thinking

About what I might want to do with this new life of mine.  Quitting my gig with the state was the first positive change I have made for a very long time.  A long time really quite filled with little steps, little new choices, heck, filled, finally, with choices as an actual option.  I mean, how major that is, something I can hardly wrap my mind around.

My therapist says that she believes one of the reasons I was able to leave that day is because I never gave up.  Sure, I never gave up, lost faith or compromised in my marriage, but she means something different.

I was able to make small forays into the outer world from time to time.  The consequences were not pleasant at home, but they were mostly worth it.  I volunteered wherever I could because volunteering was something that he could not fault me about and it helped to keep the secrets if it did not look like I was housebound.  So, the stuff I did at our daughter's school, at the church she and I attended and for the extended community meals program were acceptable, as long as everything at home did not change.  When she wanted to attend a private high school I had to work to provide that.  Otherwise, I was not permitted to work at a job.  There is so much more to all of this, but the point is that I now make choices that are not dependent on the mood or orders of someone else.  They do not come with penalties or retribution.  They are not logged in some demented score book in the head of someone else.  They are not made with fear, well, at least not more than the usual, the normal fears that any normal person would have when making normal choices.

Last week was a huge step forward for me and the truth is that it I am feeling a little shaky about it now.  I left a message for the department head because I knew that if I waited for her to return from lunch, or if I had returned later in the day, that my resolve would drift away like so many times before when I knew that I needed to do something and was too cowardly to do anything proactive for myself.  Our daughter was, still is I guess, learning disabled.  I fought every step of the way to find and provide the resources she needed.  Today she is on the cusp of graduating with a degree in the medical field.  Yay us.  Give me a person who is suffering and I will be exactly the champion that person needs.  I was not able to do that for myself.

The past ten months have been one step forward, one step backward, one step too scary to take and so much more.  Still managed to make it here, though.  This is so tough.  Being responsible for myself, making all of these freaking decisions, keeping it all together.  I thought that as time went on that everything would be easier, and most of it has, but I keep hitting these stupid barriers that take me back in time, to when I would have given anything to be able to do what I needed to do and could not.

I mean, this is insane.  I do not expect to recover from decades of crap in less than a year.  Pretty much do not hold that expectation.  Oh, lordy.  So much progress and still so far to go.  I am standing higher now, both metaphorically and physically because it seems as though I am actually taller now.  I know this because when I saw my doctor last month I was weighed (oh, the horror of that experience should be outlawed) and my height taken.  Something about keeping good records or some crappy reason.  So, apparently I am standing nearly an inch taller.  Life is so weird.

I am eager for new stuff, new experiences, new people.  All of that.  I wonder how I can want and not want so much at the same time.  I was thinking about making a list...I am a huge fan of lists, being old and all...of my fears, and then working on that.  Maybe I will do that, but for now that seems like a seriously bad idea.