dwell

So when I went to talk to my doctor the other day I told her that after Christmas I started to not feel as well.  I’ve been having some anxiety, I’ve been a little short-tempered and I’ve been dwelling in my head a bit too much on things that should not be important.  I’m not sure if this is happening because of exhaustion since my feelings of less than well-being coincide with Joey’s sleep strike, or if I need my medicine adjusted.  We’re going to look at it again next week and see what’s up.

I think it’s most likely post-holiday, sick baby mama exhaustion.  It’s normal to feel anxious when your child is sick.  And everyone gets a little impatient with things when they’re not sleeping.  And I shouldn’t freak out that someone was able to penetrate my medicine barrier during this time and hurt my feelings.  The medicine is just not strong enough to ward off everything.

It’s the dwelling part that bugs me.  The fact that I have the most supportive family and friends a girl could ever wish for should completely overshadow the mean of just one person in my life who takes every opportunity to show me that she’s a bitch.  I shouldn’t even know about the things she says, because she doesn’t say them to me.  She says them to Eli because she is his sister, and he doesn’t dwell on any of it because he thinks she is a lunatic.  The things she says just roll off of him because he has known her for thirty-five years. But me?  I tend to dwell.

My brother and I have a good relationship.  I care about him a lot but I would never step in and try to let my concern for him make his wife feel like a piece of shit.  I would never try to interfere with their relationship by calling him up and trying to mother him with insincere concern for his well-being during a time of difficulty.  Because no matter what a person may see from the outside, you never know how a relationship is if you’re not in it.  You can try to imagine but you’ll never really know.  And if you’re screwed up yourself, with a big long track record of bad relationships and bad decisions, the things you imagine come from your mind being tainted by your own fucked up life experiences and don’t necessarily apply to anyone else’s life.  Yeah, Eli’s wife went a little crazy and things fell apart a bit, but don’t assume from that that Eli needs your help or suggestions.

Try focusing on fixing your own life because IT’S A MESS! 

And this next part may surprise you, because of the logistics, but I talked to Eli’s mom about what has been going on.  I wanted to make sure that she didn’t feel the same way about the situation, and me.  I wanted reassurance I guess, because the demons in my head whisper the negative things to me, and sometimes I beat myself up a little and think that Eli doesn’t deserve this shit.  He shouldn’t be married to a person who has such a hard time with things. 

Eli’s mom told me first not to take anything that Eli’s sister says or does to heart.  She is a mixed up person.  Then she told me that she understands what I’m going through, what Eli and I have been through together, and that she loves the person I am and is happy for what I bring to Eli’s life.  She spent some time reminding me of the good things that they notice about how Eli and I are together, and it felt so nice because if there is one person in the world who truly cares about Eli and wants what is best for him, it is his mom.  It makes me feel good that she understands.

I just feel so disappointed by what’s been going on.  I have a fantastic relationship with my brother’s wife, and we do things together a lot.  She has become so much more than some woman who is married to my brother.  She is my friend.  And I’ve always tried to have the same kind of relationship with Eli’s sister, but I’m just starting to understand what Eli has been telling me for years: it’s just not possible with her.  It makes me wonder how women who are going through the same time in their lives, trying to balance family and marriage and career, why do we have such a hard time supporting each other?   

My brother’s wife has a much better relationship with my mom than I do.  And I have a better relationship with Eli’s mom than his sister does.  Why does that happen?  Do similar genes just repel each other?  Why do women have such fucked up relationships?

I don’t know.  Family is crazy and I've been thinking on it too much.  I can’t imagine how it would be if Eli and I had more siblings or more crazy mixed in than we already do.