It was a good day. Not only is it still raining, but I had a day off today. With my daughter at a holiday science program for the morning and son at school, I had the morning to myself. I chose to do housework and read, browsed a bit, drank coffee and had a quiet breakfast. Nice. Peaceful. Rang my sis and my dad back home. They are good, dad even sounds happy.
Lunchtime came and we all went to my mum in laws for a small lunch. She's getting ready to go to Taiwan for 18 days so she's cooking up all her food and we get to eat it. Lucky us. Really, I'm not being sarcastic. I do like my mum in law, though at 70 or 71, she's getting a bit vague. We went there for dinner last Friday night and she'd cooked up a very small batch of stir-fry chicken, steamed a medium sized fish (lovely) and 8 prawns - and rice in generous proportions. No vegies, save for the fresh coriander she sprinkled on the chicken. There were 5 of us eating, so it wasn't a big meal - more like an appetizer really - so I made sure that while I went to work, ex would take the kids for supper. No matter, who am I to complain!
Back to today - the kids and I had a quiet afternoon sorting our enormous stationary collection, seeing what needs to be bought for next year and what we have to give away. We had stuff from the days when the kids didn't even go to school - huge colourful crayons, markers, fabric markers, metallic markers, magic markers, pencils, watercolour pencils, and no less than 24 2B writing pencils. There was never going to be any doubt that my kids were going to be involved in writing and doing 'activities' on a rainy day. I have almost every pen or pencil to meet whatever need they might have. It's always been there, waiting patiently to be used. When I think about when I started buying this stuff for them, I think I must be nuts. I bought paint when daughter was not even 2! We even had a kiddie painting session!
I digress. The unnerving thing about these days is that it seems to be too good. By too good, I mean ex is smiling, even laughing when he talks to me. We go out with the kids and enjoy ourselves. We talk about him and me and what we're doing. We share stuff. To my friends amazement, he came to pick me up from teaching english last night and actually came into the building and looked around. He even carried my books down to the car for me - CARRIED MY BOOKS PEOPLE!!!! I'm normally left to cope on my own with these things while he stands aside and watches. It's just not us - or is it?
With things being so pleasant, my mind has no path to wander down, but that of the future. If I let my guard down, I start to think about the future. I do think about getting back together and I know that I must reign in those thoughts. Those thoughts are dangerous, they are not my friends.
Eckhart Tolle, of A New Earth fame, says we must be present in the now, rather than focussing on the future - which may or may not materialise the way you want it to. I remind myself of this every. single. day. Everyday, so that I don't get caught up in the bullshit of expectations and false hope. My ego wants to read into everything ex does and what does it all mean??? Well, it don't mean nothing other than what it is, sister! If ex smiles at you it's just because he's happy, not because he's envisioning a future of family bliss with me! That's all it is.
Some people may find this a bit confronting - I should be allowed to ponder, think, envision etc. shouldn't I? No, not me. It always gets me into trouble. Always. I end up misreading cues, expecting things that are not there and messing up everything, setting myself back by years. I need to remember - emotions are not your friends!!!!
So knowing myself as well as I do, I am able to reign in the old ego, the one that wants love and affection, and think of why I am here and what do I need to focus on. As a reminder to myself, I will write them here:
1. Stability
2. Take care of the kids.
3. Be together as a family.
That's it. The 'situation' being what it is, is too fragile for anything else. And hell, I'm happy and at peace with myself for the first time in my entire fucking life. Why, WHY, would I want to risk anything happening to that. No I wouldn't want to risk it. This is me now, fairly well healed, satisfied that I'm OK, making my own decisions, making mistakes and being OK with it.
So now I'm going back to my life, very carefully, so I don't stuff up the good stuff. No expectations, no reading between the lines, looking for something that isn't there. Ex is going away this weekend. I can't believe it's still so hard to watch him go. It still hurts! I don't go ballistic anymore and I don't feel the pain as deeply, but it's there, just under the surface.
The kids and I are going to Malacca while ex is away, just for the day. We're going to shop for Christmas decorations because we're having a white christmas this year, in the tropics. We're going to go mad with the white christmas decorations and snowflakes and turn the air con on 'really cold'. And why are we doing that? Because it'll be fun. And we really do need some family fun this year. It's been a long time coming.
Early Christmas cheers to all.
4 comments:
I was watching one of my favourite movies again last night and it sort of reminded me of this post a little bit. There's a scene early in 'Before Sunset' where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are chatting in a cafe about the tension between satisfaction and desire. They talk aboiut the idea of never wanting anything, and just being satisfied, but they alsio decide that it's wanting things that makes us feel alive. The trouble is, it also leads to a more or les constant state of dissatisfaction.
It seems to me that it's all about finding the balance that works for you. It sound like that is exactly what you have done, which is kind of inspiring.
Your Christmas plans sound awesome too.
Gee, thanks InC. You could be right, maybe I have found the balance - I hadn't thought of it that way. My priorities are certainly different and there's more 'living in now' than before. That's not to say I don't dream of the future, I certainly do - but not in the fervent, desperate way I did before - very unhealthy for me.
Must give that movie a look one day.
Cheers
Make sure you watch "Before Sunrise" first. The sequel doesn;t make much sense without it. More importantly, it is, quite literally, the best film ever made.
i adored before sunrise. haven't seen the sequel, but thanks for the reminder inc.
look them both up, jo.
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