Good Stuff

I’ve been offered a fantastic new job, in a new company. The conditions are the stuff of dreams, and they really want me on board. I feel they are a wonderful fit for me, and they seem to think that too.

At the beginning of the week I told my direct manager about it. The conversation was an awkward breakup conversation, and ended with him saying that he would see what he could do to convince me to stay.

I haven’t got the final contract yet, but I should have it in a few days. I told my manager that I hadn’t signed yet, but that my mind was pretty much made up, because the offer is far too good to walk away from.

Today was the day he was going to get back to me with a “retention” offer. He had also got his manager involved, who knows the space the new company operates in, to give an honest opinion of what I was getting myself into.

I trust these two guys. They are honest people who sometimes hide their intentions in the interest of their professional role, but they both have a good soul. So I was getting really nervous. What if he knew about something I hadn’t spotted? What if he had insider knowledge that showed that the new company want all it seemed? I would have to go back to the drawing board, and decide whether I was still going to leave under the assumption of a definite risk.

However, he was sad to report that he had only heard good things about the new company. The retention offer was nothing really, just a personal promise that if I stayed, I would have their support to be promoted to product director at some point in the next few years.

So now, my mind is set. After 9 years, I’ll be starting a new job, and I’ll start it as a senior member of the new company. No more little me. It’s Miss Bigboots now. Miss Bigboots will feel every mistake she makes, but she’ll also feel everything she does right. Miss Bigboots is going to be able to stretch her wings and fly, in a role that she’s already proven to be good at.

I’ve already started work wrapping up. When I’m gone, I want things to have my name on them – in a good way. Not like the tech director I like to cite as am example of how not to do things, because he was an incompetent prick with a way of not only not getting things right, but making decisions so bad that 4 years later, they can still be felt. I want to leave the opposite of that behind, and to do that, I have to tie up a lot of loose ends mighty quick.

I’m really excited about the change. It feels a little like moving into my first own home. Now, I’ll be on control of things. I’ll be able to develop my very own style and grow up. The kids are sharing my excitement, because they understand that this is a big step – even if they don’t quite get the details. Y is proud to burst – he makes me feel very special, especially when he dives into my excitement with me. He makes every accomplishment feel more valuable, just by sharing the happiness I’m feeling and getting genuinely excited on my behalf.

I truly feel blessed all around.

“Selfless” Support

Y is going through some tough stuff at the moment, which keeps him busy, stressed, and worried all the time. There is a finish line to look forward to, and I’m glad it’s not too far off.

Naturally, we’re not seeing much of each other, and not talking as much as usual. And because I care, and I’m a giver and carer by nature, I’m taking myself back, occasionally dropping by to deliver care packages, healthy food and words of encouragement, but not expecting anything in return.

I know though from experience that my needs silently build up, and that when we cross that finish line, they will be there, and patience and giving energy will be gone.

The beautiful thing is that even during this time, Y is making an effort to make sure I’m ok. He’d rather hear about my day and my ups and downs than complain about his lot. When I drop by, he always takes time to connect, even if it’s only for 15 minutes. Usually, I cut it short, because I know that he has work to do. He keeps me informed on how things are going his end, but doesn’t need me to make him feel better.

Last time I told him I would bring a quiche over, he said you really don’t have to though. – I know… Isn’t that marvelous? I said. I know that he doesn’t need me. It’s such a liberating feeling. At the same time, I can see how he’s making the little things count, and making them happen as much as I am. I think I’m not feeling as depleted as I would usually, supporting somebody through weeks/months of their time and attention being elsewhere.

What a ride this is!

Social Life

I think I made a friend today. Since corona started, I have been careful, maybe overly so. I have been keeping my head down, working, keeping kids and myself sane, and avoiding typically social places or events.

But this is no way to live, even for me, the professional introvert. So I got myself into a few Facebook groups, and on one of them, this girl introduced herself and seemed so nice.

We met for coffee at a tiny place today, just before the cafés close on Monday, and she is really nice.

We spent 2 hours chatting away, and it was much like a first date, just without the sizing up that usually comes along with a first romantic date.

I’m looking forward to seeing her again. It will probably have to be for a socially distanced walk in the park or something like that, as we are going into lockdown again, but I’m sure it will be nice, and the giggles will be plentyful.

Reset

What do I want? Am I where I want to be? Am I the person I want to be? Am I really and truly happy?

Sometimes life can be too full to ask those questions. Sometimes the answers are too messy to be looked straight in the eye. Sometimes they are too painful to confront.

My answer is a painful no at the moment.

What do I want? I want stability, a partner, I want to know that I am not alone with decisions and responsibilities (although for some I will always be alone of course). Do I have any of that? No.

Am I where I want to be? I want to be able to stop worrying about financials. I want to be available as a parent without overdoing it. I want to be a partner to a capable adult human being and know that person is also my partner. I want to feel that I have enough time and energy to do my job well. I don’t. I’m so used to making up for the gaps in parenting on t’s side that I forget that the kids are old enough to take on more responsibility than I am expecting from them. I feel alone with every decision -although I have people to talk about decisions with, nobody will be “in it with me”. There is nobody who wants me to be in it with them, either. My energy is lacking, although I’m doing my best to eat well, and take care of myself.

Am I the person I want to be? I feel I should be a stronger parent, and have stronger boundaries for how others treat me. I am letting myself be pushed to one side, and it makes me furious at myself. I’m exhausted from the noise in my head. I’m taking steps – I’m back running, and doing yoga. I’m trying to improve my sleeping patterns. I’m speaking up when I feel hurt, not accusingly, but just to explain why I feel hurt.

Am I really and truly happy? No. I’ve let the pandemic situation roll me over. I’ve spent so much time indoors, alone, because I was frightened. I let myself become enclosed, and I let the noise in my head take over. I’ve let my expectations take over, and although they were not unfounded, I have led myself into a disappointing situation in which my desires are being met, but my needs are not.

Time to reset those standards. Time to find that pool of inner strength and independence again, and to walk with certitude. With all the practise, I should be getting good at this soon.

Catching Up

I’m still amazed at how drama free Y and I are together, and have been through these last six months of being apart. I mentioned that to him, and, quite typically, he thought it was amusing that I would even find it worth mentioning. Why would I think about how it would be if we were different than we are? Because how else should we be, but drama free, considering that we are both levelheaded, and not attracted to drama in the first place?

Catching up felt as if there was no need to catch up. The feeling of missing each other was gone instantly, as if the last six months had not been real time, but had just that second shrunk into insignificance. Catching up felt like everything was just right again after a stormy night.

The main difference for me is a deep feeling of being deeply content. I had missed that.

I say all this was easy and free of drama – but I really don’t want to have to do it again.

Dear D,

Where do I start? I’m enjoying talking to you, that little bit that we’re talking. But I feel that you’re constantly testing the waters. Maybe you’re waiting for me to flip, or make a virtual scene in your inbox.

Let me tell you this: I won’t. I’ve been angry at you, and I’ve tried countless times to wrap my head around you. I can’t, because you’re a complex person with many internal motivations that I know nothing of. In the end, you don’t open up much emotionally. I’m done trying to work you out, but that doesn’t mean to say that I’m done talking to you, or that you can’t choose to open up of your own accord.

I’m just not getting overly involved. Maybe that’s why you find it difficult to talk to me. You used to be in my focus. I used to think about you every single day, and crave your attention and conversation. You made me feel good, when you chose to give me your attention. You also made me feel terrible and worthless when you chose to wordlessly withdraw.

All that is simply not the case anymore. You are no longer in my focus. I admit that when you made your appearance again, I did spend time thinking about you and about what might happen this time. But those thoughts faded again. I suppose you could say that I am emotionally unavailable. We can talk, we can have a little laugh together, we can even talk about emotional stuff, but you are talking with my brain, not my heart. I’m sure you feel that. I’m sure that’s what feels strange to you.

I’ll tell you something else that makes it difficult to have a normal conversation though: not having an open, raw, 100% trusting and uncompromising conversation about the things that happened. The things you briefly mentioned. You said that I remind you of them, and that was making the conversation difficult. Well, yes, I will always remind you of a mountain of unresolved things if they remain unresolved. But it’s not up to me to start that conversation. I tried that so many times and learned the hard way that you prefer to sweep things into a dark corner and try to forget about them. But as long as that tottering pile stays in the dark corner, it will always be there to remind you (and me). Only if you start taking the stuff off the pile and resolving those things one by one can they be put away as experiences made, lessons learned and maybe even be turned into treasures of life.

I encourage you to keep talking. I like you, and I still believe that we have a lot to learn from each other.

Social Media

Social media is weird. People are in touch without talking to each other. People feel in touch, without being in touch in the real world.

Maybe it’s something that young people are growing up to differentiate much better than we do. I see that my kids use social media as an additional platform for communication, rather than feeling falsely connected. I personally feel that it’s very difficult to differentiate and fully grasp that just because I know that XY went for a walk yesterday, there was no communication and thus no connection through which I learnt that fact. Obviously I understand it whenever I think about it, but my emotional brain cannot differentiate.

With Y, I insisted on not connecting via social media. Although it feels odd sometimes, I’m still happy about that decision.

It was about a year before we connected on Facebook, and that only happened when he destroyed his phone and I panicked because I couldn’t get hold of him for a couple of days. There was a myriad of things going through my head… Was he injured, had something terrible happened? Was he disappearing? It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody I thought would always reach out if there was a problem disappeared on me. Had I done something, or said something wrong? Etc. So now he gets in touch via Facebook if his phone is out of action in any way, because he cares about the fact that I go off into a spin of worry sometimes.

Even now that I feel we can’t get much more stable than we are, it feels right. We reach out to each other to find out what we’re doing, to make plans and to just simply talk. We can’t just check social media to get an impression and feel filled in.

It’s refreshing.

I’d recommend anybody to keep social media apart and to focus on real communication, long before connecting via social media. I really think this has a big impact on a budding relationship.

Reconnected

The is still a gap between us concerning the situation that continues to be an unresolved issue, but my brain has calmed down and is allowing me to feel reconnected in every other way. I’m still in a little disbelief about the mistake itself, but I don’t feel this to be connected to the whole person anymore.

Trust me to calm myself down and be forgiving.

I feel a lot more comfortable this way.

Sudden Swing

Y missed an important date, and now can’t get back here for the foreseeable future. He has his apartment here, and his life, not to mention me.

This has been difficult for me. I’ve offered every way of helping over here, going to the city hall with his documents etc, but it all boils down to the fact that there’s is no help to give, because he blew it, and I’m having a hard time not feeling hard towards him for being so careless.

I keep reminding myself that we share this happy-go-lucky attitude and a propensity to procrastinating tasks that have an official and slightly threatening tinge to them. I should get how this happened in the first place. I’ve just always been lucky, whereas he has not in this instance. On the other hand… It was so careless! It would have been so easy to avert this.

Although I knew about the date, I hadn’t been asking about it, because it’s not my responsibility and I don’t want to have the role of the tinkering mother type. Part of me wishes I had asked about it, just once at least… But I didn’t, and if I was in the same situation again, I probably wouldn’t either.

The thing is, it’s reminding me subconsciously of t. The dependence on me to do everything, his inactivity, and the mothering I was doing in that relationship. I think that is what is happening, anyway, after ruminating these thoughts and feelings for a few days.

We’ve had a few quiet days, him and me, and I’ve used that to establish with myself that I’m going to see this as his problem, not mine, and also that him messing up this one time doesn’t change who he is and doesn’t diminish the qualities that I value about him.

I’ve also learnt a lesson about myself: apparently, I’m guarding myself and with the distance on top of this self-induced mishap, the speed with which my feelings can swing makes me giddy (or are they hiding? Running away and hiding in a safe spot?). This part of the whole story is of course entirely my responsibility, something I have to work out for myself. Just when I thought things on that front were stable and calm…

Quarantine

Because my daughter and I spent considerable time in one of the highly affected regions, we are now in quarantine. I even had myself tested in the end, because I had breathing difficulties – ever so light, but noticeable.

My daughter was sent home from school as soon as this region was declared a high risk region. The boys weren’t, because they were only asked whether they had been there themselves, which they truthfully denied. But a quick email to the secretary confirmed that they would also have to stay home for the 14 day period.

I’ve been having a queer week. I’ve had little breathing pain, and shortness of breath. I’ve been trying to convey calm to the kids but also trying to help them understand the seriousness of the situation, while trying to find a doctor to get myself tested. I’ve been trying to work, and pretend that everything is fine and I am on top of my tasks working from home. I’ve also been trying to get hold of the kids’teachers so that they don’t hang around doing nothing all day, and keep up with school.

Now, school is going to be closed for the next 5 weeks anyway, and teachers are sending emails to the whole class, so everybody is in the same boat. That’s a lot easier that way. But all the same, with the ex calling this “holidays”, it will be important to make sure that the kids themselves understand that they are not on holiday, and that they have work to do. Back to homeschooling, just a very different homeschooling than it was.

My eldest is dealing with this situation really well. He’s on the phone with friends, keeping himself busy with school work and other little projects (and a lot of chatting). On Friday, he even dialled into a class and actively took part with his friend’s help. Having things to work on will do him good.

My youngest isn’t too bothered either. He’s looking forward to not going to school, he’s being a bit difficult about the work I’ve given him to do, but in general, he’s happy to be inside, play a few games, read, program (he’s picking up scratch programming), and lots of khan academy.

My daughter though, she’s lost. Maybe she’s fighting whatever I have off, too. She’s been very tired this week, but she’s also not making it easy for herself. She’s sticking to her room, on WhatsApp and YouTube, as I’ve taken off the time limit on her phone for this period so that she can stay connected with her friends. She’s texting with friends, but that’s not enough. For some reason she doesn’t get on phonecalls with them, though. She could be using the time to practice for upcoming auditions – but she isn’t. If I mention it, or mention anything she could be doing, she gets annoyed, tells me that there’s nothing she wants to do, and that she’s sad. She needs the social stimulus she gets from school, and right now, instead of making up for it, she’s just turning into a crumpled heap of misery.

Tomorrow, with her school work coming from her teachers, I’ll have to take control and give her a structure to follow. I’ve left her alone this week because her emotions are valid and I think she needs some time to come to terms with all this change – but now, she also needs help to snap out of it again, which she isn’t doing by herself. Right now, she’s definitely not in a good place, and I think structure and clear expectations will help her with that.

At least we’ll be out of strict quarantine after this week, provided my test comes back negative. Let’s hope we’re not in complete lockdown by then.