Bubbles

I am okay, still here, still alive. Tonight I've decided to come here, and do this. It's been too long, I'm aware that I have pent-up junk, and I need to let it out a bit. So, I'm going to talk about bubbles.

As social media often does, mine has most likely been reflecting mostly the bright and shiny moments in my life. Sure, I let out some of the more painful aspects of reality once in a while, but in truth I've really only been scratching the surface. The truth is, the past several months have been hard for me - really hard.

My Bubble

Everyone has a bubble - possibly even many bubbles. Even dogs have bubbles. They are our layers of differing levels of comfort within which we operate amidst life's many challenges. The first bubble contains very few surprises, challenges, unknowns. The last bubble is the "yeah I'm pretty much ok here, but I'm also about to be out there in the world with surrounded by zero comfort and infinite unknowns." Beyond that bubble, you're just floating around out there in the "scary shit" zone of life, with zero protection.

Personally, due to my past with alcohol addiction and the process of recovery, as a stand-alone human being I'm one with the "scary shit" zone. The "scary shit" zone is me. No bubble needed, bring it on world. Show me what you've got and I'll face it.

As a mother, however, I won't allow myself to operate in that zone all the time. I have someone else to protect, to guide, to introduce to the world in a well-thought-out manner. This is more important than my own well-being, and it guides every aspect of my life.

I love scary shit. But I must introduce it to my little one slowly.

My Family Bubble

My family bubble - the one I'm solely responsible for - includes myself, my daughter, our dog, and our hamster. The list of things I do to keep it intact is very long and includes a lot of hard work. Mental, emotional, and physical work. It pervades my existence. For a long time, it was all under my big mama wings. All of it.

It still is, really. The change recently has been the re-entry of another important person in my daughter's life. I am not here to smear anyone, or say anything that shouldn't be said - believe me, part of me wants to, but I won't. I am here to tell a few truths, share where I've been, and just release some of it a bit.

This re-entry has been difficult. For my daughter, for me, and for those who love us. It's been scary, emotional, and taxing for both of us. And knowing how hard it's been on her is what makes it so hard on me. It's so consumed me with stress, that I thought I was in peri-menopause. Now, I am starting to think that I was just so stressed that it has been affecting me physically in a big way. The feeling that my little family bubble has been burst and is no longer a safe zone over which I am "fully in control" (obviously nobody is ever fully in control, but you get my point), has been a really tough pill to swallow.

To allow my daughter the best chance at gaining something from this, I have had to hide many of my own feelings during the process. And I believe in doing that, I was becoming fully pent up. It's difficult to pick and choose which feelings you stuff - it feels like it's all or nothing, sometimes. Like I've got two choices: 1. Allow feelings, 2. Stuff feelings.

Maybe It's Foam Now?

So, not to go too much deeper, summing it up here. I no longer have a big cozy defined family bubble - not one that I can see, anyway. It's like I'm the bubble now, and my arms aren't long enough to get the job done. This is very uncomfortable for me. If you know me, you know I'm not one to easily concede to the idea that I can't just do anything I put my mind to.

Maybe I can be like a spittle bug, and create tiny bubbles around all of the good things, and then just cover us in those, so that when new crap comes around, there won't be one big shiny bubble to pop. Because, as I've been coming to terms with this, and as things have been getting better, I'm realizing that, like my own pre-motherhood personal bubble, not all is lost when your comfort zone bursts.

My kiddo is strong, and a nut, like me. So is the dog. The hamster, I don't know - she runs in a spinny wheel all night and has one eye. But hey, she is now at 150% of her normal life expectancy, so, she's pretty tough too. We all love each other more than words can express, and we all love life. We're going to be ok.