An Era of My Life Comes to a Close.

I ended my 10 year relationship with my partner.

Even before the weekend in Cooperstown, NY, I knew I would never feel the same way again and was just a bundle of nerves about the thought of ending such a long relationship. The relationship, however, turned out to be nothing like I thought it was and my partner became a stranger to me so quickly. Things over 2019 had become so strained. Then I uncovered a 10 year old lie, which led to me learning of more lies from over the years.

This is what I have been going through.

While I have to carefully navigate the legal termination of this relationship and continue to cohabitate until I figure out a new plan for my life or at least what my life will look like for a little while. I assume it will be finding a new job that has a salary and benefits. I will move to an area I have wanted to live for a long time and where I have more of a support system.

It scares me that I was financially dependent on someone else for the past 2 years.

Finally making my decision concrete has made me feel like life can finally start moving forward for both of us. I have spent years feeling like it was my responsibility to carry the relationship and to make all the sacrifices for our future, which only made me resentful. Additionally, over the last 2 months, I felt so guilty because this human is dependent on me and I put myself in a situation where I allowed poor treatment.

It will take a lot of time and work on both our parts, but life will be good again.

Finding Clarity

While I feel like I am exiting survival mode and caring for myself better, I am constantly recognizing what I am feeling and allowing myself to just feel it. Mostly, I feel so over this bullsh*t. I am enjoying time to do things for myself (whether solo or with friends) and getting back into a workout routine so I have time to process all the thoughts. It is not just about self-care and feeling good about yourself, it is your overall mental and emotional health.

I am allowing myself the space I wanted from the moment sh*t hit the fan for me. I am taking at least 2 trips. One solo overnight trip to Cooperstown, NY (because I love sports, especially St. Louis Cardinals baseball so why not see the baseball hall of fame) and then an extended weekend in Michigan to catch up with old friends I should have visited a long *ss time ago. My excuse is merely an excuse and I should not have let that stop me from going back to Michigan.

Being around family and friends has been so healing and I need to do more of it. So I am also looking to visit my hometown and Chicago before the end of the year as well. I would also like to visit Colorado, the place I dreamed of living since 2008.

While physical space is as good as it can be for now, I am also doing everything I can to process all the thoughts. Most of my running, hiking, strength training or walking is done to thought provoking songs. Music can do a many splendid things such as clear my head, make me dance and completely express my feelings in the perfect way. Every word of a song can completely hit home.

Thank you Sam Smith for “How do you sleep?” Also, thank you to my sister for sharing Sara Bareilles “She Used To Be Mine.”

Additionally, you need those things that get you out of your head to give you a break. My mind can become exhausted at times with all the feelings, role playing scenarios, fantasies of what could be and overwhelming mental implosions. Yoga and meditation have been a daily practice for me, as well as a trips down to the city for a baseball game. I need those moments to focus on something else to gain some peace.

How do you find clarity?

Completing Old Tasks

While I am thinking about signing up for a leadership and management course and looking into some ways to freshen up my coding skills… I still have a child care training course through the red cross that I need to complete from almost 2 years ago… Oops!

My plan is to at least get started on completing it before this post goes up and to have my certificate in my hands (or more likely downloaded) by the end of the month. Then, I will enroll in the 5 month leadership and management course on Coursera. I really want to take the course, so hopefully that will motivate me to complete the child care training.

There are always so many things you would like to do, but just not enough time to do them unless you make it a priority. I signed up to take the child care course because I thought it would help me get some babysitting jobs between leaving Chicago and arriving here in New York state. I had plenty of time to do it, but clearly it did not take precedence in my life at the time. Now that I work with kids, I probably to just get it done.

Also, I know I want kids. I only questioned it because of my current turbulent situation. Time to grow more as a person and complete some old tasks.

A New Routine

In August, I started doing some physical activity I stopped doing 2 years ago. Well, my cycle is back and seems to be unaffected by working out. So I am slowly getting back into the groove, though I am not doing anything Earth shaking. I will admit, my workout routine when I started this blog was a bit much to maintain with my stress levels.

My intention now is to have a plan and try to stick to it, ff I am not feeling it who the h*ll cares. I try to do a 10 to 50 min yoga video or meditation everyday and just go for walks when I feel like it, which typically happens everyday. So here is the lose plan I am following or not:

Monday (technically its like my Sunday since I work Tuesday through Saturday)

• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Hiking or walking (at least an hour and weather pending)

Tuesday

• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Upper body strength training (5 min warm up, 20 min workout, 5 min cool down stretching)
• Walk

Wednesday

• Sunrise run (10 min around the neighborhood)
• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Walk

Thursday

• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Lower body strength training (5 min warm up, 20 min workout, 5 min cool down stretching)
• Walk

Friday

• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Post work walk (about an hour)

Saturday

• Sunrise run (10 min around the neighborhood)
• Morning yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Walk

Sunday

• Morning Yoga (10 to 50 min)
• Walk

Therapy Homework

I have been quite conscious of the fact that relationships take work for a long time and I really started being more thoughtful in graduate school when I noticed many of my relationships suffering. I lived far from home and really did not give them the attention and care they deserved. My initial thought was to just research and do better, which helped. Not enough though.

In seeking help lately, I was given the homework to be more assertive and express how I am feeling. Additionally, I need to keep others accountable for what they say or promise to me. It is really breaking an unfortunate habit I have created. And as I write this I am thinking about the fact that I am the gal who is constantly working on herself.

I am not perfect and I never can be, but I want to be a kind and thoughtful person. This homework though, while I feel it is thoughtful… I feel so unkind at times. I am struggling with this part of the homework. I know it is necessary to tell people what you need, however, I feel conflicted with relying too much on others. It takes a lot of reminding myself that sometimes the kind thing to do is to be blunt and clear.

At this moment I feel like I have put too much faith in what I was told, which is why I need to work on keeping them accountable. Everything I am being promised right now for both scenarios of how things could work out, they need to be followed. I can not let anything slide anymore. I am what is at stake here.

I would love to hear the kinds of homework you or a professional have given you to work on. Or maybe your working on the same thing as me, how do you feel you are doing? Right now, I would give myself a B-. I just need to pause to think more before saying, no I do not need anything.