If you could change one thing...

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if certain things hadn't have happened.

A major thorn in my side is that my mom basically "kicked" me out of the house because her new husband thought I was too old to be living at home (I was 18). So I transferred schools, where I knew some girls from high school and it was the best thing to happen to me. My college years there were the best times of my life. I got into the education program, met my best friend, and stud.ied abroad. I learned more about myself in those years than the previous 18. To think how absolutely different my life would be now if the simple act of being kicked out of the house hadn't happened really makes me wonder.

That causes me to look back even further. What if I hadn't been abused? How would my life have been different? Would I have continued being the same person I was? Outgoing and fearless? Would I have had the "normal" high school life of dating and heartbreak? Sometimes I like to think that my life would have been a storybook tale if I hadn't been abused, but that sometimes makes things worse. I already have problems blaming myself, so thinking my life would have been storybook if I had just done SOMETHING different really stings.

Leap back even futher. What happens if my parents never got divorced? You could argue that I would have never been abused, but there is no way to know that. He was a family friend who would have still been around if my parents were together. Yes, he had more means and opportunity because he moved into the house when they both divorced, but just thinking about the possibility that what I went through might not have ever happened makes me view my parents' divorce in a very dark light.

It's so weird to be in my head wishing these things to never have happened, but to realize that it would completely erase who I am. I would not exist.

Hatred

All I want to do is cry. Life was going along pleasantly, then nothing happened. No trigger, no event.

Feeling that something was going to erupt inside myself, I grabbed my journal, turned on the shower and curled up on the bathroom floor (old habit to "escape") and just let my pencil do the driving. What I was left with is sheer hatred of who I am. I want nothing more than for someone to agree with me. To tell me I am this awful person who deserves everything she got. It takes too much energy to hope that there is good underneath all of these flaws. Too much energy to fake the good to balance it with the bad.

I feel empty and alone today.

A Quiet Minute

My life has been a constant flurry of activity these past few weeks. Only now am I able to sit down with no distractions and write about things going on in my life right now.

Work: I am amazing. Got some results back that put me at the top of my co-workers in the same category. Woo!!

Summer Plans: This will be the first summer in 3 years that I will not be in Pa.ris. I am bummed :( My college buddy and I are going to NY.C from June 11-15. Family reunion in Colo.rado from June 18-23. Annual summer trip to Ca.li to visit my dad; sometime in July. Road trip to Hou.ston to see the girls I graduated the education program with; sometime in July.

Health: MRI last week gave the severity of my bul.ging disc, still within the treatable range for chiropractic care. Started anti-inflam.matories this week and am seeing some relief. Hopefully allowing those muscles around my spine time to relax will help with my healing. Not sure what I'm going to do if this doesn't work.

Family: It's almost been a month since my cousin died. Thinking about her makes me mad at the world for not making sense.

Counseling: I've so overloaded lately that my normal introspective nature has taken a holiday. I have not been thinking about or looking into things that I really should be. That being said, my homework for this last week was to identify a thought every day that fit into a list of beliefs I have (however untrue or unrealistic) and while I didn't come up with one every single day, the few that I did were loaded with history. One, involving my last relationship (using the term loosely), is something I have never talked about in depth with anyone. To say I felt anxious about discussing anything doing with intimacy would be an understatement. I'm not even sure if I took a breath the whole time. Even though I felt safe and trusted that I was going to be supported, it was a definite leap out of my comfort zone.

I have writer's block. My mind is thinking a million things but nothing complete enough to form sentences or even make sense. UGH. I hate processing through so much stuff.

Blur

Man alive, these last two weeks have been a blur. I don't even remember what I did last week to tell you the truth.

My best friend and her baby stayed with me this week. They were supposed to stay Monday and Tuesday night, but because of some selfish acts on the part of her husband they were forced to stay another unscheduled night. I loved having her and the baby, but her mom and husband were a little much to deal with in my little one bedroom apartment. Wednesday I had an MR.I to find out the severity of the problems with my back, since treatment wasn't giving me the progress that is normally seen in the time I have been going. Thankfully I do not have a bulging disc past 5mm in progression according to the scans, but apparently mine is pressed up against the nerves in my back and is resistant to improve.

I am at the point where I am almost disgusted with myself. My weight continues to climb and my motivation continues to drop. I haven't been working out at an intensity that will really help me lose weight because it almost always causes me to slide backwards in progress with my back. I have been allowing myself to mindlessly eat, with no regards to the reason except boredom. I am sad, and I hate myself for letting it get this bad. I've gained 15 lbs in the last 18 months. Ughhhh. Thankfully my clothes still fit nicely, but I have got to get this under control.

Too many good season finales on tonight to spend more time on here... hopefully I can catch up on blog reading this weekend!

Free Food

It's Workers Appreciation Week, i.e. make Lily fat week. Free Chi.ck-Fi.l-A today, but at least I put my chicken in a salad when I got home. We also had catered breakfast this morning. I was strong and didn't go into the workroom, so what do they do? Bring it into the copy room. Ugh, those 2 donuts I did not need. Thursday they are catering lunch for us, but I never go down there for lunch so I should be good.

I'm still feeling somewhat pessimistic and grouchy overall. I think part of my problem is that I haven't been able to workout (per doctor's orders). I found out today that in addition to the previous diagnosed problems (L5-S1 bulging disc, pinched nerves and sciatica) that I now have a rib sublux.ation that has been causing the pain in my upper back/shoulder blade. Breathing hurts, even sleeping hurts. To add onto all that, I have come down with a lovely cold and have been coughing all day. Ouch.

Counseling today was a lot more insightful than I expected it to be. I was not in the mood to be reflective on anything, but it doesn't take long for me to feel comfortable and forget that I wanted to hold back. We went over my homework from a few weeks ago (T's sudden death took the front page the last two weeks) over my perspectives of life. Wow was that a depressing list to read. They don't seem so bad when you think them one by one, but listed out on paper it is very revealing to how I think. Looking at lists like that is very overwhelming to me because somewhere in the back of my mind I think that the only way I can make any progress is to completely change the way I think and act. Heaven forbid something is a small change... it can't work if it isn't a huge, drastic thing right? Heh. Hearing her say that I don't have to change the way that I think about everything was very comforting to hear and not something I would have ever thought was possible really. I need to work more on taking what I think and not generalizing it to every person and situation... that is where I struggle. And that is my homework for next week. Should be interesting.