A Terrible Reason Not To Write...

I'm having an ugly Betty week. I hate my body. I hate my clothes. I hate my hair. BLAH!

...that is all.

Well, not really. I also hate this feeling. This searching for a reason to let go and actually take care of myself needs to stop.

I've been mourning the loss of my job since June, and I finally feel like I have nailed down the "what," the main reason, for my mourning. Sure, I'm sick over the idea that I won't be going back to my old school and do everything I had planned. Much like a relationship in which the girl hears wedding bells only to find out her significant other experiences waves of nausea after hearing any words spoken in future tense. I was finally ready to settle into a life and to make plans, and I sacrificed so much in order to do it. This is my realization, this the thing I am mourning the most: I lost a year of Libby and Harrison's life because of the hours I kept and my inexperience with prioritizing with a sense of balance.

In high school and college my friends and romantic relationships had top priority over any of my academics. I always put relationships first no matter what. This job, changed my ability to do that--or maybe I was just focusing on the wrong relationships. Sure, my relationships with O'Connor, Atwood, Salinger, and my students were going strong, but then again, I met Harrison's playschool teacher close to the end of his school year. As a teacher, I hated parents like me. It hurt so much when I realized that I was one of them.

So, now I am dealing with the hurt and the anger. This week I kept pushing all the negativity down only to let it resurface once during a conversation with a friend. Her suggestion was to write a list of all my hurt and anger and any injustices I have gone through in my life time. So I did. I won't publish the list, but I will publish my thoughts about what I wrote down.

At first, the list was binding. Memories that I've repressed came flooding back. I had a terrible diet this week, and I excused it. I was coping. Right? This is coping. Isn't it? But it is not coping. It is hiding. And I challenge any of you who use food, or drugs, or alcohol, or workouts, or shopping, or anything else as a "coping" mechanism to not do what I did. Instead, I needed to immediately follow up with the second step my friend advised me to do after the list was written: address the list head on and pray through it. The hurts and pains of my life are mine. They are mine to give to a higher power. They are mine to surrender... because I don't want them anymore, and I can't do this on my own.

To surrendering,
Cheers,

Katy