This past week has been really hard.
It started innocently--I went out with a friend to an art show. We drank too much, I left my car downtown and Ubered back to my apartment. She stayed over and we had to have a friend come pick us up the next morning for Yoga Teacher Training (YTT.) Not a big deal, right?
BUT.
1. I live in a carriage house (about the size of a single wide) behind my mom's house.
2. She and my stepdad are retired and have nothing else to do.
3. He has voyeuristic tendencies.
4. Both are extremely judgemental (even of each other, I suspect.)
5. My friend and I used to be really close to the yoga studio owner, who is leading the YTT. We are not close at all anymore. We are not friends at all anymore.
6. My dad lives in town and we are close but he didn't know that I was going out or where I was going and I didn't call him in the morning.
7. I parked my car along a curb with other cars, but apparently they all moved their cars before morning.
8. I didn't have my cell on during YTT.
SO. All of those things whirled up into a tornado of drama that involved the sheriff calling my dad, the step father walking around my house peeping in my windows, my friend and I getting kicked out of YTT for the weekend, my mom and I not speaking for almost a week, and I have a ticket for $20. That last part is, thankfully, pretty anticlimactic.
It's hard for me to be in a fight with my mom. We've never been close, and as I've gotten older I've felt less support from her and I think it's because I've disappointed her. I used to think that the voice in my head telling me I'm not good enough was my dad's, but I think it's really hers. She and my sister have always gotten along, and even when my sister got pregnant at 16 my mom stood by her and helped her. I can't imagine if I had gotten pregnant at that age--I doubt my mom would have been as supportive. There's a long history there (of course there is) and it's way too tedious to get into.
My dad is a champ. He's gotten me out of more problems than I can count. He's supported me (mostly financially--he'll help me even if he disagrees with me, which I think is awesome) in almost everything I've done. And he helped me get an apartment so I'm not subject to my mom's constant judgement anymore. So that's a major positive thing that came out of this weekend.
I won't turn 40 living in my mom's backyard!! Holy crap 5 years ago I never would have thought that was a possibility. And here we are, just a couple of months away, and it took this kind of drama to get my ass up and moving.
Have I become that lazy? Or disinterested? I've said screw it a lot lately--I hope I haven't dug myself in too deep to climb out.
I'm not as motivated to cook as I was, but I find myself wanting to write again. I think I NEED to, to process this crazy turn of events. I just lost 2 women that I thought were my role models. I'm doing the hard work of becoming my own role model. I can't see what it will look like yet since I'm right in the thick of it. I'm trying to just do the next right thing, like AA teaches people to do. I trust that God's got me, that if my earthly father can be such a supportive and forgiving guy, how much more is my heavenly Father? That gives me so much hope and strength and increases my faith. I can move forward knowing that even if people I love and trust turn against me, my Father won't.
I'm working on getting a second job too--and I need to go shower right now to get ready to fill out an application.
Things are not bad. My relationship with my mom will be repaired. I know she didn't mean what she said. I will get another job and I will have money again. When I do, I hope I will remember what's not important. I will have my own space soon, and no one looking over my shoulder (which I've had for FOUR years!) I will find furniture, I will find a way to get it into my place without having to ask step father, and I will have what I need.
I will get into grad school at AU and I will graduate and get an LPC and become a counselor.
I will begin a daily yoga practice--even if it's just 10 mins a day--just for myself. Not to document, not to talk about, just for my own physical and mental health.
It's gonna be okay. It IS okay already.
