Head Noise

I am sitting here in quiet. I love the quiet. It helps me process the noise in my head. My head has been so noisy lately.

I find it hard to work through the noise when I have to carry on and do all the things that running a home requires. If I am honest I have been running the household out of a sense of duty, not love, for a long, long time. At least it seems that way to me. I think what it probably means is that I am not feeling appreciated. (Grumble, gripe, bitch and moan.)

The noise in my head lately is mostly personal growth issues for me. If only those growth issues remained in a person's own space and didn't spill over to affect the rest of the world. I think sometimes my family would like that. I know I would. I would save face. I wouldn't have to confront my humanity. How many dozens of times in my lifetime have I wished I could hole up somewhere and get my shit together - or at least get it separated into different piles - and then resume normal living?

I have written before about learning to recognize how I feel. I mean, really feel....not what I think I should feel. Learning to recognize my feelings and express them. Learning to stop rescuing people from reality by stuffing my feelings for the sake of their peace. I wonder when that started for me. I keep dreaming lately of a little girl crying somewhere in the house and eventually the continual crying makes me leave the house. I know that when the time comes that I go find that little girl and embrace her that the crying will stop. All in good time.

This past weekend there was major fallout when my husband came to see what he was going to from reap what he had sowed in an area he has struggled with for most of our marriage. He has come so far in not listening to the lies that he believed about himself since childhood. The lies that helped promote this behaviour. The lies that have lead him to sabotage himself over and over again.

We went through some very hard times together these past two years. Years in which we learned how to drop our defenses and work together as a team. I kept believing in him and he began to believe in himself. I stopped attacking him when he screwed up. We learned to be merciful to one another. We have come so far. One of the benefits of my chronic illness is that I don't have the energy to spend getting pissed off at the world about darn near everything anymore. One of the down sides is that this has made it easy for me to stuff my feelings because I really don't want to have a heart attack from blowing my stack.

My lid blew this weekend. It was not pretty. Man, I can be mean. It used to be such a regular occurence to spew my angry feelings out over my family. It's a rare thing now. I do need to learn how to voice my feelings without all the emotion. I mean, I don't want to be a screaming ninny forever. I am trusting that God will help me learn how to be a grown up when it comes to voicing how I feel.

He came to me this weekend in true humility and owned up to his actions. This man of mine was sorrowful for his actions and how they will affect all of us. In his head his remorse meant it negated any feelings I had about his actions. I have swallowed this reasoning for years. The man is sorry, who am I to tell him how I feel and heap guilt etc. on his frail shoulders and have him back in the pit of self loathing? Especially when voicing my feelings involves screaming and swearing?

I ain't buying it anymore. I told him that just because he was sorry did not mean I couldn't voice my feelings. It came out so bitchy. I wish I was this woman who stated her thoughts coherently and sweetly. Ok, the sweetly part may never happen, but I do have hope that one day I will be able to be calm and honest. So far I'm not. I remind myself that I am on a journey. There will be a day when I can do that. I have hope.

At the end of it all we both sat there and looked at each in a state of shock. He couldn't believe he had fallen back into old habits and I couldn't believe I still had it in me to scream and swear and verbally attack him so viciously.

Last night we sat around the campfire and talked about it. Had he been full of excuses and denying the reality of his actions it would be a different story. But he is facing himself head on. Outloud. Considering my talent and swiftness for verbal demolition of his worth, it took courage. I told him that I still believe in him. I haven't given up on him. I told him that to give up on him would mean giving up on me too. We both have our frailties when it comes to being human. After 23 years together we are very aware of the frailties of the other. And I know that working through them, facing them head on, and believing we are journeying towards becoming fully ourselves means we both have our shit together in a way that no pretty story could ever have.