Perception is interesting

For the last year I haven't been myself. In some ways that's actually good. I've made some changes that really needed to happen, though I didn't really know it at the time. For a very long time I really didn't want to interact with anyone. My contact with anyone outside my family was pretty minimal. I was okay on the phone with friends but getting together, face-to-face was not something I was interested in at all. It was very difficult for me to get out and mingle. I did it when it was unavoidable and I managed. Basically it's felt like I've been walking around with a black cloud over my head. That's gotten progressively better, thank God.

Over the weekend, oldest kid had a basketball game. There are two athletic booster ladies we call the "booster Nazis". They run a tight ship....overseeing the concession stands, selling tickets to events. They are large and in charge. One of them is an older lady with kids about my age. She is really friendly. I walked in to buy my ticket on Saturday and she said "Now there's my ray of sunshine!" I know I looked totally dumbfounded. Me??? Ray of sunshine??? Seriously??? I think I might have looked behind me to see if there was a pleasant, happy person standing back there. Nope...she really was talking to me. I said "I don't think I've ever been called THAT before." She said "Well, I'm surprised. You are so nice and positive and happy all the time. It makes my day when you walk through that door." !!! I thanked her for being so sweet, but I walked off scratching my head. Unless she was totally bullshitting me, she obviously sees something I don't. I am not really one to try to act all chipper and cheerful when I'm dying inside, either. So she must have just caught me on good days or else she's normally surrounded by grouchy bitches. :) It's just funny to hear how someone else perceives you.

I've noticed some changes lately in myself that I am just trying to experience, and not interpret and dissect them to death. DH had two days off work last week due to the snow. First day, the kids were home too. The second day they had school. I was actually extremely disappointed that he wasn't going to work. I wanted to be alone, wanted to get back in my normal routine. Most of the time during all this, I was so clingy and just desperate for time with him alone....time to try to gauge how he was feeling, what he was doing, how he felt about me. Now I have more and more occasions where I think I just don't want to look at him right now. At night I find myself curled up in a ball facing away from him, which is how I slept for several months last year.....first when I felt something was amiss but couldn't put my finger on it, then when I KNEW something was up but didn't come right out and ask (and looking back, it probably would have been pointless - he would have lied and I'm sure he knew that I knew anyway). It's an interesting evolution.