Someone to Watch Over Me
Have you ever had so much going on in your brain that all the thoughts stumble all over each other to get out and end up blocking the door? That's how I've been feeling lately. Or maybe it's all the nights of having to get up at 7 AM after not getting to sleep until after 3 -- then driving an hour and 10 minutes each way to work and staying 2 to 3 hours after everyone else leaves. When I get home my grandson literally asks me questions NON-STOP until I want to throw myself off the Sears Tower (or whatever the hell they call it now). Or I have to pick someone up from somewhere. Or I have to listen to someone's problem, and then THEY feel better while I worry about it. (I know it's not MY problem, but somehow if your kid has a problem, it becomes yours, at least to worry about.)
I'm feeling so burnt out. It doesn't help when you don't have anyone to share the burden with. Of course even during the best times of my marriage my husband was never really emotionally available for me. I'm always the strong one. In everything and with everyone. I'm always the one who supplies emotional (and sometimes financial) support. I always "suck it up" and keep going. I'm so tired of being strong. I wish for once I could just have a shoulder to cry on. My husband was never there for that and he wasn't very affectionate either. (I have to come up with something better to call him than "my husband" because that term hasn't applied in years. But he's not even close to being my STBX and I don't want to call his some mean name because I don't hate him.)
This is a hard thing to say without making it sound sexual, but nobody has really touched me in years and years and years. I mean simple human touch....holding my hand....giving me a good solid hug. Oh, yeah, my grandson snuggles with me and hugs me and all, but that's still more of a "needy" kind of contact. It doesn't supply the aching need I have to feel that somebody cares about ME. My two older kids will give me one of those obligatory my-mom-just-bailed-me-out-of-another-jam-Thank-God type hugs. Number 3 kid is still a little too cool for overt affection and my youngest will incline her cheek to me to kiss her goodnight, but that doesn't fill the bill either. My therapist and psychiatrist will hug me at the end of our sessions, and while that is one of the highlights of my week, there are definite understood professional boundaries that are not crossed.
Given my childhood, I really don't understand how I came to be such a "touchy-feely" kind of person. There was very little physical contact in my family, yet I have always been the kind of person who likes to hug people and let them know that I care about them. I'm the person who'll pick a piece of lint off a stranger's shoulder or give a playful poke to a co-worker as I pass by, just to acknowledge them. I've even been known to stand behind someone and give them a shoulder massage while we chat. Probably, no, DEFINITELY the hardest thing about my living situation is not only the lonliness, it's the total and complete lack of physical warth and affection between two human beings who sort of connection with each other.
I'm not saying that I don't appreciate on-line hugs, smilies, XX's and OO's and all those other cute ways people can convey emotions through text, it just doesn't make up for the real thing. Even if I never get to have that "someone special" in my life, I would be perfectly happy having someone to hug and who would hug me back.
I'm feeling so burnt out. It doesn't help when you don't have anyone to share the burden with. Of course even during the best times of my marriage my husband was never really emotionally available for me. I'm always the strong one. In everything and with everyone. I'm always the one who supplies emotional (and sometimes financial) support. I always "suck it up" and keep going. I'm so tired of being strong. I wish for once I could just have a shoulder to cry on. My husband was never there for that and he wasn't very affectionate either. (I have to come up with something better to call him than "my husband" because that term hasn't applied in years. But he's not even close to being my STBX and I don't want to call his some mean name because I don't hate him.)
This is a hard thing to say without making it sound sexual, but nobody has really touched me in years and years and years. I mean simple human touch....holding my hand....giving me a good solid hug. Oh, yeah, my grandson snuggles with me and hugs me and all, but that's still more of a "needy" kind of contact. It doesn't supply the aching need I have to feel that somebody cares about ME. My two older kids will give me one of those obligatory my-mom-just-bailed-me-out-of-another-jam-Thank-God type hugs. Number 3 kid is still a little too cool for overt affection and my youngest will incline her cheek to me to kiss her goodnight, but that doesn't fill the bill either. My therapist and psychiatrist will hug me at the end of our sessions, and while that is one of the highlights of my week, there are definite understood professional boundaries that are not crossed.
Given my childhood, I really don't understand how I came to be such a "touchy-feely" kind of person. There was very little physical contact in my family, yet I have always been the kind of person who likes to hug people and let them know that I care about them. I'm the person who'll pick a piece of lint off a stranger's shoulder or give a playful poke to a co-worker as I pass by, just to acknowledge them. I've even been known to stand behind someone and give them a shoulder massage while we chat. Probably, no, DEFINITELY the hardest thing about my living situation is not only the lonliness, it's the total and complete lack of physical warth and affection between two human beings who sort of connection with each other.
I'm not saying that I don't appreciate on-line hugs, smilies, XX's and OO's and all those other cute ways people can convey emotions through text, it just doesn't make up for the real thing. Even if I never get to have that "someone special" in my life, I would be perfectly happy having someone to hug and who would hug me back.
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