Change

Soooooo, there is something a brewin' over in my neck of the woods.  Something huge.  Something slow but steady.  Something monumental.  Something that is rocking my world (I hate that phrase...but let's just say the shit is crazy).

For YEARS, Shawn has been wondering when I was going to break.  You see, I am what you would describe as an axious person.  Wound up tight.  Easily flustered.  I have always struggled with this.  As far back as I can remember, I have almost been able to see my emotions when I look at the thin skin on my inner wrist, given how close they are to the surface.  They have controlled me and controlled my actions.  Shawn is more of a laid back person, and although he is not the same, he gets me.  I am not sure it is from the PhD level education I have given to him through exposure, if he is just intuative, or if he has struggled with a glimpse of it himself in the past --but the boy gets me.  No one else gets me like he does.  So, after watching me ride the crazy anxiety rollercoaster to which I have had a season's pass EVERY YEAR OF MY LIFE since we have been together, he has predicited for some time that I wouldn't be able to keep this up.  That I would break. 

There is good news and bad news.  The bad news is...I haven't broken.  The good news is that I have learned a lot without breaking (including figuring out that I am shockingly strong at taking self-abuse and am not a quitter.  Go me!).  Along with being anxious, I have always been a self-analyzer.  Always wondering if what I am doing is working (and if the answer is no, continuing the behavior, apparently.).  So the last 36 years have been full of lots of lightbulb moments about my flaws, but a clear yuck-o pattern in the way that I react and generally feel inside. 

The last several years have encompased the complete divorce of my relationship with every member of my nuclear family, two cross-country moves, the birth of two children, the death of three unborn souls, saying goodbye to a dozen animals, and the closure of one career and the beginning of a new one.  Kinda a lot.  But still...no break.  About one zillion cracks, but not one clear break. 

Until now.  I.am.breaking.
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