A vacation would be nice right about now.

I had this big long blog that I started a while back about Casey's parents and some of the shit that they tried to pull.   Casey's parents called a few weeks ago and it turned into several days out of the past few
weeks being really rough for us.  

Between her dysphoria, work for me being increasingly busy, the kids on spring break one week (which I mixed up and thought it was supposed to be the week AFTER it actually was and that totally screwed me up), starting some new home projects... It has been one thing after the other and that whole adulting thing means there isn't an end in sight.  Adulting is the same thing every day, day after day.  Occasionally you get to throw some fun stuff in there, but most of the time you just have to keep moving forward towards some kind of goal.  Casey's parents have nothing to do with that goal and honestly, I'm still so angry with them and I lack the words to properly convey how upset I am with them, so I'm just going to drop the topic for now. 

Casey and I realized that we haven't gone on vacation in 3 years.  The last time we really took any time for ourselves was 3 years ago when we came down to Florida for me to interview with the brokerage I now work for.  We were planning on heading back to Indiana at the end of June and taking a week to say hi to friends, do a "food tour," and visit family in Chicago.   It looks like I'm flying solo on that particular mission.  Casey has her own mission to accomplish during the time that I'm scheduled to go (I'm heading up for a wedding.) and she can't go with me.  

So, road trip for Jess.  I'll probably be cutting down my time back in Indiana.  As much as I love my friends and family, it's still really hard for me to be there.  It will be the first time I've been back since my Mom's funeral and that's really hard for me.  

When I was in college, I would "sneak" into town and visit my friend Mickie (or more than likely Casey).  My late teens and early 20s were not a fun time for me.  It wasn't that anything was horribly bad, it was just standard growing pains.  I was trying to figure myself out.  I didn't want to be around my parents at the time.  What 18-year-old kid does?  

My Mom would invariably find out that I was either in town or had been in town and she would get incredibly mad.   She would want to know all of my movements, where I had been, where I was going, and who I was with.  At one point, I even believed my Dad had low-jacked my car to track it because how else would he know I was in Nashville if I told him that I was going to Indianapolis to visit my friend Kimberly for the weekend?   To be fair, I did honestly start off heading in the direction in Indianapolis (several times), only to say screw it and head south to Nashville instead.  I wasn't completely crappy, though.  I would call and check-in.  I always had that ability and I always let them know I was okay.  

I remember being able to take a road trip on what I made working 3 days a week in the college library.  That would barely fill my gas tank now.  Oh, and tickets to a concert or to Six Flags (discounted with our empty coke cans!)  were generally included in that road trip, too. 

I love a good road trip.  I would just prefer to take one with my wife.  And ditch our kids for a few days so we can have some time that is just us.  It's been us and the kids for three years non-stop.  No breaks, nothing.   

The worst part?  I have absolutely no chill button.  I have no ability to STOP.  When I do have a moment, I try to write.  I've been trying to do something creative at least 15 minutes a day every day.  Yeah.  Massive fail on my part.  I'm lucky if I can eek out maybe 15 minutes a week. 

So what do we do?  Do we just soldier on?  That's what certain people would say.  They'd look at us and say "Suck it up, buttercup."  Sucking it up, though?  That's not working anymore.  Both Casey and I need an outlet.  While we do communicate a lot better these days, some of our communication (especially on my part) has been snippy and short.  I have found myself, especially, getting very short with everyone around me.  For a while, I was like "Hi, I'm Jess and this is my "I don't give a fuck what you think!" phase.  While I'm trying to be more of an advocate for myself, I'm still very much me and I don't like rocking the boat.  At the same time, though, I see the need to stop.  

I've been very much trying to set myself boundaries and stick with them.  No more phone calls after 6pm.  But then, I put the caveat of "Unless I'm expecting a call..."  I put caveats on everything, it seems. The past couple of weeks I've been getting better at it, though.  Now, I just need to stick with the one-day-a-week rule.  That rule is "take one day off a week."  

I've done it twice... and it was weird for me both times.  I felt like I needed to be doing something more.  I felt like if I wasn't working on something, I was failing.  What was really happening, though, is that I was red-lining myself.  I would work until I would crack.  I would get so hyper-fixated on my clients or whatever deal that it was to the detriment of myself.  

My partner told me that I just need to stop and let things happen as they may.  

I got so angry when he said that to me.  I mean I seriously got super super pissed off to the point where I thought about leaving my team.  I sat down and talked with Casey and Casey looked at me and said "Your partner is right."  And then I got even madder.  It was not a happy few days.  

But then I realized that they were both right.  I have this insane need to control everything.  It has gotten worse with age and since my Mom is no longer around and there is nothing to worry about there, I have gone out of my way and created issues for me to worry about.  

Those behaviors are what has me back looking for a new therapist.  Therapy is all well and good and I find it extremely beneficial.  I want more, though, and I want to discover the root of my behaviors and I want to FIX the behaviors.  Or maybe I want to control them?  Am I doing myself a disservice for wanting to fix them?  Can my control-freak nature even be addressed by therapy and behavior modification?  Does me wanting to control my behavior add a level of complication to this whole thing that I probably shouldn't even begin to think about because if I do my brain will short circuit?  It's entirely possible.    

I can tell you right now that my brain kind of short-circuited there a little bit.   I also felt like I was in an episode of Sex and the City except it was all of the questioning and none of the sex.  I'll work on the latter part of that later. 

Either way, I'll be back in Indiana in June.  I would stop and throw eggs at Casey's parents' house but there are a few things stopping me there.  A) the price of eggs has crept up and our grocery bill is already ridiculous.  I wouldn't want to waste perfectly good eggs on their house.  B) I honestly don't care enough to do that.  Also, if I were to egg someone's house I would use deviled eggs because of the fact that I would care enough to actually MAKE the deviled eggs, drive to that person's house and then proceed to egg their house?  That and deviled eggs get stinkier, faster. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's about time for me to meet my next clients.