Everything, Nothing, and I'm a Middle Child

Okay, so I've mentally rewritten this blog about 10 times. I have several different names for this entry (How's about "Phoenix Rising"? I decided it was a bit dramatic...). The one I chose would be more complete as a sentence: I am raw because I have survived an evolution which entailed my own version of a wee bit of hell. You know how after a bad burn, your skin heals and you know you're getting better but you're still a bit hesitant about actually touching things? I guess I feel that way emotionally.

I know it's better. "Phoenix Rising" came about in my euphoria of 'I've survived the worst and can see a better place on the horizon'. Of course, the imagery is the same: my former self has been destroyed and my new me is better than ever.

So, what on earth am I rambling about?

Well, you all know Mark and I recently decided he would go to med school once we left Haifa, which will happen in about 10 months. And then things sort of crumbled. Of course, that's hindsight speaking. We didn't realize that was why things were crumbling at the time. Not that our decision was bad - we're thrilled with it, but actually deciding brought residuals, like having other options we'd explored be closed to us now. We both had things we'd been considering (restaurant, staying here) that we were ... well, mourning. Except, you know, emotions can be confusing and messy. So we were both sort of hurting inside and then hurting that the other was "just so not supportive" which became a bit of a vicious cycle.

And since we both had the emotions previously described, communicating our hurt seemed to make things even worse than before. Like, really. Of course, that would be because we really weren't communicating. Oh, maybe we were, and maybe we would have figured it all out on our own eventually.

I remember in college I had a staph infection in my toe. I was told at our health center to soak it every night and some other stuff. It was Thanksgiving, so over break my mom took me to my childhood pediatrician. They gave me some antibiotics. When I told them what the college clinic had me doing they were like "well, that would have worked eventually".

I feel the same way about what I just went through. This was probably the hardest thing Mark and I have done together in our 5 year marriage. I mean, we've had disagreements and 'big discussions' and stuff before, but wow this was hard. And usually we can work stuff out together but this just wasn't working.

So we went to a therapist. And thank goodness. She managed to get us to say the stuff we'd been saying in a way that wasn't confrontational, as well as getting us to really listen to what the other person had to say and to realize that the other person was going through stuff as well (as opposed to "their doing something and it hurts me").

All of this, of course, has an end result of us being able to recognize and name the pain that we had, which allows us to know how to deal with it, and to improve our communication with one another over all. Like, better than ever before because the more we become sensitive to the unique perspective that the other individual has we can better respond to them as an individual instead of being wrapped up in our own perspective (and imagined perspective of the other).

That said, I do still feel raw. Like a snake that has just shed its skin. I'm not exactly feeling ... extroverted. Or maybe more exactly I don't feel like initiating something. Being with people, talking to people, I'm fine, but initiating just feels like an excrutiating lot of work at the moment, so if you're not hearing from me personally, please understand it is not personal, right now it's just easier to focus on me and Mark. Please reach out to me, though. I care about you all.

And to those of you who were supportive of me this past month, even though you didn't really know what was going on, thank you. It meant the world to me, and some of you, giving me the support that you did showed me I could depend upon you more than I thought I could in the past. It taught me a bit of a lesson in family unity, and how much parental consent means to me. I think it would have been, well, simply not an option for me to reach out to my family if I hadn't known that they supported my marriage. In fact, it was still sort of hard for me to reach out to my parents because sometimes it feels like they appreciate Mark even more than they do me - and being especially sensitive emotionally, that feeling ballooned, of course. But them reaching out to me, across the miles, meant so much to me.

Thank you, Maman. Thank you, Papa. Your words of encouragement meant so much to me (you too, Rae, Mensch and Kristen). Rae, I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't just popped up on MSN that day. You got me to open up a bit so that I could even consider getting out of my funk.

And to those of you who are thinking 'uh, this is sort of weird and personal', well, this is me. I can get intensely personal sometimes. Yeah, I could have not shared this, or just written my family. But my suspicion is that other people feel like this sometimes, too, and I think sharing stuff like this can help people know that this isn't crazy abnormal - it's okay and with a little bit of support it can be dealt with. My family isn't perfect. We have warts and skeletons and the like, but we're still talking to each other and care about each other and the more we can reach out to each other I think the stronger we become as a family.

Again, thank you all so much. Big squishy e-hugs to you all!