Self,
People keep telling me that while my son is gone visiting his father that I need to do things for myself, even if it is something small. This is easier said than done (and to be honest it’s not something that I usually have much interest in).
I don’t tell many people how difficult it is to be interested in doing anything beyond the necessary while my son is visiting his father because I worry that they will think I am depressed, when I do not believe that I am. I guess the best way to describe it is this: I hurt less when my son is around and as a result it is easier for me to want to be social or do things. Even if doing those things (like my crafts or letter writing) is more complicated because I have an extremely energetic 3-year-old little man running around the house, making it almost impossible to do I am wanting to do, let alone accomplish, make progress, or finish anything.
After all I was never the kind of person who did well with silence. When things are too quiet my mind won’t shut off and I can’t focus. As you can imagine when my son is not at home there is a great deal of silence. A deep and unsettling silence that is almost impossible to shatter. Would someone please tell me how to focus on doing anything at all when the silence feels like it is ready and waiting to swallow me whole?
Are there things that I enjoy doing? Yes, quite a few things actually. Wouldn’t they be easier to make progress on, or even accomplish if I worked on them during the time that my son is visiting his father? Yes, it probably would. Even if there aren’t projects to work on or chores to do aren’t there other things that I could do while my son is away? Yes, there are a great number of things that I should, can and (believe it or not) do actually do while my son is gone, but none of that changes the fact that my heart is not in them because when my son is away so is my heart. (I feel so sappy and to be honest a little embarrassed to make that statement, but it is a true statement none-the-less and I am trying not to censor myself so much when I write, so there you go.)
I figure that “doing something, even something small” for myself is just another one of those things that will happen on its own, IF it is going to happen at all. There is no point in forcing the issue, after all it’s not as if doing something, even a little something, for myself is a situation of “Do or die”. Right?