I totally missed my post last week due to being in New Orleans for the SERA conference. It was a requirement for my doctorate. While there I eat several things not on my gluten free diet and I'm paying for it!
I started with a mini meat pie on the way and only got worse from there including two trips to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. I was stupid and I didn't think it would hurt me too much since I went wheat free for Ravebaby and not personal health reasons. I was so wrong.
After four years wheat free, I started paying for the bites almost instantly. So much gas and a headache. Since arriving at home I feel like I've been fighting the flu. Body aches and fatigue and a thirst I can't seem to drink enough water to quench. I was already scheduled for my annual checkup for tomorrow and I think DH would have demanded a doctor visit anyway since I'm totally not myself at this point.
I don't remember struggling like this for years ago. I think it is because before I had a baseline of normal that might included all of this achynessand fatigue but I don't remember. My new normal was painfree and usually with plenty of energy so maybe that is why this seems so bad. I don't like it. No way I'm going back to wheat. Anyone else ever try to go back to wheat only to discover it hurts?
I'm starting a new blogging thing were I write up my response to a song that made me stop and think.
If you didn't know I love The Killers and my Spotify is chalk full of them. When I first heard The Way It Was, I thought it was a sweet ode to a love lost due to growing up and growing apart. How many times have I wished that DH and I could just go back to the way things were when life and love was easy, i. e. before marriage and growing up got in the way. In the time since I first heard the song several of my friends marriages have split or hit on a rough patch. Marriage is hard and we all struggle at some point or another but anyways I stopped and really thought about what was being said and I got angry and here is why.
1. This is someone being a totally immature asshole! Just go back to the way it was. You only want to stay with me if I promise to go back to the way it was. Dude you go back and then you end up right here again! You are not trying to solve the problem just hide it. In the words of Thomas Wolfe, "You can't go home again!"
2. The love you remember wasn't real. We all look back and see just the good sides of thing especially when we are hurting. If only this had not happened or if only we could just forget and go back to the beginning. The song speaks about "did you forget all about those golden nights?" and really don't we all remember the golden nights of courting and falling in love but if you want to survive and have a lasting relationship you have to move past just falling in love. Staying in love is work. It is not easy! Stop whining and start working!
3. Is it really over or are you just tried of working at it? I think this is the one aspect that bothers me most of all. Brandon Flowers sings, "Back then this thing was running on momentum, love and trust, That paradise is buried in the dust." So you don't love me anymore? You don't trust me anymore? You think we are standing still? I love that it is all my fault! I'm growing up and moving forward and you want to reverse all of that work so you can feel good about the fact you refuse to grow up! Maybe we have an issue with trust but if you don't want to work on it then there is nothing to go back to 'cause it all leads back here.
Don't get me wrong people. I love this song but it is because Brandon Flowers' voice is amazing. I was listening to the song on the way in to work today and I started crying because it makes it all seem so easy. Just go back. Just rewind and we'll be okay. That is simply just not the way it works. If you go back without working on it then you end up right were you are again.
Not too long ago I told DH, after listening to this song, I love him and when I see him I see the 16-year-old boy I fell in love with but I don't want to be married to that kid. I love the man I'm married too. The one that has allowed me to grow and turn into this better person. It is easy to think that if we could just go back then the work would go away but why travel the same road twice? Don't wish away the person you have now for the one in your memory. I assure you that person never existed in that way. Work or don't work but don't think going back is the easy solution.
One of my defining characteristics is that I'm a very driven person. If I put my mind to it I will do it. This is a good and bad thing. I am lucky to be able to focus not on things but usually on improving myself. I know some people are driven to get stuff but stuff is not a big factor for me. I usually put my energy into education, career, marriage, friends, or my child. I don't let things or people stand in the way of something I want.
So why the drive? Why do I have to work so hard? The answer is pretty easy. I think most people who are driven come from a place of fear. Fear of not having enough money, enough food, enough love. Not a need for more just a fear of not enough. At least that is my drive. I don't want more money. I am happy being poor but I am afraid of not being able to choose this as my life. I hate the idea of living by default. Maybe the root fear is actually control. I hate to be out of control too. I know control is a total figment of my imagination. I know I control nothing. I think I am sitting safely at my desk but the roof could cave in and kill so so much for control, right.
The idea of enough has been really present in my mind since reading Daring Greatly from Brene Brown. I can so easily see in my life were I feel like I am not enough and that is from childhood. I have never felt enough for anything. I'm not Mexican enough, or American enough. I'm not skinny enough for the normal girl clothes section or fat enough for the big girls section. I'm smart but not I'm always just behind in getting a concept down or being able to express my thoughts fully. I just told Dh the other day, I'm pretty but not pretty enough to make anyone want to risk actually hitting on me. At the same time I'm not ugly enough for anyone to really notice me either. I feel like I live in the gray space of invisibility.
I think most of that is a comfort thing. I don't want to really be noticed because then I would have a responsibility. I want to be able to operate at my own place and in my own space. I want to set a goal and achieve it; earn a masters, run a 10k, get some research published. I think I lost my point but anyways, I am driven. Driven by fear mostly but it works for me so onward I march. Maybe someday I'll feel like I'm enough at something, hell maybe the best at something till then I gotta work.
