Today I’m grateful for feeling…

Stressed out and upset when Cubu told me this morning that a coworker of his that lives outside the city is looking to move here. They’re more friends than coworkers at this point and I have struggled greatly not being controlling/sabotaging that relationship out of insecurity. I spent the rest of the car ride terse and snappy, not realizing I was lightly triggered until he had left the car and I had done the damage. I did realize it right after, which is light years quicker than I could have noticed it earlier this year, but I’m still eager to be able to notice it in the moment. I just started spiraling in my head “he’s going to move here, Cubu will go over there to play games, he’ll realize he likes that coworker more than he likes me and leave.”  Clearly my abandonment complex was suffering a bit this morning. 

Frustrated that despite all my self-love and other improving symptoms, I simply can’t seem to connect my upper-level reasoning with the child that expects to be abandoned. Maybe that’s something that will come with time, I’ve only been in CODA for 14 days. It just all makes me sad for my hurting inner child and sad for Cubu, who hasn’t learned to stand up for himself. Sad that we’re still in this cycle. Grateful that I didn’t freak out though, previously there was large potential for that. And it would have ruined my entire day, maybe even the next, without me knowing why I was being so bitchy.

Disappointed with myself at not being healthier. We’re calling tonight and I’m literally arranging my life to make sure Cubu doesn’t have a chance to truly be alone/unheard. I’m telling myself this is okay since I’m not freaking out that he’s likely to play a game with a friend. But I’m still pretty ashamed of my lack of independence and control over his every movement. Sometimes I wish he’d stop me and stand up for himself, set some boundaries, but I think we never would have gotten this far if he were that type of person. I maybe would have just left. My therapist at the time of us dating told me he sounds like someone I’m going to roll over, that I’ll have to keep myself in check because he won’t do it for me. And I thought I would. Maybe I did for a time, but it definitely didn’t last.

Sad for a 1.5 Years Ago Me. I had watercolored Neytiri from Avatar as a part of a “one square a month watercolor quilt” project and hated how it turned out so much that I didn’t continue the project. My mom tells me out of the blue today that she’s been showing off that watercolor to all her friends for months, especially the ones that watercolor, who said it was fantastic for someone who hasn’t really done it before. I looked at it today and it’s not fantastic but it’s definitely not worth quitting a cool project over. The fucking irony. How silly that something that caused me such distress was a thing worth bragging over. I feel so sad for my painfully perfectionistic younger self who could only see the flaws in her creation to the point where she stopped a thing she enjoyed. What the fuck. And I still feel this way, if I tried it right now I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t do the same thing, I haven’t learned, I haven’t healed. Where do I even start? How does one just feel okay about what they create without needing it to be perfect?

Feelin’ good…

• I went morning river swimming again! I really didn’t want to today, I suddenly felt insecure again that I wouldn’t like it, that last time was a fluke, that I should stop while I’m ahead. But I made myself suit up and it was great, again. It regulated me from the coworker trigger and had me almost bouncy for hours. 
• my relationship with the coworker I used to have beef with has been slowly but surely mending since she gave me that spontaneous hug a couple weeks ago. I made sure to say good morning with an authentic smile, to compliment what she’s wearing if I like it, ask about her weekend. And she does the same to me. It’s slowly feeling much better. She was the only significant thorn at my job and I’m just loving the lack of tense-ness at work now. And grateful that she made the first move. Again, trying not to be ashamed that I wasn’t the bigger man and didn’t step up to do it myself. 
• I was going to skip my CODA meeting today to emotionally prep for my mom’s therapy session, maybe put more library hours in then do SIA work until the session. BUT I had been triggered this morning and had a gut feeling that I really should prioritize the CODA over making extra money. So I dragged my feet to it, attended, and loved it. I told them about my morning issue and everyone was so caring. It really just takes one kind face listening with empathy to change everything, I swear. I felt the issue was more touchable than it had been as the defensive shield of shame was gone, and no longer stressful to think about.
• my call with my mom was… excellent? She listened to me and apologized for telling her friend about my CSA and for not protecting me as a child from her. Well, she tried apologizing but she’s got this “I can see how you’d feel that way and I’m sorry but…” approach. So I cut her off and gently told her that isn’t an apology. An apology takes responsibility and is made of empathy/compassion for the other person. I even gave her an example of a good apology (I read a book about it last year that taught me). She said I was right and then she APOLOGIZED. She said that might be her first real apology and felt so stupid for not realizing she was doing it wrong her whole life. She went back and apologized for both and *meant* it. I never thought I would get that from her, I had filed that under “sore spots I’ll have to reparent myself about alone”. Honestly I kind of don’t believe it happened. The best thing that came out of that therapy wasn’t even the apology though, it was realizing that we are just as open with each other in phone calls as we were in that session! A lifetime of not knowing how to communicate and needing therapist intermediaries. Today we learned we’re able to hear each other and take feelings as they are rather than as criticism. I feel so hopeful, like we still have steps to go but with communication in our toolkit, we’re over the hump on it being difficult to form a relationship. I’m elated actually. And so so grateful for the work we’ve done to get us here. She invited me to see her in Autumn and I’m really excited to get to do that. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, I know I have a tendency to do that. I’ll try to slow down..
• after the therapy with Mom I had bees galore, I was full of nervous energy. So I just grabbed my jump rope and jumped it out! It was so perfect, five minutes eliminated what would have been hours of bodily anxiety. It wasn’t all gone but the vast majority was.  I’m just proud of myself for enforcing this positive habit in the middle of a stressful time, I don’t normally feel I have control like that when freaking out. 
• last volleyball practice before our first game tomorrow and I just love this sport. Also my serves are really hot now, 80% of the time they’re scary to receive. I’ve been working on them for years and I’m glad to see that finally pay off, to feel competent and intimidating on the court. Having a good server can get you multiple freebie points in this game if people are too spooked of the ball so I hope to be a more valuable team member.