Unobtainable Rest

I needed to go out. To get out of the house. But I had no place in particular to go. And so I wandered aimlessly down the street and around the stores.

I needed to talk to a friend. To chat and be cheered up. But I had no one to call. And so I walked alone and silently through the crowds of friends and couples on a night out.

I needed to write. To release all the thoughts and feelings that were messing with me. But I was outside and could not find an internet cafe or the like. And so I came home to a silent house where my only source of solace can be found.

I walked through the house trying to find a place to rest and write. But tonight there was nowhere for me to rest. Tonight there is no place here that I can call my sanctuary, my place of comfort and escape.

I had no choice but to settle at my desk. For the need to write tonight was just too great to delay any longer. This place was once my sanctuary and refuge. It shielded me from the harshness that were my responsibilities and provided me with an outlet for my inner turmoils. But now I can find no comfort here. It reminds me too much of what was taken from me so abruptly.

I can find no rest tonight. For my heart is in anguish and my mind is unsettled. Even writing has failed to calm me and ease my troubles as before.

A Desperate Housewife

I have been staring at my keyboard for the past few minutes thinking about what I should write about tonight. There are things in my head and in my heart that I wish to make sense of. But somehow I just can't find the words for them.

Maybe it is also because I don't feel as angsty or resentful or depressed these days any more. I think I have been so used to having all those feelings surface so easily that I don't know or have forgotten how to respond internally to being happy.

But am I really happy? I don't know.

I don't feel the pressure of responsibilities and deadlines anymore. I don't feel the sense of resentment towards him for nagging about work. So working relationship-wise I am feeling better off lately.

How about the emotional and physical relationship?

Maybe there is where my lingering sadness and doubt lies. We have not quarreled since he made the decision. We have not had any disagreements, heated words or unpleasantness. Things do seem pretty calm and smooth going. But it lacks the closeness that I felt sometimes when we are both working together. We do not see each other as often any more and that seems to have affected our conversations: we don't seem to be having much of them.

I can't really complain about the physical relationship since nothing has changed there. There is still no relationship. We have not had sex for I don't even remember how long. It could easily be 6 months. We used to at least fool around a little in bed with some hand or oral action. But even that has ceased.

In the beginning I used to think that perhaps I had to bear half the blame since it does take two to have sex. I thought that maybe I wasn't sexy enough. Or that I wasn't responding to him the way he likes somehow. Or that I was expecting too much from him. So I tried to dress differently, to wear sexier lingerie, to create more romantic moments, to listen to what he likes and respond as best I could and not to have any expectations. But nothing seems to work. Instead is made me feel worse about myself.

So I stopped. And he didn't seem to notice. I am beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with him. Or us. Have you ever heard of two married couple who are both healthy and on good terms with each other but have not had sex with each other for almost 6 months?

I do have my needs. And he must have his right? So how come we are not satisfying each other the way a married couple should be? Is he having an affair? I don't see the opportunity for him to have one. So what is it?

There were times, in the darker recesses of my mind where I have thought about having an affair myself. I thought about dressing up and going out and meeting other people, men in particular, and perhaps have a wild fling just so that my needs can be satisfied and that I am still attractive to other men.

But I can never bring myself to do it. I can't bring myself to betray him and do to him what I do not wish for him to do to me. And so I come to this blog that have become my mental solace at times.

I am happy that I have more time to myself now and that we are on good terms. But something is still missing. We may appear to be happy on the surface but I know I am not truly happy. I really don't know about him. He seems rather content and happy with working everyday. And he appears to be happier about us not fighting anymore. But is he truly happy I can't tell.

I have asked him that question before and his answer was yes. And perhaps he really does have such simple needs and that he really is happy like he said. Perhaps I am reading too much into the situation and imposing my own complicated mind onto him and expecting him to think like I do.

In my paranoid mind I am beginning to think that this idea of taking the work away from me wasn't his idea. Maybe he has been telling someone else about how he isn't happy with the way I work and that person told him to 'fire' me. But so that I won't get suspicious, the other person also told him to make it look like it was his decision so that we can have a happier relationship. When he tells this person about how I had believed him and gave up my work, I can imagine this person chuckling and says 'See, I told you she would. And now you can have the freedom what you want and to do things your way.' To take the paranoia further, this person could very likely be another woman. Maybe that long time 'friend' of his that he is always so friendly with all the time.

Doesn't that sound like something you would read in a book or watch on TV? I think I have been watching too much soap operas and tv dramas. Talk about a desperate housewife.

No Subject

Do I really know what I want? Does anyone ever really know what they want?

I don't know what I want.

There are things that I want. But do I REALLY want them?

I am a contradiction. I am a living paradox.

My mind is a mess. It is jumbled with thoughts, ideas, dreams, words, images, notions, and blank spots.

I am sitting in the dark with only the light from my screen. I want to say something but the words do not come. I want to do something but the ideas do not present themselves.

I want to have purpose in my life but I don't know what it should be or how to get it.

I need to set priorities and goals but I don't know where to begin.

I want a life of luxury but I don't know how to get it.

I need guidance but I don't know where to look.

I need. I want. I must. I should. I can. I might.

Just words and yet they decide the mindset and the attitude.

Against Myself

For the past week and a half I have been thinking and researching about the business ideas that I have in mind. I am quite excited about the whole thing. But somehow at the back of my mind there is this nagging voice that constantly keeps telling me that I am just wasting my time.

I know that it takes a lot of hard work to start and maintain a business, no matter how small. I know that it will be even harder if I really choose to do it by myself, from purchasing to manufacturing to sales and delivery. Whenever I think about the hard work that will be involved once I begin this venture, half of me shudders and shrinks at the mere thought.

I hear the voice telling me that I will never make it, that I will never be able to take the immense responsibilities that I will have to shoulder once I embark on this. It tells me that I am just a lazy person who only wants to be able to sleep in late and do whatever I feel like doing whenever I feel like doing it. It tells me that I am only intrigued by the idea of starting my own business but have no idea about what it takes to really run a business. It keeps telling me that I am a fool and I won't be able to make it.

I realize that I have been giving in to that negative voice all my life. I have been listening to that voice and accepting what it says of me as truth even when the rest of me tell me otherwise. At times I fight back and ignore the negative statements only to fall again under its even stronger onslaught. My self esteem, self confidence, social skills, wit, mind and heart have all been beaten and trodden on by that nagging negative voice that resides oh so comfortably in the deep recesses of my mind. It is amazing that I have not developed into a mental patient with schizophrenia or something like that.

I don't want to feel lousy about myself anymore. I don't want to be ashamed or embarrassed when I tell people about what I do anymore. I hate that nagging voice part of myself. It is like a disease that will infect my entire being till the day I die or go crazy unless I do something to stop it.

I need to learn how to appreciate myself more. To be able to validate my own actions and be happy with it. I need to learn how not to rely entirely on the opinions of others. I need to stop looking for validation from others.

I need to learn how to stand up to the nagging voice inside my head and tell it shut up and go away.

And yet knowing I should do all those things does not help when the strength to do them is not there.

I want to do this but I am afraid. Afraid to fail. Afraid to hear the mocking voice saying 'I told you so'. Afraid that other might laugh at me and say 'that is so typical of you to give up'. I am just afraid.

Those who do support me can only do so much. I will need to be able to overcome myself. And that should prove to be the most difficult challenge I will face in starting my own business. Well actually in anything I choose to do really.

Me. The biggest obstacle that can get in my way of accomplishing anything.

Insecurities

I am feeling lost and insecure although I should be happy and relieved.

I got fired by my own husband. He has stopped me from helping in his business. The reason he gave for doing so was because he didn't want any further unhappiness between us over work related stuff. He said he would rather be a bit more stressed out and handle everything by himself again, so that he can have a happier wife and a better relationship.

Sounds really noble and caring of him doesn't it? Makes you want to go "Awww." right?

Well it SUCKS for me! Because by taking the 'job' away from me, he also took away my pay. Meaning I am now totally financially dependent on him. And by giving that reason, I became the 'bad guy', the reason that he will have to work harder.

I know I can do the job a lot better than he can. And I know that he knows it too. But he just can't take the way I work and I can't work the way he does. Thus the conflicts.

I never realized how much it meant to me to be able to control that part of the business until it was taken away from me. Now I just feel like the ground is going to fall out from under me anytime and I will have nothing to hang on to.

I feel like all the hard work that I have put into creating the system this past 2 years have been in vain. He wants to use his own system because he says he doesn't have the time to learn how mine works. When I saw how he was trying to sort out the pile of stuff that I had to pass over to him, I was really bothered. I am not sure how to identify what I felt. Maybe guilt of some sort, resentment perhaps, could be sadness also. It could be a combination of all those and others. But whatever it was it didn't feel too good. I kept thinking about how that was supposed to be my responsibility and how I would have been able to do a much better job.

My sense of security in him and in myself is greatly shaken because of this. It has caused questions about his motives behind the decision to form in my mind. I start wondering if he is trying to hide something from me. When I was handling the stuff in the company everything was open and transparent and I knew what was going on. I caught quite a number of items that were not accounted for properly and was able to question him about them so that things could be set back in order. But now I will have no idea what goes on in the business, I won't know how much or how little the business is making, I won't know his schedule as well as I used to, I won't know the people he goes out to meet as much as I used to.

And this sense of insecurity in him is greatly fueled by an incident that happened last year during my birthday which I failed to blog about here. In a nutshell, I found out he went out with another girl (supposedly a long time friend with no romantic history between them) and went to the movies (a show we were supposed to watch together) with her while I stayed at home thinking that he had errands to run and had work to do. He has since apologized many times and realized his mistake of not bringing me along that day. But the sting of finding out from the girl on the night of my birthday that my husband just spent the whole day with her still hurts and it has greatly shaken my confidence in myself and in him. (It has also totally destroyed what feeble friendly ties I had with that 'friend'.)

I hate the feeling of total dependency on him or on anyone.

I am at a loss of what I should do. I would like to have my own income source so that I won't be so dependent anymore. It just feels crappy to have to ask him for money. Especially when he is a really stingy person. On top of that, since I won't know how well the company is doing I can't shake the feeling of guilt from asking for money. My mom thinks it is only right that the husband should give the wife a monthly allowance regardless of her working status. But somehow I just don't feel comfortable doing that with the man. Maybe if he was more well off I would feel better taking his money and enjoying myself. But I know he won't be able to do that, at least not now. So I feel that I have not choice but to find an additional source of income for myself to supplement whatever amount he finally decides on giving me.

The current program I am in is good but because I don't have a big capital to start with the growth is slow. However from the earnings that I am getting, I hope to be able to start a small business for myself. But I am still unsure of what to embark on.

I have been spending hours on the internet trying to figure out my options. I just spent the whole evening at the bookstore reading through books trying to find out the direction I should be heading in.

Some people might say that I should be happy that I don't have to work for my money and that my husband is willing to take care of me. I should be relieved that I don't have to worry about work that never seems to end. Maybe if this was a perfect world and I was a perfect person.

But unfortunately this world is far from perfect and I am too screwed up to be any where near it.

I should probably just deal with it like everyone else does huh?

Dream Home

Everyday I look out of my window I see my dream home.

We can never afford it based on what we are doing.

But perhaps one day that dream might just come true.

Till then I shall continue to look out at it everyday.