August 2005Monthly Archives

Let me start today’s post by sending out a big “Thanks” to those of you who have taken the time to email me with words of encouragement and advice regarding my relationship post yesterday. A couple of you really gave me some things to think about, even though I do already know the answer to your question. Based on how the questions were posed in your emails, I’m assuming you already know my answer as well.

Ok, it was a REALLY shitty day/night. How, you might ask? Well, for starters, the college cancelled my calculus class I was planning to take because not enough students had enrolled. So, I spent most of my morning scampering about trying to figure out another class I could take that wasn’t already full and would still go toward my degree requirements.

When I went to the bookstore tonight to exchange the textbooks, my new car (barely had it 5 weeks) was the victim of a hit & run side-swipe in the parking lot. I now have a dent that pretty much runs the full length of my rear passenger-side door. Thankfully, the paint doesn’t appear to be scratched, so I guess I should be thankful for that.

I had planned over the next couple of weeks on buying my plane ticket for my November trip to Mazatlan, an Ott-Lite stitching lamp that Joann’s has on sale this week (seems like a really good deal in case anyone is interested), and even possibly a trip to go to CATS Santa Clara coming up in October. Well, I should still be able to pick up the Mazatlan ticket, but it looks like neither of the others are going to happen now since I’ll be spending that money on repairing my car now.

I just KNEW I should have stayed in bed this morning! I guess what that say about “when it rains, it pours” really IS true.

Now, on a more fun note …

What Kind of Knitter am I?

You’re a hip knitter! Anything in style, in vogue,
in fashion, or expensive is your thing! I bet
you’re a big fan of the Tiny Diva….

Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmmmm….very interesting.

Ok, so I’ll forewarn that there is probably going to be nothing about stitching in this post. Well, ok, so here is somethig about stitching … I didn’t get to do any today. Now that that’s out of the way, on to what I really came here to discuss.

Even though work was insanely busy for me today, I found myself with a LOT of time for thinking. Some things that I thought about were good, while others left me a bit perturbed/disturbed.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent woman. I’m 41 years old, so I’ve definitely experienced a bit of life and am long since past the “being wet behind the ears” stage. Why is it then that I allow my own self-worth be controlled by the men, or lack thereof, in my life?

I did take enough psychology in college to realize that a lot of this probably stems from the fact that my father wasn’t around much when I was going through my formulative years. He always worked long hours on night shift, so I was lucky to see him a couple of hours each week. When I did see him, I would go out of my way to show interest in whatever he was doing at the time just to get to spend time with him. Most of the time, he seemed pretty unaware of my presence. This generally left me feeling as if I wasn’t good enough for him to be bothered to even notice me.

Fast forward many years to my adulthood and my relationship history. The first guy I ever seriously dated cheated on me and broke my heart (at least, I thought so at the time).

The first man that I ever actually DID fall in love with was killed in a car accident that left me devastated for a long time. I honestly believe that had he not been killed, we would have been married for many years now.

My next relationship resulted in my first marriage. We got engaged after only 3 weeks and were married in just over 3 months of meeting one another. I tried so desparately to make the marriage work, and stayed with him for many years longer than I should have. After we were married, he became a drug addict, was abusive toward me, and cheated on me. After we split up, he stalked me and threatened to kill me.

After that came my second marriage. While I definitely took longer before walking down the aisle the second time around, the result ended up the same. He basically didn’t work during our marriage, and was very demanding and domineering. When I told him to move out last year, I suspected that he had begun cheating on me, but didn’t know for sure. I learned from him last week that not only had he been cheating, but he had been doing it for most of our marriage. Initially I was stunned. Later, I felt hurt. Lately, I’ve just been angry because of how he played me.

My most recent “relationship” was so very different from my previous ones. We were never in an exclusive committed relationship, but, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t trying to change myself to be who/what I thought he wanted. I decided I was just going to be myself and see where things went, and they seemed to be going great. We enjoyed the same things, laughed at the same jokes, and could easily spend hours talking as if it were mere minutes. I truly felt I had found my soulmate, but, ultimately, things just didn’t work out for us romantically. We’re still wonderful friends and will be until the day we die. It was just another bittersweet pill to swallow because I really felt we had found something very beautiful and special in one another on a romantic level, which is probably why I’m still struggling so much to get over him.

So, now you may be asking yourself, what on earth does all this relationship history have to do with my sense of self-worth? I’ve come to realize that all these experiences I’ve had as an adult have left me feeling much like I did as a child desparately longing for and trying to grasp the attention of my father. I feel invisible. I feel like I’m lacking something somewhere and that I’m just not enough to hold onto the man in my life. I feel like I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, etc., etc., etc. I just not enough SOMETHING, dammit, and I don’t know what.

I’m not sure, per se, why I’m writing all of this. Perhaps it’s just for the sheer cathartic nature of actually writing it all down. I’m also not sure where I go from here, but I do know that I need to start living my life for ME and realize that I AM worthy of whatever I choose to do with my life. I owe no explanations to anyone. I owe no consideration to anyone. I am wonderful and beautiful because I’m ME, regardless of whether or not I’m in a relationship. As a result of that, I need to take care of me. I need to nuture me. Most importantly, I need to LOVE me.

My Mom used to always tell me something when I was younger that I usually let go in one ear and out the other. She would always tell me that I needed to learn to be happy just being by myself because I would never be able to be happy with anyone until I could be happy alone. I thought she was crazy then, but now I think I understand just how wise she was on that one!

I know this has rambled quite a bit, and I do apologize. If you’re still actually reading at this point, then you clearly have no life, are insane , or you’re one of my dear friends who love me and are willing to listen to me prattle, as I tend to do. Whatever the case may be, thanks for reading and hearing me out. Perhaps some day this will all make sense to me. In the meantime, I’m just trying to learn from it and grow.

Happy Sunday everyone …

Sorry for not posting again in several days. My family and then my ex-husband all really threw me a curve ball earlier this week and I ended up out of sorts and pretty much withdrew from the world. I know it’s not a good thing to me, but I just tend to retreat when things start bothering me.

I have had a really nice weekend, however. Friday was my regular every other Friday off day, so I had the gang (my former in-laws whom I just adore!) over for what has become our monthly poker night. OMG, we drank WAY too much! We all had a good time though and took precautions that everyone who shouldn’t be driving didn’t. On the upside, I even won 40 bucks. Any ideas on how I plan to spend the money! My guess is you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you can’t figure that one out! So, part of today will be spent daydreaming about potential stash purchases.

Yesterday I went and spent the afternoon with a friend and had an awesome time! We mostly just sat around and bitched about the shit in our lives, but it was all good. Of course, since she is also a stitcher, several new things will be making their way to my wish list soon.

After I got home from there, I met up with another friend online. We chatted online for a while and competed against one another working SuDoku puzzles. Of course, the only down side was that we did that for HOURS and it was after 3am before I got in bed and went to sleep.

I putzed around and got a few things done around here earlier today, and now the rest of my day will be split between getting in some stitching time (I think I only got in a total of 6 stitches yesterday ) and getting in some journaling. I have been VERY off track with my eating lately. I have GOT to find my Mojo again! I finally stepped on the scale this morning and saw a number I DID NOT like! Hopefully that will help motivate me to get my ass in gear and work on this again. I have come WAY to far to go backward now!

Happy Stitching …

I cannot believe it’s been 2 months since my last entry! Where the hell DOES time go? As a child, it seemed like Christmas took forever to get from one year to the next. Now, it seems like the years pass more quickly each and every year. What the hell is up with that?!

I’ve had a busy summer, but didn’t get in nearly as much stitching as I would have liked. Work was very busy and I did a bit of traveling as well. I did finish the “No Late Knight” snacking piece by Dragon Dreams. The “other” project is also near completion. So, naturally, I started a new piece last night.

My latest start is “Orange Glow” from The Silver Lining. I’m working it over 1 on white 25-count Lugana fabric. I had all of the DMC colors on hand, but I still need to visit my LNS to pick up the Anchor fibers. Oh darn, a visit to the LNS!

Happy Stitching …