If I could manage to keep them from putting that 6 week-old Pomeranian puff ball with irresistible brown eyes in my arms, I’d be fine.
They cradled him like a newborn. They sprinkled Johnny Jump-Ups on his back. They cooed at him and loved him up.
And then the pleading started.
“Mom, he won’t get too big.” Continue reading →
An excerpt from Seeing My Path.
… I remind myself that all the structures in my life have been created by me.
The structures are determined by my relationships and my role in those relationships. The structures dictate where I go.
I think of the structures as guard rails that keep me on the path I’m traveling.
. . .
The structure prevented me from moving closer to who I was supposed to be.
On this plateau, with the sun warming my face, I can see – far down below – a maze of high walls. The walls are the structure I thought I needed to guarantee love and acceptance. They funneled me in the direction of pleasing others, helping others, and putting myself last.
What if I made the decision to raze those walls and create a new structure?
What if I trusted that love would come to me if I allowed myself to follow a path that didn’t put everyone else first?
Could it be that each step in the direction of my true self might bring me more strength and more love?
Then I heard myself having a conversation with… well… myself.
*To read more about how my choices and structures led to my marrying a narcissist, how I lost myself, changed course and finally got headed in my right direction check out Seeing My Path – In and Out of a Relationship With a Narcissist.
It’s a good story with a happy ending… so far. ;)
We ran out of Fritos.
Now we’re on to a 3-layered, sinfully dark chocolate cake. The layers are filled with chocolate flavored mascarpone cheese. I’ll cut you a thin slice because it’s so rich.
We’re celebrating the 2nd birthday of the blog and the release of my first e-book!
I know! I said I was going to write this book.
I did it!
This book is all new content!
There’s nothing quite like setting a goal, realizing a dream and having Will and Jenny by my side telling me how proud they are.
__________
I’m going to eat some more cake, pat myself on the back, and smother my kids a bit.
I’ll be back here to reply to some comments and write another post. Soon.
In the meantime, thank you all for encouraging me on the book. Thank you for visiting this site and hanging out with us. Thank you for your compassion and wise words.
I am blessed to have you touch my life.
Pass the cake!
Edit: 5/31/21
The sidebar includes links to free copies of my e-books. Please help yourself.
It feels good typing the title of this post.
I hope you like Fritos. We’re also serving lemonade because, well, we have all those lemons. I have to enjoy a little wine on a birthday. Jenny is throwing confetti. Will is tech decking in the background.
And there’s gratitude flowing through the room
It’s the 2nd birthday here at survivingnarcissism.com.
I don’t know how it happened.
Yes! We’ve journeyed through another year on this blog. Continue reading →
An excerpt from Seeing My Path…
“Remember when we were a kid and didn’t care? Do you remember back before we worried if our ears were too big, whether we talked too much, if our eyebrows were too caterpillar-like, or if our arms and legs were too long and skinny?
Can you remember a time before we started to think there was something wrong with us?
Let’s be that kid pulling a red wagon full of hopes, dreams and lessons to be learned.
Let’s be that kid before she’s hardened by disappointments, dashed hopes and unfulfilled dreams.
Let‘s be that kid before she lets the doubts change her opinion of herself – before she began to believe the criticisms or hurtful comments from others.
Let‘s be the kid who believed she could do anything and thought she was lovable and likeable and a joy to be around.
Can you imagine anyone not wanting to be around our kids? Try to feel that way about us. We, above all, know our intrinsic goodness. We know the depth of our character.
Let’s be the kid who is proud of the stories she writes and the cakes she bakes and the pictures she draws and the forts she builds.
Love us as much as we love the kids.
Forgive our screw ups.
Believe in our intentions.
Allow us to grow into who we are.”
*Notes from a conversation with myself, on a high plateau, somewhere in the middle of Montana.
She never could get up on water skis. Oh sure, she tried.
Her dad was actually quite patient with her. She can remember the summer he drug her around the lake. He was steering the boat, looking back at her expectantly, motioning with his hands to “just pop up on those skis!”
She swallowed a lot of water. She kept getting in the lake and trying.
She just couldn’t do it.
Maybe she didn’t really want to water ski. Everybody else said they loved water skiing. She should probably love water skiing, too. That’s what everybody did in the summer. Continue reading →
Because a little girl’s imaginary pony can get so very hungry.
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities. Theodore Geisel
Hey you!
Hang on.
This isn’t all there is.
If it feels thick and slow and hard to breathe, that’s because it often feels that way – especially right now. That thick feeling is offset by another feeling… of lightness.
That lightness comes if you let it – if you don’t try to attach to it. Don’t cling to the lightness out of fear. Let it come and go. Trust that when the lightness leaves, it will also return.
___________
There are glimpses of understanding.
Sometimes it all makes sense.
Go out under the moon and catch your breath.
Walk by yourself in a Spring rain and get soaked. Smell your skin and the wet earth and listen to the grass grow.
You will see that it makes sense.
Let a newborn baby wrap its tender hand around your calloused finger. Feel the energy in that tiny hand.
That makes sense.
The hardness makes sense, for without it, there is no appreciation for ease.
__________
Show us who you are. What are you hiding from? If you won’t let us see you, how can we come to know you and love you.
Open yourself up to the possibility of being loved for who you are – flaws and all. We all have them.
Ask for a hand, because we are all here for no other reason than to support and nurture each other.
Can you let another nurture you?
You don’t have to be so tough.
Let us see you.
Let us know you.
You deserve to be loved for who you are.
__________
Hang on.
It gets sweeter.
There is joy to be found in a morning spent pulling weeds or a night spent falling asleep on the couch getting lost in a book.
There is good spaghetti yet to eat.
There are children to watch grow and hikes to take.
There are flowers to be picked and friends to be made.
There is good wine to share.
There are mountains of buttery popcorn to be devoured while sitting in a dark theater next to your best friend watching a new summer blockbuster in air conditioning when it’s 98 degrees outside.
There will be phone calls from old friends who miss you.
There will be bright spots right around the corner.
Hang on.
When her babies were small, she had an urge to knit tiny striped mittens with pink and green and purple fuzzy yarns. Now her kids wouldn’t be caught dead wearing handmade mittens. Friends were having babies who needed their precious hands protected from the harsh winter winds. She could make mittens for those babies.
She was waiting for her mom to teach her to knit.
He often found himself at a friend’s house on Saturday afternoons, and after swilling a couple beers, someone would suggest playing a pickup game of basketball. He’d laugh and say, “I’ll sit this one out. I’m lousy at basketball.”
He was waiting for his dad to teach him how to play basketball.
He’d read all he could find on SEO, blog traffic, building customer loyalty and what the experts had to say about making money on the internet. He’d finished his most recent course, made some progress and signed up for the next impressive looking webinar that would surely push his project over the edge. He lacked the confidence to believe that he had the skills and knowledge that would make his project a success. Continue reading →
On my third hike up the hill I was breathing hard, wiping the back of my neck and wondering why I wasn’t sitting on the front step with a cup of coffee.
Then she darted out from the tall yellow wildflowers. Startled, I said, “What are you doing here? Are you walking the hill with me?” She meowed and took the lead – for a bit.
She didn’t block my route, and I didn’t block hers. When the path was wide enough, we walked side-by-side.
We I chatted and talked of the flowers and the wide river and the scent of sage in the air. I told her it was nice to see her and that her presence made my walking more enjoyable and less of a chore.
Then she let me take the lead. We walked over the short flowers and around the tall ones, and when we got to the top she stopped and meowed. Continue reading →
Jenny made these guys with scraps of fabric, old buttons and polyfill. She stitches little grins on their faces. Some have one eye, others have two. When I asked Jenny what she calls them, she said, “They are Nice Boogie Monsters.”
She made one for me, one for Will and one for our cat, plus some extras, just in case.
They live in a ceramic bowl in the center of the purple dining room table. The wait patiently, some times all day, for one of us to walk by and stop to pick one up and squeeze it. I can’t seem to walk by that bowl without smiling.
__________
I know absolutely nothing about aromatherapy, but I do know the sense of smell is a powerful one. I could Google which scents are recommended for altering which moods and find the perfect combination of essential oils to elevate sad moods, and bring relaxation or a sense of calm into our home. Instead, I looked at the ingredients and combinations and just picked based on what I thought sounded good. Continue reading →
… I reflect on the events that happened right before I decided to leave my marriage. Obviously, as in any marriage that is on the verge of crumbling, there were many issues. Everyone has their own last straw. Mine will not be yours. Your last straw will look completely different from another person’s last straw.
In fact, I’m convinced that we don’t know when that last straw is approaching. We get so busy putting up and shutting up, that we don’t see that the scale has been tipped.
The scale was off balance long ago and we are so busy keeping the peace, scrubbing the floors, making the apologies and hiding the toys, that we don’t notice that nothing more can be added to the scale.
That’s why the last straw is often infinitesimally small. The last straw could be a sideways glance, a pair of dirty socks left on the bedroom floor, or an off-handed comment about the way the chicken was prepared for last night’s dinner.
I didn’t see my last straw coming.
To this day, I marvel at the smallness of the infraction.
But, take many small infractions over years of disappointment and resentment and failed expectations and bars raised too high, and suddenly I met my last straw.
We were sitting at the dinner table with Will and Jenny and my husband’s older kids from his previous marriage. Over messy burgers, fruit salad, Domestic Beers and spilled Kool-Aid we had the disjointed kind of conversation that families have – the kind where you laugh and try to interject something and miss the beat and it just doesn’t matter because after dinner you’ll go outside and eat popsicles and play Bocce Ball.
Somewhere during that conversation, the patriarch – the man of the house, the provider, the role model, the man whose job it is to make us feel loved and welcomed and safe – got up from the table, mid-bite, and walked upstairs.
(He later told me he was tired of the conversation. He was sick of the boring exchange. We simply no longer interested him.)
His oldest son glanced at me with a look that said, “What did I say that he didn’t like?” Later, when we cleaned the kitchen together, the oldest told me his father often did that – left the dinner table – when he and his brother lived with Mark. I thought he only did that with his new family.
I came up with a feeble excuse about how dad is tired from work, or dad isn’t feeling well.
But that night, his getting up and leaving his family sitting at the table, still eating their dinners, was my last straw.
After years of seeing the lack of spirit, the inability to make a decision, and the fear of disappointing their father – in these two older children – I realized that by staying in this marriage, I would be letting history repeat itself.
I couldn’t save his oldest kids.
I could try to save mine.
Seeing My Path is an ebook that tells the ongoing conversation I’ve been having with myself, and the questions I ask. It’s a look at how I ended up marrying a narcissist, how I got out of the marriage, and what I’m doing to try to get back on my own path.
When he told her he liked her hair longer and that her face looked too full with a shorter cut, she got up the courage to tell him that his comment had hurt her feelings.
He reframed the incident by gently reminding her that she was far to0 sensitive and that he was just trying to help.
When he got home from work and commented that she must have had one crazy day since she hadn’t found time to clean the floors, she tried to defend herself. She explained that she’d been folding clothes, changing diapers, feeding children and preparing dinner and that she hadn’t found the time to get to the floors.
He reframed the conversation and pointed out that dinner would be more enjoyable if the floors were clean. Continue reading →
She’d had the filing cabinet since college, or maybe even high school. It was a bland almond color and it leaned to the right under the weight of all the files. It was a struggle to open the drawers. When she did, the drawer scraped against the metal sides of the cabinet, opening to reveal a mess of papers, their crumpled corners poking out of worn manila file folders.
There was no real organization to the drawers.
She had categorically filed in the beginning, but the sheer number of papers now prevented an orderly system. The drawers of the two-drawer cabinet could not hold any more folders. She was considering buying a larger cabinet.
Each filed note or paper represented a hurt, a slight, or a rude comment. She hadn’t filed based on intent. There wasn’t a drawer for intended hurts or a second drawer for accidental digs.
On rainy days, when the kids were busy playing, she’d go into her bedroom and slowly open a drawer. For some reason, she couldn’t resist re-visiting the hurtful comments written on the worn pages. Continue reading →
