Close or co-dependent?

Like many of you, I grew up in a small town.  There wasn't much to do besides drink, party, do stupid things with friends, or go to another town because you've pretty much exhausted all other options.  Most of us found our way into some kind of trouble or another, but no matter what happened we always had our family and friends there to help steer us back to the right path.  Lucky for me, I have a pretty big list of family and friends who cared about me.  This meant that I got to hear a lot of repetitive scolding growing up. 

I was fortunate enough to grow up being very close to many of my cousins on both sides of my family.  Teri, Jesse, and Jeremy were the big brothers and sister that always had my back.  Even today we're still close, and I wouldn't give that up for anything.  Then there's the Brenda, Abby, and Bridget triangle of the Three Musketeer's on my dad's side.  Granted I pretty much just forced my way into that one being the youngest, but they loved me and I know that they're glad I did it.  Holidays, birthdays, life events, you name it, I was always surrounded by family and friends.  That's how I spent the first 21 years of my life.  Maybe it's just my family, but I've got a feeling most of everyone reading this probably had a similar upbringing in some way or another.  I like to think its as close to "normal" as it can get. 

However, that's almost exactly opposite of what life has been like for me for the past 3 years.  I moved to Colorado with my husband to start our new life.  In all honesty, I was only more than happy to leave Minnesota and all of the painful memories that haunted me from my previous relationship.  I felt like I couldn't even go back to my home town anymore because someone or other was judging me for ending my engagement and hurting a great guy.  So, running away from the problem seemed like a good answer.  I'm not great at dealing with pain and hurtful things head on; it's never been my strong suit.  I thought living a thousand miles away would solve all of my problems, but it only created an even bigger one.  I missed home.  I missed my family.  I missed my friends.  I missed my "normal".  Then to top it off I had Logan.  He's already 19 months and have spent almost all of that away from both sides of his extended family.  That just doesn't seem fair to him that he would have to grow up never having those bonds or memories with his cousins and other family like both Bryan and I did. 

I expressed to Bryan that I wanted to move back to MN.  He's never been a fan of the MN cold or extreme heat and humidity so it wasn't a surprise when he wasn't completely onboard with packing up, renting a U-Haul, and going.  Although he had a similar upbringing being close to family, he also had an extremely different life for 5 years in the military.  Those 5 years pretty much wiped away any sort of nostalgia he had left when it comes to extended family and holidays.  Don't get me wrong, he still loves his family very much and would love to see them more often, but he's much more ok with only seeing them once a year.  For me, once a year is like torture.  I can't imagine being away from my family for that long at a time, especially when I know that nothing is necessarily keeping me from them (like deployments or restrictions). 

I've been told that my incessant need to see my family is borderline co-dependent.  I'd like to differ, but, could they be right?  I can function without them (I've proved that while living a normal life in Colorado), but the thing is that I just simply don't want to.  I want to be able to call up my sister on a week day and meet up for lunch or coffee.  I like being able to call my mom or ask my dad if they'd like to watch Logan for a few hours so I can go run some errands by myself.  It's great having things to do and people to see more than once every 4 months. 

So now I'd like to ask your opinion, do you think this is co-dependence or simply just a close family kind of thing?  I love gaining outsiders perspectives so feel free to comment.  I hope everyone has a very successful night of trick-or-treating!  Until next time, take care! :)

The Three Musketeers

 

Family

 

The "Old Man" and "Blond Boy"

Teri, Jameson, Logan, and I

Cousins "Aba" & "Nonic"

A little bit of scary and a whole lot of sweet

I don't know about you, but my week always begins on Monday.  Today's long to-do list is jam packed with keeping up with Logan, doing some yard work before the snow this week (eeek!), food prep for this week's meals, cleaning the house, and oh yeah, starting my first day of work!!  I'll be working part time at State Farm doing some extra side work.  It's nothing too crazy, but I'm just excited to be working again.  I'm very lucky to have awesome friends and family members who are able to help me out in the process watching Logan. 

Speaking of my crazy little man, he is pretty pumped for all the candy that he's going to collect on Halloween!  He will be a Kansas City Chief's football player.  Under normal conditions I would protest, however this season they have started with an 8-0 record so I can't really say too much.  We'll be going out and about with Auntie and cousin Ava (which means mommy and auntie will be doing "quality control testing" on all of the candy lol!).  They'll have lots of time to catch a sugar high on Saturday while having a slumber party at Grandma Judy's house. 

As if I didn't get enough craziness and fun at the Schaffler's 1st Annual Halloween Party, this Saturday I'll get to spend the night with some of my favorite cousins!  This should be fun :).  I'll make sure to post pictures once my crazy week is over.  Until then, have a Happy Halloween everyone!

Self Realizations

It's been over 2 weeks since I've been back in Minnesota and I feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over again.  I wake up, get Logan breakfast, play games with him (more like watch him as he runs circles around me), put him down for a nap, do a whole lot of nothing, make him lunch, play some more, get dinner ready, put Logan to bed, watch the news with my dad, then go to bed myself.  I know, it's pretty exciting stuff huh.  It's a routine, and although routines aren't necessarily a bad thing, I never seem to do well when I have a routine like this.  I feel like there's something missing.  Like I should be doing something else, like going to work!!!

I feel that I need to tell every single stay-at-home mom(or dad), nanny, daycare provider, teacher, and babysitter that they must be some pretty incredible people!!  I have an 18 month old son (not multiples, not twins, just one) and I can barely keep up with having only him!  To be honest it makes me want to cry a little bit when I think about that last sentence.  I have no clue how you people are able to do it and maintain a respectable level of sanity (but seriously, what's your secret??).  Don't get me wrong, I love my little dude more than I could ever say, but some days I feel like I can only handle him for so long before he's pressed every button I have and I'm ready to put myself in a time-out just to get some space.  I'm definitely not meant to be a stay-at-home mommy, and these past few weeks have only confirmed that.  On the flip side, I'm not one who can be a workaholic either.  If I love my job (like I did at Strathmore) then it's easy for me to work longer hours and spend a little more time away from my friends and family to get the job done.  However, there is always a breaking point to both.

Which brings me to this week's self realization: I need and thrive on variety. 

Whether it's with my job and what I do each day, to the routines that I have at home, or with whom I choose to spend my time with, I need change.  Property management positions seem to always fill that need for variety for me so I'm on the right track on that point.  I really suck at having a daily routine so that's probably why I can never stick with them or any other kind of routine for that matter.  I love seeing friends and family on a regular basis, so I tend to be in better moods when I'm around them, but I like to switch it up and see new faces every so often.  Now the fun part, putting it all into a cohesive balance that = my life!  If you happen to know the solution to this crazy puzzle, now is not the time to be keeping secrets.  So while I seek out on this quest called life to find the answers, I hope you all are having a wonderful Tuesday! :)

Here are some e-cards that I thought were pretty appropriate for this fun post!

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The hard stuff

If my memory serves me correct, it's been almost 8 months since my last post.  I've been very bad about not keeping up with my blogging over the spring and summer seasons, but to be honest it's not because I haven't had the time.  This year had started out being a year of change for me.  Well, I've definitely been changing, mostly for the better (or at least I'd like to think so).  This hasn't been easy and it hasn't come without pain either.  At the beginning of the year I knew that I wanted to be a better person in many different ways.  I wanted to be a better friend, a better mom and wife, a better employee, to be better at eating, exercising, motivating myself, and keeping up with my home.  While some things were a quick and simple fix, others took more time and a lot more energy and focus. 

I haven't necessarily been doing all that great on the exercising every day thing, however I have been able to keep up with maintaining a healthy weight and eating habits that balance each other out.  I've also surprised myself with how much I've learned and grown at my job as an Assistant Manager at Strathmore Park.  As far as my friends go, I think I've done a much better job this year than last year at making sure I stay in contact with almost all of them.  I've even repaired a friendship or two that had gone downhill.  I'm very excited to have those people back in my life because they help to keep me balanced.  All of these were things that I could fix and change.  I had control over them and their outcome.  As I've stated before, I'm not a big fan of change so when it does happen I like to be in control every step of the way.  There was one thing, however, that I could not control, my husband. 

Like all couples, we've experienced our fair share of difficulties throughout our marriage.  Most of our struggles have come from his re-adjustment period after getting out of the Marine Corps.  Civilian life is the complete opposite of military life, and most of it centers around how you deal with other people.  These people could be strangers, family, co-workers and employers, or friends.  No matter if you've known them for 5 seconds or 5 years, after being in the military you respond to them differently.  For Bryan, he was trained to detach himself from emotions and people (because typically those you cared about would end up getting hurt or worse).  Because of this he had difficulties letting new people into his life, this included my family.  We both come from such strong and close families that I just expected this to be second nature for him.  What I didn't realize was that his "second nature" had been changed quite dramatically in the past 5 years.  It's been an uphill battle for us to realize that we don't rely on our friends and family in the same way as the other person.  He's been making a lot of realizations and changes himself over the past 3-4 months that have definitely helped to continue putting our marriage on a better track, but that's only one piece of the puzzle.  There's still me.

With everything that had gone on in our past, I needed time to think things through for myself.  I needed to finish working on the things that I needed to change about myself that had been holding me back from having the life and marriage that I desired.  I wanted space to clear my head and be able to wipe the slate clean.  Which brings me to the present.  The best place for me to get that space and think things through is with my support system close by.  For the time being, I have left my job back in Colorado, I've moved a few of my things to get me through the time apart to be here in MN, and I've "mentally" started my marriage over.  This is by far the hardest and most selfish thing I've ever done, but its been worth it every step of the way.  Every day I'm making new realizations for myself that bring us closer together.  I'm not sure where life will lead me in the next week, month, or year, but I know that it's going to be a place filled with love, happiness, and joy.

I hope that you're all enjoying a very happy Friday!