Oh, today was a doozy. I seriously lost my sh*t, and I'm realizing more and more what my new years resolution for next year should be. It was actually part of my new years resolution two years ago, but I guess I didn't quite accomplish everything I wanted to.
2012 was the year I was turning 30. Unlike most of my friends, I was actually excited to turn the big 3-0 because I felt like I was finally in a place where I was comfortable in my own skin. I knew what I wanted out of life, knew where I was going, or at least the direction. And I saw 30 as a milestone to mark this. It's kind of like making new years resolutions.. why do we have to wait for the 1st of January? Why can't we just start today? Well, I think (at least for me) it's kind of related to my previous post about dates. They are just really meaningful to me. It's definitely psychological, but I actually sometimes feel different on those dates of significance.
Anyway, my 30th was a big old disaster, and looking back I wonder if this is where I began my initially slow downward spiral without fully realizing it. It was on that date that I started to lose the independent, confidant woman I had become and started turning into a lost puppy, looking everywhere else for guidance. I started questioning everything I knew as truth and rather than entering my third decade with my head held high, I entered it defeated: drunk off 2.5 cocktails and balling my eyes out. I think this mentality permeated my 30th year, and I think that it was partly why I continued to allow my ex treat me the way he did.
Anyway, back to the fight to end all fights. I had been in NYC visiting friends and when I returned mom was in rare form. She had been texting me snarky remarks while I was on the train home and was once again deviating from our already established plans. The reason I came home at the time I did was because we were supposed to do dinner that night with her friend (note that, her friend.) Well she didn't tell me until I was nearly home that it was cancelled. Had she told me earlier I would have stayed in NYC a few extra hours to catch up with another one of my friends that was getting back into town that evening. Then she sprung on me the family dinner scheduled for Sunday was going to be moved to Monday. Which means my plans to drive to Boston on Monday were now void. I more than suspected all of these changes were deliberate attempts to prevent me from spending any extra time with my dad. But that's another story.
Since I've known I was coming home for the holidays, I've changed my plans at least 4 or 5 times to accommodate my mom. This includes the main reason I was even coming home: to spend xmas eve in NYC with a very close friend of mine who is going through an equally difficult time and like me didn't want to have to pretend to be happy when she's clearly not. Or have to face a bunch of relatives asking about her ex. And yet my mom (who, don't get me wrong, is a very good person at heart) clearly believes the world revolves around her, so rather than acknowledging the fact I completely altered my plans to please her, she continued to be pissy when things didn't go exactly her way.
That night a line was drawn in the sand.
I will spare you the details here as to what this fight entailed, but it was ugly. I said some pretty awful things and was so full of rage it's actually painful to describe. Something just snapped in me and I knew I was done. Enough really is enough.
For as long as I can remember, my family has tip-toed around the truth - we are not perfect. Now, no one is, I get that. But when there is a real pressure on you to pretend everything is perfect, emotions get suppressed. Appearance meant everything in my house, and the facade was so far from reality that I'm pretty sure my concept of normalcy is warped. What this "fight to end all fights" has taught me is that I can't do this alone. I've always encouraged friends and family members to seek out professional help. Counselors can be objective in ways that even our closest friends can't. But ironically I've always felt that I should be strong enough to do it on my own. Like, if I couldn't work through these issues with sheer willpower, then it was a failure on my part.
Well, I'm here to finally admit that it's not a matter of strength or weakness. I know for certain that I don't want to go the rest of my 30s feeling this way. I don't want to turn 40 and be in the same emotionally stagnant state. The fact that I cried (hard) on both my 30th and 31st birthdays does not bode well, and I'm finally ready to do something about it. I'm finally ready to accept help.
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