I don't want to keep sleeping alone while she is lonely in the house too.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Mid day pick me ups
I just thought I would take a second to record how grateful I am that my wife loves me and keeps connected while we are apart. Lately she has started sending me little clips from instagram and pinterest while I am at my very emotionally tumultuous job.
The pictures and videos seem curated to remind me that there is good happening somewhere in the world while I am trying to keep afloat in a storm of opinionated, bossy men at work
In this video, a turtle pats another turtle's face. When I googled this it turns out to be the way these particular turtles flirt with each other. Then I imagine flirting with Satu like that.
She definitely would not be receptive to that kind of two handed face touching. I imagine her scrunched up nose being sucked back into her shell,
Satu likes pats, but she likes them the way she likes them. Usually the best thing to do when I want to give her attention is to rub her feet. She doesn't know the inside of her foot from the outside and won't get it right no matter how many times I correct her, but I know which side always needs attention.
Lately I've been entertaining this fantasy of squirreling away as much money as I can, selling the house and just moving to a very affordable little town with Satu. Somewhere where I don't have to have a high paying job or be stressed by work at all. Maybe I could do inspection somewhere just to keep bills paid and the insurance current. We could build a forge in the back yard and Satu could make art and I could make some other things like inventions and blobs of accidental metal. Maybe we could live close enough to my sister to help with Sam.
Maybe we could have two days off together every week someday.
I actually do like to work and I like to work hard, but whenever I feel stressed and like I am failing I just imagine this nice little house on a hill grassy hill somewhere. It's spring time and I miss the sound of bugs and wildlife. It seems calmer to move toward that kind of life eventually.
There is a difference between jobs that I can do and jobs that I am happy doing. As it turns out, I would kind of like to just do regular old hard work sometimes without being the boss or having a boss. I want to live near bugs and have a king bed some day.
I don't want to know about people who get shot in the world for no reason or read the racist comments that heartless assholes write about innocent victims of violent crime.
I don't want to know any bad people who can't connect or care about others.
I want to ignore the circle of life. It is the only time I wish that people weren't as smart as we are. How much less stressed would we be if we didn't know about death.
I feel like I could hole up in a little country house with Satu and never turn on the news and never have to face the real world again. I like my bubble where my sweet wife could just laugh with me and pat my face with both of her hands. Then we could sun ourselves on a rock and maybe chase some fish around the pond.
What do you say girl, lets live a simpler life some day.
The pictures and videos seem curated to remind me that there is good happening somewhere in the world while I am trying to keep afloat in a storm of opinionated, bossy men at work
In this video, a turtle pats another turtle's face. When I googled this it turns out to be the way these particular turtles flirt with each other. Then I imagine flirting with Satu like that.
She definitely would not be receptive to that kind of two handed face touching. I imagine her scrunched up nose being sucked back into her shell,
Satu likes pats, but she likes them the way she likes them. Usually the best thing to do when I want to give her attention is to rub her feet. She doesn't know the inside of her foot from the outside and won't get it right no matter how many times I correct her, but I know which side always needs attention.
Lately I've been entertaining this fantasy of squirreling away as much money as I can, selling the house and just moving to a very affordable little town with Satu. Somewhere where I don't have to have a high paying job or be stressed by work at all. Maybe I could do inspection somewhere just to keep bills paid and the insurance current. We could build a forge in the back yard and Satu could make art and I could make some other things like inventions and blobs of accidental metal. Maybe we could live close enough to my sister to help with Sam.
Maybe we could have two days off together every week someday.
I actually do like to work and I like to work hard, but whenever I feel stressed and like I am failing I just imagine this nice little house on a hill grassy hill somewhere. It's spring time and I miss the sound of bugs and wildlife. It seems calmer to move toward that kind of life eventually.
There is a difference between jobs that I can do and jobs that I am happy doing. As it turns out, I would kind of like to just do regular old hard work sometimes without being the boss or having a boss. I want to live near bugs and have a king bed some day.
I don't want to know about people who get shot in the world for no reason or read the racist comments that heartless assholes write about innocent victims of violent crime.
I don't want to know any bad people who can't connect or care about others.
I want to ignore the circle of life. It is the only time I wish that people weren't as smart as we are. How much less stressed would we be if we didn't know about death.
I feel like I could hole up in a little country house with Satu and never turn on the news and never have to face the real world again. I like my bubble where my sweet wife could just laugh with me and pat my face with both of her hands. Then we could sun ourselves on a rock and maybe chase some fish around the pond.
What do you say girl, lets live a simpler life some day.
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