Raincity Mama

I would describe myself as socially awk­ward. I know I’m not the only per­son on the inter­net that is socially awk­ward but some­times it feels that way. I had hoped that social media would help me be more socia­ble but instead most days I still feel like I’m on the out­side look­ing in. I know that to get beyond this feel­ing I need to jump in but mostly it feels like I’d be interrupting.

It is hard to watch a con­ver­sa­tion flow and feel that it is ok to jump in. If I were at a cock­tail party and I jumped into a con­ver­sa­tion it would prob­a­bly grind to a halt. I know that to get to know peo­ple I need to jump in but some­times I’m not sure how peo­ple will react so I hold back. Blerg!

I’m not sure how to wrap this up. This has been on my mind quite a bit lately and I thought that writ­ing about it might help but I feel extremely self con­scious and I’m temped to just delete this.

So does any­one else think that “awk­ward” looks wrong? I know that if you say a word too many times it starts to sound weird but awk­ward just looks awkward!

In my search to find what is g0ing to make me happy I’ve been doing some soul search­ing and let me tell you soul search­ing is hard! I mean I’m as self-centered as the next per­son but all this focus on “me” and what I want is hard to maintain.

One thing that came up is that I want to learn Ital­ian. I bought a pro­gram to use before we left for Italy to get mar­ried. I used the pro­gram for a few weeks before we left but after we got back I never used it again.

It is time to dust off the disks and start using it again because I think pick­ing this up again is the right thing to do. When I was in first year of col­lege I wanted to study lan­guages and maybe it is time to explore that.

I feel like I’ve fallen into the sea. I can’t say when it hap­pened but it hap­pened a long time ago, most likely just after the kids were born.

I remem­ber strug­gling to find my way. Thrash­ing and fight­ing and it didn’t really help. Waves washed over me and I’d splut­ter and cough. I did not scream for help because I’m stub­born and I thought I could find my own way to the shore, but I was over­whelmed and the under­tow pulled me fur­ther and fur­ther away.

I got tired of fight­ing so I switched to tread­ing water so I could catch my breath. It helped for a while but even tread­ing water is tir­ing so I decided to float instead.

It feels like I’ve been float­ing, adrift for­ever. I move with the cur­rents but make no real progress. I fig­ured I’d even­tu­ally wash ashore but I can’t even see land. I’m cold and dis­ori­ented and I close my eyes and a wave crashes over my head. I’m under­wa­ter try­ing to fig­ure out which way is up. I fight to right myself but exhaus­tion and numb­ness are pow­er­ful. I begin to lose hope.

A bea­con flashes in the dark. I can hear my name being called. I know that I have to start mov­ing again but I am so tired. Why is sav­ing myself so hard?

I’ve been avoid­ing even think­ing of writ­ing. It started off, well actu­ally I’m not sure how it started’ I think I got sick and then I read a bunch of absolutely amaz­ing posts and I felt com­pletely inept. I thought that I wasn’t wor­thy. But today I had an epiphany. I’m pay­ing for this space. The only per­son I have to make happy here is me. And lately I have not been happy.

I’m not sure if it’s the weather but I’ve been slip­ping into a very dark place. Not just pulling up my hoodie and plug­ging into my iPod to lis­ten to sad music (how much more emo can I get?) but with­draw­ing from just about everything.

I’m sad and angry. Oh, the angry. I’ve been los­ing my tem­per so often the effect is com­pletely lost on the kids. I need to find a way to deal with anger other than balling it up and stuff it deep down because I’m all filled up with the angry. I can’t feel any­thing else with­out hav­ing to shove the angry out of the way.

If I can’t find a way to deal with my emo­tions as they hap­pen instead of push­ing then aside to deal with them later; how am I going to teach my kids how to deal? This par­ent­ing gig is show­ing me over and over again that I have bag­gage that I thought was resolved but no, it is still there wait­ing to be dealt with.

So what does this mean? Hell if I know. I tried hid­ing and that hasn’t worked so per­haps it is time to face the facts and start to fig­ure out what *is* going to make me happy and do that instead. And for right now, writ­ing is mak­ing me feel just a lit­tle bit bet­ter so I’ll take that.