Excellent Vacation!

The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of events! Boyfriend was in the States on his R&R, and I spent the entire time with him. We traveled to Colorado for his brother's wedding, to Maine to spend more time with his parents, and spent the last 5 days at home just hanging out with friends and getting some good time just the two of us. I dropped him back off at the airport this morning for him to return to Afghanistan for the 2nd half of his deployment. Saying good-bye was sooo hard, but I'm doing pretty well right now. I think that's because I'm working on planning our future together. On Tuesday boyfriend proposed and is now my fiance!!!! We are getting married May 2010, so between wedding planning and school, the 2nd half of fiance's deployment should go pretty fast. Now that I'm not completely distracted by the love of my life, I'm trying to going to try to get back into therapy and blogging. I took a 2 week break from both. At the top is a picture of my ring. I absolutely love it!!!!!! (I tried to post the pic at the bottom, but am sadly blogger challenged and couldn't find a way to move it to the bottom) Going to take the rest of the weekend to chill, and then hit the ground running again on Monday. I can only imagine how parts are going to react to the engagement when things slow down enough for everything to sink in. Probably will have lots to blog about in the coming weeks. :P

Touching base

Hey everyone! Just wanted to touch base and let you know that my first week of vacation has gone pretty well. Seeing boyfriend has been absoultely wonderful for the most part. We've had a lot more feelings and emotions than anticipated. So far we're just containing them. I am sure we will have plenty to process and blog about after boyfriend is re-deployed at the end of next week. Still have lots of questions and very little answers from him..... Just a "trust me a little while longer." Ummm, trust? Hi, I'm your girlfriend of over a year, have we met? Trust?????? Blind trust????? Anyways, just been containing as much as a can and trying not to stuff everything. Plan to talk to him before he flies out next Friday if he hasn't brought anything up by then. We'll see.

I've also decided, vacations are great, but I'm not into long vacations like this one. I feel so out of touch with everyone that I care about. We've done a lot of neat things, and it's been a blast, but I'm actually ready for my routine again. At least I'll be home at my place with boyfriend starting Sunday afternoon. I miss my friends, my computer time (I only seem to be able to get online after everyone else goes to bed. They've been keeping us really busy), down time, phone time.

To those of you whose blogs I follow, I am out of the loop and I apologize. I pray each of you are hanging in there the best you can and still fighting. I know there is no way I could do this alone!

I look forward to being able to write a real update and catching up with everyone else. Until then, may God grant you peace!

Vacation

We're leaving tomorrow for a 2 week vacation!!!! I am so excited! I've never had enough vacation time at work to take a full 2 weeks off because I always end up using all of my sick, vacation, and personal time off from work to cover my yearly inpatient stay.

My two week adventure should be lots of fun and I hope to have insights and stories to share upon my return home. My laptop will be traveling with me, so I hope to blog along the way, but if I disappear for 2 weeks, don't worry. I'm not gone. I'm just on VACATION!!!!!!

Thank you

I just wanted to send a quick note to say thank you for those of you who read and responded to my last blog entry. We aren't in this fight alone and you all reminded me of that. There are days/weeks when it definitely feels that way, but the reality is that we always have God, and our entire journey is not one that always feels overwhelming or unbearable.

I am pleased to report that all lingering negative feelings from last week's events seem to be gone, and I actually had a pretty decent weekend. I'm feeling alright right now and definitely looking forward to the upcoming week!

Thank you to all of you for reading and for your support! :) It's good to know brighter days do exist even when we're not able to see them in the moment.

We all walk alone

I've wanted to believe for so long that when you found the right therapist, the right friend, the right boyfriend that I wouldn't have to walk this road alone anymore. The truth is we all walk this road alone. Every human pretty much walks the road of his/her life alone. You have support. People come in and out and pick you up when you need it, but no one actually walks through life with someone else.

We're having a really rough time still. I know it will pass, but it's been awhile since feelings have been this intense and I've been so acutely aware of how bad some things still are inside. Saw therapist today for a little over an hour. I have friends I could call for support right now. Therapist even said I could call her anytime if I thought it would help us. It doesn't have to be a crisis. Safety contracts have been made. Support systems are set up.

I think the sobering thought is that I have about everything I could ask for support-wise right now, and I'm still mostly doing this alone. What we wish for is impossible.... someone to be with us 24/7.... to truely walk with us. No person has that though. Everyone on this planet faces trials, lots of people have support, but we all still walk through this world and our struggles mostly on our own. It would be impossible for someone to completely walk with you even if they wanted to. They have their own life, own issues, own commitments. It's a really nice thing to dream about, but I need to quit thinking that I'll find the right person and I won't have to do this alone anymore.

I need to use and appreciate the help that I do have and quit hoping for something that won't happen. We can take care of us. We've been doing that for a long time. It's not easy but we can do it. I realize this isn't unique to us. I hope I'm conveying that. I realize every person on this planet deals with this same issue.

It just sucks..... that's all there is to it.... I'm struggling and I'm alone and I don't want to be either!

Half-birthday

So yesterday was an insightful day for me. I had a few mini revelations that I was looking forward to blogging about, but the day got away from me and then I was too exhausted to blog. I assumed I could just blog about it today. Not going to be the case. Having a really crappy day and those positive revelations from yesterday don't mean much right now.

If my title confused some of you, let me explain. Tomorrow is my half-birthday. I was born Dec. 4, so June 4 is my half-birthday. Make sense? Most of you may think this is very odd and never even thought about it before. Well, when I was a child my mother always celebrated my real birthday with just family because it was so close to Christmas and because we could never do anything outdoors. So, in order for me to get to celebrate my birthday with my friends and be able to have things like swimming pool parties, she started celebrating my 1/2 birthday with my friends. It seemed easier for kids to come because school was out and probably easier for my mom to plan since she was a teacher and off in the summers. I have a few actual good memories related to my 1/2 birthday, but overall this is a very bad day for me.

I was generally not around my abuser on my actual birthday b/c my family kept me busy, but my 1/2 birthday was different. I was home all day b/c it was summer and the parties usually only lasted a couple of hours. He chose this time to give me my "birthday present" each year. It makes me so sick to my stomach to think about that I don't think I can even go into details yet. Maybe when we're more removed from the situation. More than anything it was just such a confusing time.... being showered with gifts, told we were pretty, told we were loved, all the while being physically and sexually abused. Usually there was always something "new" for us to do on my 1/2 birthday as well. Something always worse, more painful, or more disgusting.

How do you reconcile one person playing both sides of the coin (you're beautiful/you're trash, I love you/you deserve to die, etc.) for so long at such a young age? It makes it to easy to understand why my self image is so screwed up. It's not completely horrible, but it is by no means good and can go back and forth on any given day.

For example: I got my hair cut last night. The girl that cuts my hair is putting a portfolio together b/c she wants to move out to LA and work. She asked if she could do my hair and have photos taken b/c she loves my hair. I thought okay. Then she proceeded to tell me that a professional would do my make up and someone else was going to take the pictures (so, these aren't just going to be pics of the back of my head). My photos will be used in all 3 people's portfolios. My hair stylist then goes on and on about how I should really look into going into modeling. Obviously, I think she's crazy, but I must say it was a confusing yet nice boost to my self esteem. Someone thinks I'm pretty........ Felt pretty good about myself yesterday.

Today I feel like crap. Sub-human. Not entitled to anything and feeling like I should profusely thank anyone who shows me any type of genuine kindness today. I want to crawl in a hole and disappear. And why is this starting today???? Usually it's just a day of thing. This year I'm going to get to sit with all these memories and flashbacks for at least two days. Lucky me!

Sh*t. I swear, everytime it feels like I'm really getting solid in a good place, something makes the whole ground shake and even if my whole world doesn't fall apart, any self-confidence I may have built up goes down the drain. Can I just disappear for a couple of days?