An Open Ended Life

I’m a runner. It’s what I have always done. I’m trying to break the habit, and have made considerable baby steps, but it still remains my first instinct when faced with conflict. It’s got to be stopped.

If I was a meme, it’d be a photo of me, with captions above it that read: “If ‘self-sabotage’ was a person.” Someone make it for me please.

To my eventual delight, I decided not to run a couple days ago, and actually voiced my feelings to my boyfriend instead of bottling them in (which he has been at his wits end trying to get me to do consistently; I promise I am trying).

I told him I needed a day or two (preferably two) to myself. That I was feeling like a cat that was being held for too long and wanted desperately to get down. He held in his initial response and backed off. He agreed, and proceeded to pack a bag, and with a tense jaw told me not to cloud this time to myself with guilt, and enjoy myself. That he loved me, and he would see me in a couple days.

It was a huge sigh of relief.

So, after I came back in from walking him to his car, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and called up my weed man. I had run out a couple days before, and hadn’t decided whether or not I wanted to get any for a bit, just because…but I took the opportunity as it landed in my lap.

I’m not your average weed smoker, I feel like I must explain. It calms my anxiety, and helps me sleep at night when my demons won’t let me rest. Admittedly, it does get in the way and complicate things a bit when every other part of your life is straight edge, but I have accepted that risk for the sake of my sanity.

That was Saturday night. He wanted to come back early, about 7pm today, and I reminded him that this was not about me getting some me time until he gets bored, this was about what I needed. So, we compromised, (I swear, as only we can) and settled on any time after midnight, lol. I hope the humor in that is not lost on you. =)

There’s no doubt this is going to disperse into many many MANY smaller conversations that are going to be wildly uncomfortable for me, and even worse when they end up being productive, as they usually are, but hey, at least I didn’t run this time. And go figure, I actually feel a whole lot better as a result.

So, there’s that, I guess.

Growing up is hard, especially if you gotta do it while you’re grown.

– Indie