Disjointed Thoughts. Yay.

I just sent someone an update via email, and I thought I would post this as a "How are you doing?" type of entry.  If it doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry.  It doesn’t make much sense to me either.

I’m doing alright.  Tina moved back in a few weeks ago.  I’m finally starting to feel happier, although the usual frustrations seem to keep cropping up.  It’s hard for me to adjust to thinking of Tina in the sense of being "broken".  She looks the same on the outside as she did when I married her, but on the inside, things just don’t work right.  And by the way, this is the terminology that both Tina and our counselor have been using.  Anyways, that can be a little tough.  She’s helping out a lot more than she used to, but it’s still hard to get her to take initiative on some of the more important things.  Right now, I have the stable job that pays decently enough for one person.  Subtract the health insurance, though, and I start to struggle a little bit.  She’s so erratic on her employment that it concerns me all the time.  Right now, she’s babysitting a little girl for about $80 a week.  She enjoys it since she’s getting the opportunity to mold and shape the little girl and it helps her feel a little like a mommy.  So in a way, I think it’s therapeutic for her.  It doesn’t alleviate my need to get caught up, however.  It’s all so difficult to put into words, but you probably know how that gets sometimes.

I see a lot of the same patterns, though, and that concerns me.  I can’t go back to the place I was before we split.  I’m trying to be patient about it, and it helps to voice my concerns to her. In a way, we’re communicating so much better than we did before the split.  Instead of letting our emotions fester and stew, we’re getting them out before they become a really big deal.  I find it helps to not point fingers, but use language like "I feel" or "That makes me feel".  It seems to help.

That’s the short story for now.  I need to get to bed and get some sleep.  Totally random thought starts here.  I’m truly thankful for my bed, and the fact that my house is warm, and that I was able to have enough for dinner tonight.  There are so many things that I’m thankful for that I overlook or take for granted.  I pray that I do a better job of recognizing these things.  It’s funny how one little grain of misery can get into the ass crack of my happiness and spoil my day, but I find a hard time not dwelling on it.  I’ve heard it said before that if you were with a group of people and everyone tossed their problems in the middle, you’d take yours back.  I don’t feel like that strong of a person, but I’ve had so many people tell me what a patient, strong-hearted person I am, especially for sticking things out with Tina.  What they see as strength I guess I might occasionally see as some form of stupidity.  Or fear.  Fear of being alone.  Just enough fear to keep me from throwing our marriage to the wind, to live with whatever misery comes my way.  So, there I go, back and forth between "Do I love her?" and "Do I want to love her?"

Good God, does that make any sense at all?  Ugh.  I’ll shut up now.