I am having so many issues writing from a place of happiness lately. Not that I believe you should only write from a place of happiness–but, I do think that for things like this blog (and emails to my boss), I should be a BIT more capable of doing that? Maybe??

I had been sad though. SO sad. Like, deeply, tears all the time, level of sadness for an entire week. Everything that’s big seemed to hit me all at once. House stuff, relationship stuff, work stuff, financial stuff–all big, all at once…and, after everything else this last year has held, it just all became too much. My tears were even big come to think of it–as they steadily streamed from both corners of each eye–dehydrating me slowly, and destroying my makeup repeatedly.

I think the catalyst came with a single text though. I mean, things had been building–but the text was the final drop–the one that busted the dam wide open.

I had shot this set of images a few weeks ago. The theme being ‘communication’. It stars me, my teenage telephone, and my snake plant. I am absolutely feeling destroyed by lack of communication. My entire world is suffering from it. SO many of my tears last week were 100% the direct result of lack of communication.

The father of my children holds a stubborn stance against communication. He does not believe that he is responsible to let me know when he will be much later than anticipated, when work schedules completely change, or about finances. (I can assure you that most everything else between those giant topic mountains, also falls into the ravine of silence with him. Sometimes, he just doesn’t believe he should HAVE to talk to me about things; other times, he just tries to figure everything out alone.) You can probably guess that this leaves me in the dark quite a bit about things. I mostly feel like I’m being strangled by the in-between…I know there are topics to discuss, but they aren’t being brought up. I know that there are questions I have, but because I don’t know the topic, I don’t know where to start with the questions. I respond to all of this by hammering away with random questions, about topics that may, or may not, be relevant (ya know, because I’m guessing at them)–and am then greeted with complete annoyance because I have no idea what I’m actually talking about. (This is a total pattern that we both are aware of. Sometimes we laugh about it, sometimes we fight about it. Depends on the day. 😉 )

I am forced to live in the in-between with him. I live in the line between receivers–and THAT is the part strangling me. That is the dark between the thoughts in a mind, and the communication of those thoughts out of the mouth. I have spent nearly two decades attempting to change the way I communicate in order to connect, and accommodate–but, I am still here. In the dark.

Oh, and so that text I mentioned above? It was from the new hire at my job, asking me for my passwords to our social media accounts. THAT was followed up by email notifications letting me know that my email was removed from our accounts, and hers was added. I literally found out I didn’t have a job to go back to, through the text of the new hire, and some Instagram notifications–and that was it. That was the moment I broke wide open. The people I had spent seven years working for, didn’t even bother to tell me that I didn’t have the job anymore.

This past weekend was a turning point for me though. It was during a quiet moment, while hiking, that I realized I really don’t owe people more than what they are giving me. I don’t owe them my happiness, when they have made me cry. I don’t owe them my questions, because they won’t give me their reasons. I don’t need to be responsible for continuously changing my ways of communication, simply because they won’t communicate with me. I don’t owe them empathy, and understanding, in a situation–when they won’t even discuss their thought process, or clue me into the rationalization of their final decision. I don’t owe them apologies, or explanations, for being ‘annoying’, or for speaking through my sadness.

I own them nothing more than what they give me–silence.

So, to bring this back to where I began–I am still writing through sadness, but that’s okay. I am sad. I’m not crying anymore (not even when I accidentally drank a spider yesterday), and I’m feeling 100% stable again…just still a bit sad.

Last week, I felt like everything was falling apart. This week, I still feel like that–except, I know it’s not true. I am not falling apart this time. I am back on my feet again–strictly due to me.

(Okay, and definitely with a bit of help from the amazing friends, and family, I have cheering me on. They are incredible. ❤ Messages, kind words, genuine care, funny memes, wine…it’s all just what I needed.)