Dear Diary

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,
I have a few minutes before I go to work today, and have so much to update, but alas, no time to do the updating.

Or energy.

Diary, I feel so guilty that I haven't been able to keep up with you, or my friends here, at Dear Diary.

I promise I will try harder.

In the mean time, I need to vent and Diary, you are the place to do it. I am the bread winner...YAY, I am the strong one in the family...YAY AGAIN, and who knew? But, every once in awhile, I remember.

This song is dedicated to my DH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcRZ_J_VgNc

Love,
ME

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,

Every once in a while? Every once in a while? Every once in a while, I allow myself to remember.

"...I'd say you're lucky 'cause I know what you've done..."

On Sunday I was in the shop working and redisplaying the spring dresses when I heard "J.?" "J.G.?" "J.G., is that you?"

I knew from the sound of her voice who it was. Diary, it's too long to explain here but do you remember when I ran away from home? The home that I raised my daughter? That home? The moving van had pulled in and we were supposed to be packed and ready to move but I hadn't done a thing. Nada. I wouldn't let the mover in even though our house was sold and the new people were due to move in that afternoon. Instead, I packed my jewelry, all of it, and jumped in my car and drove to New Bedford Airport and flew to our other home in ACK. J. was in boarding school.

Sigh. The movers ended up packing everything and it took a few days. The new owners were delayed moving in and I stayed in ACK and never came home. I came "home" when the ACK house was sold as well, with a stop along the way to the mental institution. A long sigh just came out of me, Diary. Breath. Just Breath.

Anyway, I was unceremoniously brought back to DH's new apartment in G, CT with the condition that I have sex with him that first night. No discussion. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I just remember lying there.

"...Not a care in the world cause I know what you've done, you're the lucky one..."

Diary, where was I?

So, the woman in the shop on Sunday was my long lost friend Joanne and her daughter, M. M. and my daughter J. had been friends since they were 3 years old. M has graduated from Middlebury and is working in Boston and we all started crying and hugging.

Joanne told me that I looked so happy and that this job is the perfect job for me. I'm going to market with the owner in August to buy our inventory for next year, measuring customers and fitting them for custom orders, choosing new shoe lines, managing our staff, I'm doing it all under our magnificent owner's guidance. She is truly empowering me.

But, sometimes I'm still that girl that ran away from home in her mid 40's. I didn't say goodbye to ANYONE. NO ONE. And apparently my past is coming home to roost.

[Loveslife]

PPPS Diary,

I've heard it said that how we deal with failure defines us. (Parks and Rec, just now)

So, I'm financially bankrupt but as far as my happiness quota is concerned, my cup runneth over.

All in all, I am proud of every single thing that I've accomplished in less then one year.

XOXO

[tina martin]

J, you are heroic in all you've accomplished, so praise yourself every day. Who praised us in our life?

Am also into forgiving myself, soothing and reassuring myself. Do this during meditation, on the precious daily walk with sky, clouds, air, trees, bushes. You have the ocean, beach, air, sun, birds, etc. This is Positive Self-Talk, part of the program here and CBT. I've bought into this reconditioning of the mind and work at it every day. Hope you have a good weekend, xo, xo, xo..........t

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,

So diary, are you my trigger? Are you? Do you make me feel exposed, diary? Well, if you ARE my trigger, as M. suggested, it is because my boundaries were very badly invaded over a long period of time.

So how to over come a trigger? Face it.

Hi Dear Diary....La la la la la di da. Tra la la.

Diary, is it ironic that I write to you in a public forum for all to see? I mean, have I just thrown my hands up in the air and said F. it. He read my diary for so long and printed it out, put it in a garbage bag and threw it at me and now what do I do?

I write Dear Diary in a public forum.

But Diary, I no longer tell you my most intimate and private thoughts.

I just give you the outline of myself. When I was learning to sketch, I learned how to stare at the object/person I was sketching and just let my pencil follow on paper the lines that my eye was registering.
Am I doing that now with you? Yes. I'm not filling in the shadows and the different colors and my sketch is lacking in depth.

Diary, you lack depth.

I don't lack depth but I certainly don't share my innermost feelings with you as I once did, long long ago. Or, rather, long ago.

Should I?

I try to in song. La la la la la, tra la la de da.

I can communicate my feelings with youtube videos of songs easier then I can write about them. Is that a start?

How can I expect myself to get over the anger, or work through my feelings when I can't access my own feelings?

I feel very happy with all that I've accomplished in MY OWN life.

So, that's a true emotion. A true feeling.

I feel....searching....empty in my marriage, and not safe in my personal space. I'm hardly ever home so I think I have resigned myself to assuming that he continues to violate my boundaries.

Sometimes I have true compassion for him. Other times I have ..... searching ..... RESENTMENT! I mean, well, I mean how DARE anyone violate my space for so long and belittle me and and just forget it diary.

I don't want to access these feelings now.

It's not good for me to try to do this all by myself. Dr. W. told me that I have impressed her beyond belief but I am still vulnerable to .... searching....I'm still vulnerable. Each day I fill in the outline of ME. Each day the colors are becoming a little bit clearer. So far, the colors are all happy colors.

Is that because those are the only colors I want to try to be? Only happy colors?

What will happen when I fill in the outline of ME and I start finding darker colors? Do I even HAVE dark colors inside of my empty spaces?

We shall see. So far, the colors of me are all light and happy. It's just safer that way.

Love,
Me.

PS
Diary, I just asked myself, quick, what song comes to mind RIGHT THIS MINUTE? GOD only knows why I thought of this song.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXFFLuoaMzM

[tina martin]

The Beach Boys are lively, good to dance to. Now I love opera where there are many anguished hearts. We can't understand them, which only heightens the appeal to me.

It seems I prefer the rational part of our brain. The current culture seems to have forgotten that we have Reason sitting up there. What this does to people is a tragedy, in my view, if we permit it to take over. The tenets of Buddhism (along with CBT) have helped me. But it is always a process, must work at it every day, never take anything for granted. Like reading Dr. K at Fox. Some of it is interactive. Laugh at his Nuts or Normal videos. Always want to compliment him on his tie, ha ha.

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,

Tina mentions Dr. K.
I saw a video of Dr. K. last night and his words pierced my heart. Diary, he said that if your child is a heroin addict you have already screwed up your child and you are a bad parent. (paraphrased, diary)

I carry around daily, on my shoulders, burdens of guilt because of all that my daughter has been through. I couldn't help but feel for the other parents of addicts struggling to remain clean and how his words must have pierced their hearts as well.

I've done and always have done all I can to help B. get sober and clean. Yes, I bare responsibility for her addiction. I married a man with 5 children, had a child, and she fell through the cracks. By the time I tried to pull her up by reaching my hand, my whole arm, down through the crack to rescue her, she was a junior in HS and she didn't want rescuing. She was screaming for help but I was the only one listening.

Now, she is 32 years old and clean, sober but killing herself with her ED, which has also been there, with her, since she was a junior in HS.

So, his words hurt me deeply, but yes, his tie was nice.

This song is for me...to help me remember.

"...keep one eye open at night..."

The very last frame of the video is how I have felt for the last 10 years and what I'm fighting every day to come back from.

I disappeared.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea4E-XYLStw

Love,
Me.

XO

[tina martin]

Am sorry to say, J, I could not understand most of what this singer says. I find this is true even in some current movies I've tried. The "artistry" seems to ignore communication. Just my reaction.

But you have not disappeared. Have, in fact, accomplished so very much. Yes, Dr. K can be hard and so can hurt. There is no need for it, serves no purpose. I would tell him so. And, yes, I so understand your terrible heartache and guilt re B. My whole life has been guilt in the big picture and the smaller one with my mother and brother. Here is where Christianity has it: those two huge concepts, Forgiveness and Love. Try, try, try to forgive yourself. It is my primary mantra when I meditate. Let it be yours.

We're having a near blizzard here, but I'll go out anyway as soon as it lets up a bit, xo, xo, xo.........t

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,
I don't know how to thank Tina for all of her kind and loving words. I hope she knows how much I owe to her, how much she has helped me through the years and how I always take all of her advise.

Forgiveness is key, Diary. Forgiveness is the key. And, loving oneself is another key. I do love myself, it's true, I do, diary.

I'm working on forgiving myself. Brooke helps me every day with forgiveness. She forgives me and asks that I forgive her. Of course, I have never blamed her and I do forgive her. I also hold her accountable now for all of her actions.

Today at work I worked with a woman named Sandy. (Sundays it is always just Sandy and me) Anyway Diary, Sandy's 12 year old daughter died unexpectedly 4 years ago. Her daughter S had a headache and was vomiting. Her pediatrician said it was the flu. The next day S. was still sick and getting worse. Sandy called her husband and asked him to come home and when he did, they called an ambulance. Sandy could not leave her autistic child (her son) alone so her husband drove in the ambulance.

By the time they arrived it had been determined that she had undiagnosed type 1(?) diabetes--she was very thin--BUT the doctor on call in the ER gave her 3 times too much of the IV medicine that S. needed.

Sandy told me that S. sat up quickly in bed and said "ow--my head hurts" and then she lay down and died. Just like that.

4 years ago.

I see Sandy struggling with guilt every week and she really is in a deep depression, but work is helping her. It breaks my heart.

She told me today to just love B. Just love her every day.

I think that is good advise.

Diary, that's it for today.

Love to everyone.

Me.

[Loveslife]

PS Dear Diary,

The song, as you know diary, I most relate to in this whole world, the song I listen to every night before I go to sleep is
The Song of Bernadette.

There was a child named Bernadette
I heard the story long ago
She saw the Queen of Heaven once
And kept the vision in her soul

No one believed what she had seen
No one believed what she heard
But there were sorrows to be healed
And mercy, mercy in this world

So many hearts I find broken like yours and mine
Torn by what we've done and can't undo
I just want to hold you, won't you let me hold you?
Like Bernadette would do

We've been around we fall, we fly
We mostly fall, we mostly run
And every now and then, we try
To mend the damage that we've done

Tonight, tonight I cannot rest
I've got this joy inside my breast
To think that I did not forget
That child, that song of Bernadette

So many hearts I find broken like yours and mine
Torn by what we've done and can't undo
I just wanna hold you, come on let me hold you?
Like Bernadette would do

I just wanna hold you, won't you let me hold you?
Like Bernadette would do



Not that it matters diary. It doesn't. But, It is my favorite song.

XO