Family time!
My brother, sister-in-law, and little chunker of a 6-month-old nephew are here, and I love it! The little guy made it through a two day road trip with no problems, something his parents are very proud of, and rightfully so; I get fussy driving my car for longer than an hour. We caught up yesterday evening, sitting on the patio and enjoying watching the dogs lick Toby's toes, and laughing at the variety of faces this little guy's made in his six months. He looks so much like his dad, it is astounding, especially when we started comparing his baby pictures to Toby now. He really is a sweet lil' dude, and it's pretty cute to watch him, as his dad puts it, giggle-fuss.
The downside is that I stayed up way too late last night, chatting and laughing away; each time I checked my watch and told myself to call it a night in five minutes was followed by pushing that five minute deadline another five minutes, so I didn't get to sleep until 1:00am, which did not give me enough time to sleep before I had to get up at 6:15am. I went through my new routine of a couple rounds of Tabata the moment I got out of bed, got dressed for work, made some yerba mate so I could get a little bit of caffeine to clear my head, and was doing great for the first three hours of being awake. Now, even though I've had some protein to munch on while at my desk, I'm starting to feel a dip. The yawns are creeping up on me, something that I hate not so much for the physical sensation of feeling my face contort to something out of horror film, but for the mental affirmation that I am tired, mostly because I woke up at one point during the night with my arm so numb that I could have used it as a club and never felt the impact. That's hard to sleep through.
Within the last three or four days, I've been working through some intense anger issues, mostly centered around acquaintances that surprised me with some extreme behavior (condescension from one, sexism form another), or the asinine drivers that should not surprise me with their god-awful driving as much as they do, and it's been a challenge to come to a resolution that left me feeling like I could let go of that anger without invalidating how it felt at the time. Anger is such a difficult issue with me because it requires quite a balancing act, and I don't often feel like I do that successfully. Anger is a perfectly valid emotion (I have to remind myself), and it can be helpful when used correctly, like if my anger is motivation to effect a good change in my life or the life of someone I care about. (It can be very satisfying to stand up for myself without feeling like I'm becoming She-Hulk, and it's a relief to see anger lead to a good result.) But for a long time, my reaction to feeling anger was so painful that it only caused more problems and created more situations where things could not be resolved in a good way, if at all. To get through anger now, I have a short conversation in my head (or even out loud if my head is not a safe place), asking myself if I can use this anger for anything positive. If I can, I take the next step, whatever that may be. If I can't, I ask what I can do with this uncomfortable emotion. If the answer is 'nothing', then I give myself permission to let go of it so it doesn't sit and fester like it used to. Obviously, there is some grey area in between the 'yes' and 'no', and that can keep the anger on a simmer, but being able to talk myself through the event is invaluable; it saves me from feeling useless and frustrated, and it sometimes points out that I can take more action than I might have initially believed. That's empowering, and I will always say yes to more of that.
Work has gotten busier, and having to keep up with the call traffic perked me up some more. I have a lunch of smoked salmon and spinach waiting for me, and it just took me three tries to spell 'spinach' correctly, so I think it's time to take a break from the computer and get my food. A few more hours, and I get to play with my nephew again! Yay!
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