Spending Time

I've been reading some great books by author Elizabeth Berg lately (thanks to a suggestion from Nancy). I've also been crocheting some sad looking scarves with the time I normally would have spent cleaning. My apartment is still clean, but I just let it get dirty now first. Zach and I have been lamenting the day we can finally own our own home. On warm, sunny days like yesterday, we would like to spend our afternoons outside in our yard with the dogs.

That's all I really wanted to say.

Things have been going exceptionally well this past week. It's a welcome change from the way I had been feeling.

Hurting

Zach and I are readjusting to each other after spending 6 days apart while he remained with his family on Cape Cod for a few more days after X-mas. I came home to work and, be there no uncertainty, to have a few days to myself. A few days to myself became more like solitary confinement. I am not proud to say that I have spent a few nights in a padded room with nothing but a mattress on the floor, but this was worse. It was worse because I still went to work every day to face 20 screaming kids and because I still had to function like a functioning adult in the world. What made this time to myself so destructive was that I felt isolated and anxious. Soon it will be the one-year anniversary of Ashley's death, and that makes me fearful, sad, and angry. All those emotions at once are just too much, so I make myself numb. Zach doesn't like my negativity, but neither do I, and that's part of the problem. I try to push it away, so I end up brooding on my negativity. Then Zach asks me why I don't talk about it, and then I want to either hit him really hard or curl up in my bed with my stuffed bear. Zach is notorious for contradicting himself. He wants me to talk about what I'm thinking and feeling, but not to him. He wants me to be open and honest with him, but only if it's positive. It's enough to drive me crazy.

Resolutions

I normally don't make them, because for me it would be something like "be lazier", and somehow that doesn't sound like a good thing to strive toward. There is, however, something I would like to resolve to do better this year (and the years to follow). That is spending quality time with Zach. Oftentimes when we are together, my mind is elsewhere. I would just like to be more present when we do get a chance to spend time together.