I am feeling a lot better than my last couple of blog posts and wanted to update people with good news for a change!

When I became overwhelmed and had to drop the EMDA class & lab, I also decided to cut out all the socializing. Now that I have stepped back from most of my "friendships," I am more aware of how things really were. I was giving more to these people who mostly didn't deserve my time and energy, but who gladly accepted it, than to myself or my son. The longer I've had away from certain people, the more I've realized how shallow those friendships were and how much I was being used and/or disrespected.

The good news is, I do have many wonderful friends who understand I don't have time to hang out all the time but who love me anyway and are willing to hang out when I can make the time.

The even better news is that I have a lot more time (though still not enough!!) to focus on my home life, work, and school work. I had a moment last night when I was washing my face and brushing my teeth where I realized I had gotten out of the habit of doing so at night, just falling into bed and then waking up for a shower in the morning. I thought to myself about how much more clearly my thinking has become and how I feel good about the quality of work I'm putting out as well as the quality of time I have with Tyson. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a hardworking woman who deserves to end every night with 5 - 10 minutes of private time to focus on herself and realized how much I've been disrespecting myself in little ways and not even being aware of it. And then it occurred to me that maybe that's why others were treating me disrespectfully, because I had accepted it.

As a matter of fact, I had an interesting email conversation with a guy I knew from middle school on Facebook. We were doing the usual "catching up," where we talked about our kids, relationships, jobs, college, travels, etc. over the last 20 years and he asked if I was single. That's fine--I replied that I was, but that I was grateful for the fact these days. He then implied that I must just have "buddies" that I use for my sexual needs. Again, I deflected and said that I'm not really into casual sex or that whole scene. He replied by making a comment about pleasing myself and sex toys. At that point, I decided he had really gone too far. I'm no prude and I'm very open about topics around sex (obviously, as a potential sex therapist, I'd have to be!), but I also realized that I felt that he was disrespecting me by violating my privacy and I had never encouraged him in this way. I wrote him back and told him that I didn't want to discuss my sex life with him and that he needed to not ask me such personal things. At first, I was thinking about how I could be funny about it or look out for his feelings and say things like, "I'm sure you didn't mean to but..." and then I realized that I need to quit making excuses for others or trying to put their feelings ahead of my own, when he was the one to insult me. It felt really good and very empowering! I wasn't rude, but I was very direct.

So anyway, that's the scoop on where I'm at these days. Calm, direct, and focused on the things I want to make priorities in my life. I like the new me and I think I'll see a big difference in the way people treat me as a result.