Not Really Sure Where I'm Going With This

I loved answering your questions so far.  Please feel free to leave more.  I don't really have anything pressing to say today, but I feel compelled to write.  It seems like that just happens for me sometimes.  The mood strikes and I must get my thoughts on paper.  I tend to ramble when these moods happen, so my apologies.

I am still stressed out with work right now.  I love state testing.  It's the best thing ever invented... said no teacher ever.  On the plus side I finished my graduate class (Yay me!) so I have one less thing on my plate right now.  I'm still struggling to keep my head above water, but right now I only have one assignment left to grade.  Every teacher knows that is a huge accomplishment.

I think I'm struggling more with this crazy stress, because I'm trying to balance it with this new found need I have for time for myself.  I still am feeling guilty about this need.  I'm struggling to focus on being in the moment during my me time, and not letting my thoughts wander to all the things I'm not doing for everyone else.  It's a work in progress.

Bucko has been busy at work as well.  I am feeling a little disconnected, but I think overall we are in a good place.  I'm excited about our trip for my birthday weekend next week!  It will be nice to unplug, get away, and just be together.  Apparently, Bucko is under the impression that since we will be somewhere no one knows us he can be all HOH-y all the time.  We shall see how that goes.

I had therapy this week.  It was a rough one, but I left in a good place.  I'm at a point where I see my own crazy patterns.  I may still follow them, but I know that I'm doing it.  Evidently that is progress.  These patterns seem to be losing their appeal.  I may still do what I've always done, but I'm starting to see it doesn't always work.  It's a strange feeling to realize the thing that seems to be blocking your happiness is you.  I've forced myself into roles that gained me approval, but the role no longer fits.  The harder I hold on to this, in the hopes of keeping approval the more miserable I am.  So right now I'm working on letting go slowly, and at a level I feel comfortable with.

As much as I hate therapy it's not the horrible pit into the depths of hell that it used to be.  I can see what it has done for me.  It's made me see things about myself that I never realized before.  This session was about realizing why I keep my poor Bucko at a distance.  I've always put myself in relationships where I wasn't the crazy one.  The person I was with had deeper issues, or something wrong with him that was in some way worse than my own issues.  I wanted to fix them so he would approve of me and I would be validated.  With Bucko, I'm totally the crazy one.  

None of my other relationships could hurt me, because if they ended it was because something was wrong with him, not me.  With Bucko it's not like that.  He's the only one who has the ability to truly hurt me, because I would be devastated if I lost him.  It's the worst catch 22 ever.  He's the only man I've ever really loved, and the reason he has the potential to hurt me is because I love him.  Letting him in is hard.  It's a constant struggle.  Bucko has been gentle and given me the space I thought I needed, but that hasn't always worked.  I get scared and I run.

Bucko has put on his HOH hat about this.  After a long and tearfilled talk we (more like he) decided that it wasn't working.  I would run forever and not let him in if I thought it meant protecting him (myself) from the dark scary stuff I keep locked inside me.  Having your walls taken down is one of the scariest things I've ever dealt with.  A large part of me wants to grab the bricks and rebuild.  To some extent I do, but you know the thing about it is, once the crack is there you can cover it up, but you can still see it.  In the past I've covered the cracks with much thicker stuff, but right now I'm kind of okay with looking at the cracks. 

It seems like my wall is going from this:

To this:

It's cracked, but maybe that's better than it was before.  I guess I had more to say than I thought.