Deprivation of Another Kind

So I have my coupons for free weeks at several workout places. I’m liking the concept of women’s circuit training. Maybe.  I have a total of three weeks free – I figure at that point I will know which place I want to join, if any. It’s all part of the plan that I mentioned last night. I have a plan to get through this. Hockey is over (temporarily) and so I have a bit more time. Besides, I think I can find time, three times a week to run in for 30 minutes in between stops on the job.

About Hockey being over – it’s funny, but I would sorely miss the hockey parents if my son did not continue to be involved. When he expressed a desire to continue to play in an ongoing program, I thought, “Oh, good. I can keep in contact with these people!” Of course, this was after playing laser tag with about ten other adults and having more fun in a large group of people than I have had in a long time. It’s a tremendous community.  One worth staying in touch with.

It’s funny, as I read other people’s blogs, I think, WOW, they have whole worlds going on in their heads.  And I? A soap opera. Am I just more relationally oriented than other people?

Coffee Deprivation

C.F. spoke of coffee/tea deprivation as a sort of brain damage. I can relate to this. It’s interesting to put me behind the wheel of a vehicle without any sort of warm beverage to assist in my wakefulness. Immediately when I woke up this morning I thought about his recent post. I woke up feeling ..deprived, too. I have had enough off time with the male in my life that I am intimately familiar with this feeling.

Here’s how it goes.

I wake up early – probably about an hour before I actually have to get up. I look at the clock and realize that I don’t need to be awake yet. In my confusion, I wonder what woke me up. Is there a child in my room? A child upstairs? What noise did I hear? Then I realize it was none of these things. I am simply awake.

Oh, yes. It dawns on me. Mr. Boyfriend. Gone. Sadness feels, physically, like a weight settling on my chest, in my limbs. I expel breath from my lungs and feel deflated. On the edge of crying but not quite there. There is too much to do to sit and cry. My shoulders slump before I even sit up.

There is no point in staying in bed. I will not sleep and I will focus on my sadness. So I get up. I have felt this for the last five mornings.  I lived with this feeling for two solid years. (Oddly, once I decided to get divorced, I no longer felt this way). A friend of mine finally told me just to get up and put in a full day – even if it is two in the morning that I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. I bought a bottle of Tylenol p.m. – I’m never without it.  You just never know when worry or anxiety will strike.

Staying up until two in the morning Sat evening and then up early on Sunday made me fall asleep rather quickly last night. But I woke up extra early. With that feeling, that growing consciousness as I awoke.

My goal, I think, will be to eradicate that feeling.  When that feeling is gone I will have made it to the other side.  The ex was simply a man-child who had to go.  I should have done that a lot sooner. That feeling of loss I dealt with was immense, but it had to do with everything from losing a husband to a way of life to a family to my dreams for myself and my children. It was huge.

This, on the other hand, is very specific. It’s about one man, one person, one loss. It’s funny, but because of what I went through before, I am very good at rationally looking at the stages, what I’m going to go through, how I feel, and dealing with it ahead of time. Sit home alone and mope? No. Reach out. Reach out to those that will not hit on you, but instead will protect – those that understand.

Incidentally, at some point I need to speak of my former father-in-law. I think that loss is tremendous and one I have not dealt with on a level I need to deal with it on. I keep trying to recreate that relationship….with men who are the same age and graduated from the same school, no less. They have similarities in the way they deal with things which I can relate to. Odd. And they tend to be more like father figures for me.

So what else do I do to cope? Fill my time. Create goals. Projects. Plans. Tend to my health. My children. And God. I have some thoughts there, too. About my faith, my church. About who I am and what I need. What my kids need. And I write. I write a lot. I’m off to cry with J and deal with the new boss whom I dislike immensely.