Month: November 2019

…Then it will change you.

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

I logged onto WordPress to find that today is my WordPress “anniversary”. Ten years ago I created my first blog and tried to quiet the ramblings inside by writing them down for all to see. I’ve had this particular blog since April or 2013. This was two months before my world became unrecognizable. Two months before my dad died. Two months before I entered into a completely unrecognizable relationship. Four months before I would begin running.

There are a few pivotal moments that I can say defined me and completely changed my entire existence of being. Becoming a mother for the first time. My dad dying. Falling in love with running. And this entire divorce process. I’ve been feeling my own mortality lately. Not in the bad way, but in the good way. The “you only live once” and “you can’t take it with you” kind of way. I know it’s time to start making some pivotal changes in my life. But while I know what some of them are, I haven’t a clue where to even begin looking for the direction and motivation of the others.

This divorce has changed me in ways I didn’t even know were imaginable. I’ve gained 30 pounds (boo), become a better mother (yay), lost some friends (boo), and discovered some new found loves I never knew I had (I’m looking at you, camping).

But the true change has come in who I am. I listened to this TED Talk today at the recommendation of a friend (I can now officially say I listen to TED Talks) and while it focused on success and completion in the workplace, I can definitely say I see so many of these qualities in my every day life. Before my divorce I was an “agreeable giver”. I did whatever anyone else wanted, no questions asked. Now, to be fair, I like giving. I like doing things for other people. I like helping. But I realize now that sometimes it went too far. I changed my entire personality for friends and boys. I was a coward. I shied away from any confrontation. The only thing in the world I wanted was to be well liked (cue the absolutely abysmal low self esteem). I had no idea at all who I was. I didn’t know what music I liked. Or what books I liked. Or even what causes I liked. I was a follower…because I felt that made people happy.

But now…I’m different. I still love to give and help out. But I will challenge things that are blatantly wrong and I will fight for the causes I now KNOW I believe in. I don’t like fake (which is what I used to be). I’m not just going to roll over and take it anymore. Not from anyone. If you don’t like me, I don’t care. I will listen to my music and sing it loudly and I don’t care how embarrassing my Fleetwood Mac is! It’s freeing. It’s refreshing. And it’s also completely and utterly sad that it took me 38 years to get to this point. It makes me want to cry. But it also makes me want to rage against that girl that was so passive and complacent that she let her self almost pass her by.

I’m excited for the next few months. I’m excited to try and get back to running. I’m excited to try and lose the weight I gained back when I was in an abusive and manipulative relationship. I’m excited to see where I’m going to go professionally. But most of all I’m elated that there has been a reason for all this pain and suffering, and that reason is me. The caterpillar can’t just change into the butterfly because it’s his destiny. He has to work for it. He has to put in effort. He has to want it.

First it will challenge you…then it will change you.

Anything but that.

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

Yes, you can do hard things. But you shouldn’t always have to. Sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away and say “not right now”.

This is what I tell myself as I avoid something I very much do not want to do, something that I know will not only break my heart into a thousand pieces all over again, but will also create a fiery rage inside me where no one, not even me, is safe.

There are court documents I need to look over and check out. And I just don’t want to. I literally want to do anything but that right at this moment. They are full of more half truths than truths and in between are the blatant lies that I just don’t want to see. I skimmed them last night but now that I need to look at them more clearly, my breath is hitching and I can’t stop grinding my teeth in agitation.

On Tuesdays I am home by myself for about 2 hours. Usually this is time that I relish. As a mom of three and a kindergarten teacher time without tiny bodies touching you and calling your name of few and far between. I look forward to this day every week. I look forward to these two hours where I can be productive or not, depending on my mood. But today, all I could think about was having to go home and go over these documents and I immediately began having a panic attack.

So when I got home I decided that the documents can wait. I was not going to let them consume my time and my thoughts. I was not going to let this person, who I have given so much to already, take one more thing from me without my permission. I should of stood up for myself 10 years ago, but I didn’t. I know better now. I know how to take what I need. I know how to prioritize things so that I don’t fall into the darkness. I know how to say “not right now”.

So I changed my clothes and put on my running shoes and headed out the door. I did the run I didn’t want to get up for this morning. I uploaded some amazing pictures of my class to twitter. I poured myself a glass of wine and began writing this. Because I will get to those documents, I absolutely will. Just not right now.

Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

The weekends I don’t have the kids are the hardest. Because it’s not just 2 days, it’s 5. I haven’t seen them since Friday morning and as much as I enjoy the sleeping in, binge watching something that is NOT Captain Underpants, and eating chips that I don’t have to share, I feel like part of me is missing. I feel unwhole. Less than. Lacking.

It’s only been two months with this new schedule and it’s already tougher than I expected. I didn’t expect to feel like this…All. The. Time. My breath hitches when I don’t get a text back within 10 minutes. I constantly wonder if they’re happy. I wonder if I am doing enough. I have no idea how I am going to be able to keep this up for 14 more years.

These are the days the anxiety creeps in the fastest. Where sleep seems to evade me. Where I busy myself with project after project, cleaning after cleaning, glass of wine after glass of wine.

The every day worries get escalated. Not all at once, but slowly, like a snowfall that builds, and builds, and builds until it consumes you like a blizzard. I have a parent-teacher conference with Max’s teachers on Wednesday. Last week when I confirmed the conference I assumed (and kinda knew) that it was because Max is failing advanced math and they are probably going to move him to the on grade level math class. And that he’s a little silly and unfocused at school. And he hates writing. I’ve had this talk before…I know the drill. But today those worries escalated to the teachers outlining all of my failures as a parent leading up to Max failing math. It’s because I fought for them. It’s because I have to take them back to Mike’s at 7 am for school. It’s because I’m not able to come to the class parties.

So now my carefree weekend is filled with anxiety and worry. And I know it’s not going to cease until Wednesday when this parent-teacher conference is over and my littles are home with me.

And then it will start all over again.