Back Among the Living

Yes, ladies and gents, we finally have internet.  And after 3 years of slow Maine internet, this is city internet.  It's fast.  No more pixelated Netflix, no more day-long downloads.  We are legit. I've really missed blogging and sharing this whole process with you.  I'm so sick of using my iPhone for internet, you have no idea.

Anyway let me bring you up to speed! Be warned that this will probably be a long 'un.

The trip was pretty uneventful all in all.  I'll sum it up with a few points:

1. My sister Megan totally kept me sane for the entire trip.  Don't know what I would've done without her.
2. Amie kept Rob company, which was good because driving the Jeep + trailer turned out to be pretty damn stressful.
3. No offense to those of you who live in Oklahoma, but I don't really like Oklahoma.
4. Same to you, Missouri.

We rolled into Santa Fe in the evening of February 21.  We were all exhausted but it was pretty awesome to get "home."  I had a mini-meltdown when I realized the sink was really small (yes, this happened) but Rob seemed excited.  The only issue we've had is that our shower makes a really high-pitched noise when on the hot water, but our landlords are hopefully getting this fixed soon.  In the meantime we affectionately refer to the voice as our shower witch.

On Wednesday we began the unpacking process, visited Target four times, and took the dog for few walks around our new home.  This was also the day that my iPhone took a bath and my hand got a load of cactus spines in it (more on that later).  Additionally, our Comcast self-install kit didn't work and we found out we'd have to wait until Sunday (yesterday) to get internet.  I had a few freak-out moments because I hate moving and all the stress that comes with it, but Megan, Amie and Robbie (and Cypress, a little bit) did a great job of calming me down and redirecting my energy.  I'm very lucky to have so many people around me that understand the direction in which my thought process typically goes.

 

Thursday came much too quickly and I had to say goodbye to my sister and Amie, and let's face it, goodbyes suck.  Even though I will probably see Megan soon-ish, the mere fact that I'm 3600 miles away just feels weird.

Friday and Saturday were spent unpacking and organizing.  It's been a challenge to effectively use the space we have, to say the least, but I think we found a nice balance.  Our new home is very "us" and very homey.  I have a video tour of it all unpacked, which you can see here!

On Friday I noticed that I still had a cactus spine embedded in my finger and that it was beginning to become infected.  I sort of ignored it until yesterday, when my finger became pretty swollen and the pain was intense enough to wake me out of a sound sleep.

At around 6:30am, I went to the ER which was an experience in and of itself.  After three penetrating needle jabs in the base of my knuckle to numb my finger the doctor told me that I should just take antibiotics and see if the infection dies down on its own.  Side note: I think it's funny when people tell me that needles shouldn't scare me because I have tattoos. Anyone who has tattoos know that the burning sensation tattoos cause does not equal the penetrating evil of medical needles.

Anyway my finger is still swollen and achy, and now sadly bruised because of the needles. I'm hoping the antibiotics work quickly.

Did you enjoy those pictures of my fingers? Hopefully I didn't gross anyone out too much.

So far, we really like Santa Fe.  I think Rob is still getting used to living in a city and somewhere other than Maine, but all in all we're having a great time together.  I'm so happy that we decided to come early so we could spend March getting to know each other before Robbie starts work.  I sure am going to miss him when he's out on fires.

One of our favorite things so far has been the views.  The view from our patio alone is absolutely stunning.

You know, despite having written this post in my head a few times, I'm still shocked with how incoherent it turned out.  I hope you enjoyed looking at pretty pictures, anyway.  I have some more from my camera (which has been resuscitated, thankfully) that I will share at a later time.

For now I'm going to get caught up on your blogs!   

Progress

So this last week and a half or so was pretty rough emotionally.  I won't get into it but I had another trust-related anxiety attack related to being gone, and not being able to spend time with my angel of a husband. It happens a lot when we're separated, unfortunately.  I'm just consumed with this fear that if I'm gone he'll find someone else and abandon me.

But this time I had 3-4 months of therapy on my side.  When I felt myself slipping into negative, all-consuming thoughts I printed off an Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) worksheet and filled out the whole thing.   It allowed me to stop and examine each of my thoughts for rationality (surprise, they were all irrational), and replace them with rational ones.  I was still feeling a little iffy and anxious, so I reread this post that I wrote in July (and your amazing comments) and felt a lot better.  I was able to talk to Rob a lot more coherently and didn't feel nearly the same level of anxiety. My baseline is around a 3 or 4 so I was doing pretty well.

THEN the situation that was "activating" these anxious thoughts changed and I won't lie, I came completely undone. My anxiety level was at a 7 or 8, I was shaking and completely depersonalizing. But simultaneously my mind was questioning itself and asking why on earth I was feeling so awful at something so trivial--and trivial it was.  I had this bizarre emotional dichotomy going on in my mind and I was quickly vacillating between emotions. I felt like I was going totally insane. I printed off the REBT worksheet and filled it out.  Then I printed off another and filled it out again.  I talked through all my feelings with Rob, and the next day with my therapist over instant message.  I felt so much more grounded, and when something happened that normally would've sent me into an anxious frenzy I barely gave it another thought.  And though this panic attack was worse than it had been before, it felt like growing pains rather than a step backward.  Does that make sense?

So it was a bumpy little side road I took, but I made it to the other side instead of crashing into a ditch.  Pardon the tortured metaphor.  Personally I call this progress and, at the risk of sounding silly, I was pretty damn proud of myself for this small accomplishment.  It also reminded me that these anxious thoughts and fear will likely never totally disappear and that it really takes work to get rid of them.  It's a lot easier to disconnect, to disengage, and to feel sorry for myself. With all the support I have, I think that I am finally willing and able to do what it takes to get myself into a healthy emotional place.

Have you been stressing about anything lately?  Have you ever tried Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy?

Also, my sister is here, and we're spending Saturday at the Grand Canyon.  Again.  Yep, that's right...I will have officially been to the Grand Canyon twice.  You can contact me for autographs.

Lady in Waiting

Thank you all again for being so patient with my posts.  It bugs me that I used to post daily and now post only every few days or so.  Training is finally dying down though, and I'm down to my last two weeks in Arizona.  My mind is fried after hours of talking about databases so if this post is incoherent, I apologize.

I've been thinking a lot about remaining present in the moment and trying my best to enjoy my time here.  When Rob was in the Army, either at garrison in Alaska or in Iraq, I was always counting down to the next time we saw each other.  I was basically living my life always in waiting.  I turned down invitations to events, didn't attend meetings, and mostly just sat in my room watching episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  I think I assumed that life without Rob wasn't really worth my time, and that if I just put my head down and toughed it out I'd eventually see him and life would be bright again.

As you can imagine this is hardly a way to live.

Fast forward to today and I find myself reverting to this same behavior when I'm on projects.  I was in Cleveland for 9 months with some amazing people, and rather than venturing out and finding new restaurants and new sights I was usually the one pushing Chipotle dinners and early nights.  Hiding in my room felt safe and it felt right.  

I was discussing this with my therapist, telling her that I like hiding out in my "den" (usually a hotel room), watching 30 Rock or Family Guy or some other show that doesn't require me to think or to be anxious.  I also started to tell her a few stories from my various travels and realized that (insert gasp) I can create memories and life experiences even when I am not with Rob.  I have grown somewhat emotionally dependent on Rob over the years given my insecurity and his unfailing strength (the man is seriously a rock) and I think in a lot of cases, I've looked to him to give meaning to my life and my experiences.

She told me this was a common trait among patients with PTSD, the search for a "rescuer."  Essentially you put all your focus and hopes and dreams and insecurity on this one person hoping they'll save you from the instability of your own self.  It wasn't something I would've imagined myself doing because it seemed rather...I don't know, weak I suppose.  I realized how fortunate I was to find someone who didn't seek to exploit my weakness or manipulate me.  

To avoid the "den" line of thinking, my therapist asked me to come up with a list of "To Dos" while I was in Arizona for the month.

Though I've made a point to venture out and see new things (I've already been to the three places everyone told me to go) I still find myself slipping into my old ways.  Last weekend all I wanted to do was to huddle in my bed, read blogs, and watch 30 Rock episodes until it was time to sleep...but I didn't.  I got up early and drove to Jerome.  I walked around, I took pictures, and I walked into places that seem interesting to me.  I flew in a goddamn helicopter in Sedona, admiring the beautiful rock formations and brilliant colors.  

And you know what? I had a great time, even if Robbie wasn't by my side.  Sure, it would've been even better had he been there and sure, I'd rather be home with him than out and about any day of the week.  But that doesn't mean I should shortchange myself and become a hermit until we come together again.  I only have one life to live and realistically, Rob cannot be surgically sewed to my side for the entirety of it (as horrifyingly awesome as that would be).  Right now I'm in one of the prettiest places in the country expense-free and dammit, I should appreciate that experience.  I only hope that I'm doing it justice.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Thank you once again for putting up with my anxiety-ridden ramblings...you are all just amazing.

In Defense of Social Media

I realized the other day that the blogosphere--at least the niche that I find myself in, anyway--is a lot like summer camp for the following reasons:

1. You spend most of your time around other girls.

2. When one person catches something, everyone catches something.

The "something" in my metaphor is not a cold or your period because your cycles sync up (I was a camper and a counselor at summer camp for years, it happens), but rather ideas, trends, thoughts, and feelings. And vintage clothes, but that's not really pertinent here.

I've noticed lately that a lot of bloggers that I subscribe to are talking about Internet detox, the stressful aspects of social networking, and self-doubt when it comes to blogs.  In fact, this is hardly a recent phenomenon--it seems like as far back as I can remember bloggers have been blogging and tweeting about how stressful it is to keep blogging and tweetin, or completely eliminating accounts to avoid absent-minded surfing.  

It's something that I have never really been able to fully relate to.

I am on the internet a lot.  My job requires me to be on a computer for the entire 10-12 hours I'm usually working.  As a result I usually have about 4 tabs open with Bloglovin, Twitter, my blog, and maybe Facebook. Even after work when Rob and I are sitting around watching TV we're usually on our computers--not avoiding each other, but sharing and communicating while we share and communicate with others.

A few weeks ago I was feeling kind of stressed about various things in my life and my therapist suggested that some of the stress might be coming from interactions with people on Facebook.  So at her suggestion, I gave it up for a week.  During that week I realized that there were a lot of things about Facebook I really enjoyed (getting to communicate with people I can't usually talk to easily, planning get-togethers) and that the source of all my stress came from the fact that I lacked the self-control to block or avoid those of my "friends" with toxic statuses or stressful interactions.  Knowing full well that viewing their profiles could or would upset me, I still stalked their profiles and gave them the power to stress me out.  I also realized that the benefits of social networking in this case far outweighed the probability of it stressing me out or upsetting me. 

To me the internet, like anything else, isn't all or nothing.  When I want to use the internet and tweet and blog, I do. When I don't want to, I don't.  It's a big part of my life, but it's not my life. And if I stopped enjoying it, it's something that I could easily not do. Honestly, I think completely deleting an account or refusing to tweet or blog because I feel like I'm doing something wrong only gives it even greater control over me and my actions.  Just like with anything in life, social media in moderation isn't in and of itself toxic;  it's up to each of us to manage the power it has in our lives, whether that power be for good or for evil.

And isn't this true of "real" life, too? We don't have to completely avoid social interaction simply because these toxic influences exist, and  it's up to each of us to take the initiative to clear our lives of toxic influences and friendships.

I hope, as usual, that nobody takes this as offensive.  I understand that people have a variety of reasons for choosing to abstain from social networking, from crazy family members (I've had my share) to privacy concerns;  I only sought to explain why I personally enjoy social networking  and choose not to abstain, rather than to pass any judgement on any of my wonderful readers or to suggest that bloggers shouldn't write about these feelings. I pride myself on being pretty honest on here and I thought I would throw in my two cents on this particular issue.

I hope you all are having a great Labor Day weekend so far.  Get out and enjoy the fresh air, but don't feel too guilty for catching up on blogs, tweets, and Facebook!

Remedial Stress Handling

One of the difficult things about writing a public blog is that you really have no choice but to censor yourself when discussing matters that involve other people. 

I wish I could go into more detail about this but I'm afraid that my approach to writing is generally that once you write about someone, that person will probably stumble upon it...and my goal in writing is not to offend or to hurt.  Suffice it to say I had a pretty rough week, and I'm still trying to determine the best way to deal with all the stress, anxiety, frustration, fear, and sadness that I've been feeling. Sometimes it feels like it's crushing me and threatening to completely engulf my mind.

My darling husband is on yet another camping trip for work (this time in Aroostook County, 6 hours away and no cell reception for miles) so I'm alone in my thoughts until later tonight.  As I'm sure the case is for many of you, being alone is just about the worst thing then you're already your own worst enemy, so I'm trying out some new de-stressing techniques.  Since I'm a pretty high-strung person I'm not particularly well-versed in the ways of effectively handling stress, so it's been a bit of a trial and error experience.

Here are some things that have helped make my day a little brighter during my recent foray into remedial stress handling:

1. A comfort lunch fit for a gluten-free 7-year-old...an American cheese sandwich with local organic strawberries on the side:

2. Slathering obscene amounts of aloe on my itchy sunburn in preparation for my first thigh tattoo session this weekend:

3. A brand-new coloring book and a box of 64 crayons:

4. Taking my adorable little slice of dog out to the field for a romp with her BFFs:

5. Writing a letter to my husband about how awesome he is.

6. Old "Twilight Zone" episodes on Netflix:

7. Cranking music in the car and singing my lungs out (especially to this, this, and this)

8. A brand-new planner with which to fill in all our upcoming activities:

9. A glass of "homemade" lavender lemonade and maybe a vodka cranberry or two later:

10. A date with myself sans telephone at the only restaurant in town that has gluten-free food our favorite restaurant while reading one of my favorite books of all time:

11. A Modcloth dress (the one mentioned in yesterday's post) that fit like a freaking glove. I won't subject you to pictures of it just yet.

12. This desktop background courtesy of Kyla Roma.

What do you do to relieve stress?