Making it about me

Good morning loves,
I hope everyone had an eventful, yet restful holiday season. 
I took the time to refocus on the numba' one stunna'....me.

See, amidst all of the emotions that goes along with infertility and treatments and insurance and all that, I managed to get this wonky head problem. There was a patch on the top of my head, that made almost a direct line from my hair line to the crown of my head, that was insanely tender to the touch.
I thought, at first, I had had one too many tight ponytails or top knots that threw off my game and pulled my hair too much, causing the soreness.
But it didn't go away for weeks.
It started about a week before Christmas, and thankfully subsided by New Year's Day.
After hitting up all the usual Google antidotes and ruling out a tumor, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, shingles, and swollen lymph nodes...I finally found a few forums that talked about how anxiety can cause the muscles in your head to tense up to the point of a consistent, tender, dull ache.

And to be honest, at that point I honestly thought I felt fine.
Cool as a cucumber.
But apparently I was wrong.
The tension from anxiety can last for a long time after the episode takes place....days, weeks, even months.
And since I am not really one to take a bunch of meds to fix the problem, I took it upon myself to fix it.
Fix me.


And then of course I ran into a few more snags that kind of upset the whole zenning out thing.

The day before NYE at work, I was brought into my bosses office and told that my role as his assistant was no longer required. Not entirely shocking, I might add, but still stung none-the-less.
Instead of just dumping me on my ass, they decided to change my role, who I report to, yada yada....but the part that threw me was that no one really had a game plan. I have no real title yet, no job description, nothing really. I am in limbo.
So of course I silently got upset and went into panic mode. I looked to what other positions are offered in an area closer to home. I reached out to friends to see what they knew.
I have been through the whole, "your job has been eliminated" thing before, so it's nothing I can't handle, but still. This week I will meet with my new boss to determine the correct path and hopefully we can work something out that will benefit the company, and me.
My role has been ever-shifting in a company that is growing quickly, and I had my doubts about giving up total control about a lot of things I shouldn't have necessarily been doing in an Executive Assistant role for fear of exactly this. My boss doesn't like doling out his to-do's to other people, so my tasks such as finance and general HR kept me busy while I did the bare minimum with him.
Well, now I don't have much to do, so will be dabbling back with the things that kept me afloat before.
All I can do is hope it's enough.

After I came to terms with this work, of course I couldn't be let off the hook so easily.
A family problem came back into the forefront, and I have always been the voice of reason for my parents and my brother. I try to pick up the slack when there are issues, resolve problems, be the unbiased voice, troubleshoot to keep everyone together.
It's exhausting.
These days it seems that every time my mom wants to get together, it's to bitch about my brother's issues and the fact that my dad is enabling his poor life choices.
And I get pissed and just want everyone to act normally so I intervene.
Begging my brother to stay straight.....trying to tell my dad to act like a dad and not his best friend. To be the bad guy to keep him out of trouble...coaching my mom to keep it together.
I get so angry that I feel like I have to bear this burden for everyone.
I have to be the rock.
Mark and I have always been self sufficient. And it bothers me to no end to see people being taken advantage of...especially my parents.

And to make matters worse, when these instances happen, I don't even realize how upset I am and take it out on my husband.
It's not fair to him and it's not fair to our marriage.

He kind of told me I need to stop.
Stop making it my problem. Change the subject when asked an opinion and don't get mad.
I can't force my beliefs onto them, I just have to hope everything will work out for the best.

So I went about my days off focusing on things that make ME happy.
I splurged here and there on myself for once.
Stopped into Sephora and got some REAL makeup that REALLY brings out the best me.
Started at a new gym just minutes from my house. Those sweat sessions keep me sane.
Recovered my sore muscles with many epsom salt baths (and some wine).
Plucked my eyebrows, dyed my hair, had it cut.
Got dressed up and went on a fun date with Mark.
Bought a new Kindle book, The Happiness Project, and am hoping to take a few cues from it.
And today I spent the day preparing for a new work week.
Being organized keeps my schedule in line and makes me less frustrated.

Life is rather overwhelming sometimes.
And sometimes, it's easier to focus inward to keep the crazy at bay.