Egads, I came here to write a new entry and to be perfectly honest, mostly it is going to bitch about my husband--and then I read the last thing I wrote. That scares me--that I have held such anger for so long. Things have gotten much better since I wrote the last entry--I was totally depressed after my uncle died and I ended up going to the doctor and almost starting counselling, but through that process of starting to talk about it more with G and others, I started to feel normal again. I actually felt happy again and more myself. Work started going much better.

I had a good holiday season, but it wore me out. I realized that I haven't given myself a break since having Phoebe. What a year--my sister died, I got pregnant, had a baby, lost my uncle, lost my job (well, got demoted and quit), found a new, better job, and entered total depression.

During this last 5 days off, I went to San Fran for the gathering of the gals--we may have an official group name soon. Amel brought up the idea of making our group friendship an "official" thing, where we get together as families at least twice a year forever basically. Instead of just us gals, it will include our families as we all get married and have babies. I wasn't able to go to the gathering by myself and stay the whole time. The entire idea was just too stressful. We normally meet, go to dinner, go dancing, bring in the dawn practically, go out for b-fast and then drive home. I can't leave Phoebe all night yet because I'm still nursing and she gets most of her milk at night. I couldn't even begin to think about pumping enough to leave for her and I didn't want to take days off to get a break and end it by getting hungover and tired. Luckily, the girls didn't mind me bringing baby and husband along and I was able to participate in dinner and present exchange. It is so amazing to be part of the group. I laugh, thinking what a rocky beginning I had with the group--mentally, not them. I have never been good at group-gal relationships--I'm more a one-on-one friend. I get stressed about the social dynamics. True to form, I started with this group as friends with one of the women--we all were outdoor guides in the same program and as she became friends with an extended group, I was invited to some of their get togethers. At the time, I was the only married one--M was too, but she was separated. Therefore, they met and I often wasn't invited because they thought I'd be busy, too far away etc. I got totally freaked that they didn't like me, etc etc. I finally just chilled about it and its been great since.

When you get older and married, friendship just isn't as easy as it used to be. You aren't forced into social situations at school, you get involved with your husband and kids, you move. You have to make a real effort to maintain friendships. And honestly, I'm not into chatting on the phone for hours and revealing ever detail of my day like I was as a child, so the level of sharing has to change and evolve into an adult relationship. I struggle with this sometimes because I am often very introverted and don't want people over--but then I get lonely--you simply can't get everything you need from one person. I have to work at remembering to maintain friends and call them. One of my goals for this year is to be better at this--set up more social interactions--go shopping, go out, have people over. Lord knows G needs it too. He's getting totally socially deprived being at home with Phoebe all the time.

Which, I brings me to the meat of what I should be writing about and am avoiding--G and me. I honestly don't know how two people can be so on the same page and happy most of the time, yet still have such deep problems too. Maybe its just a matter of letting things go without ever addressing them. I'm tired of not talking about this to anyone, tired of being ashamed and keeping secrets. I was thinking last night about our apartments and house--how we always have one or more rooms that we just don't use--they gather dust and detritus of our lives and we hardly ever go in there. Every once in awhile, we make an effort to clean them out, use the room--but soon its back to its dusty, unused state. I read a book one time that said that the status of your house (office/car) reflects your mental state and that sometimes cleaning out the physical can affect the mental--for example, if you always have dirty windows, you may be blocking things and not seeing clearly. Cleaning the windows can open you eyes in more ways than one. I thought about what this means, G and I always having dirty, unused rooms. I know what it means to me--we have unspoken secrets. Things I don't share with anyone.

I think I'm ready to be done with that. I think I'm ready to open up everything to the light. If its right--should I be ashamed? NO. I want to take the room, replace the carpet, paint the walls and put a comfy chair in there. I want to have a shine in there and mediatate and use the room and fill it with love.
  ¶ 1:01 PM