Writing about things a sane person wouldn't put up on the Internet for the Whole World to read
Volatile. That is the first word I would choose to describe my moods since the divorce. When you have been shutting down and putting a lid on negative emotions for so long, you become numb to the positive ones as well. In the process of emerging from the avalanche, I began to allow myself to connect to my gut, instinct and emotions in a way that my brain had refused to allow for years. Combine that with the level of upheaval inherent in splitting apart two intertwined lives and you get peaks and valleys the likes of which never crossed your previously flat affect.
When my therapist would ask me how I was doing, I would moan, "I don't know, I'm just all over the map!" A big part of me wanted to regain the even keel of my previous life. But a stronger part realized that the view and exhilaration of being at the top of one of those waves was worth the dizzying slide into the trough, and even the breaking of the wave over me at the bottom that sent me spinning under the water and gasping for breath.
While the waves have died down a bit, even the events in a single day can send me from tears of frustration to giddy glee in a matter of hours. And I am coming to the place where I feel like those highs and lows are not only something I can ride without capsizing, they are something I look forward to. I know everyone comes out of a divorce with some degree of baggage. But I have worked very hard over the last year (see: therapy, it's a good thing) to keep the emotional baggage to a relatively low level. I'm pretty proud of that.
Oh, I have baggage. It's just more fiscal in nature. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Except this, re: dating...when I go out with a guy who has a good job, owns a house, and drives a nice car, and I am a dirt-poor student who rents a room and drives a car that will hopefully keep running without a major incident until graduation in addition to carrying the aforementioned financial baggage (wow, I sound like a catch!), I don't put up much fight about letting him pay. But then my inner feminist weeps, and wails, "why should he have to pay, just because he's the guy?" and I try to shush her with talk of those financial ISSUES, but still, there is the guilt! But the pleasure of my company is totally worth it, right? And maybe he SHOULD have to pay, especially if he can't rake together the gumption to even KISS me until the third date, geez! See? The waves, they are wavy. Financial woes, feminist angst, and first kisses, all in the same day.
Um, what was I saying about my low level of emotional baggage?
