Fishstick Friday

So I just got mad at Ben for not giving me enough attention. The horrible make you want to vomit part is that he wasn’t giving me attention because he was figuring out arrangements for a funeral and memorial service he’s going to. Yes I know your brain is now flooded with thoughts about how awful a person I am. And yes I do feel bad. I have found a way to rationalize my behavior (imagine that!) through this logic: I have never lost anyone. I have never had to experience waking up everyday remembering that this person that you loved with all your heart is now gone. Completely gone and will never come back. I can’t understand that sadness, those emotions are too much for me to comprehend.

But Ben can.

He knows what its like to loose someone. I think every time he’s encountered with death it hits him harder because he’s gone through it. I imagine he can put himself in the shoes of the family members of this person and really know what they are going through. I also hate myself right now because it probably brings up all the emotions he felt when he went through it.

And again I am the insensitive overbearing girlfriend who has no emotions. Just call me IOGNE.

I’ve started to try and be more positive, what my therapist would call “having an open heart”. I don’t think of myself as a negative person but I do know that I have a “crusty shell” that acts as one of my main defense mechanisms to protect myself from others.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want any part of me to be crusty! I hate having a hard outer shell, so I am taking steps to remove it.

Part of the process is to be more vulnerable around people and one way to do that is to openly praise others. So my daily homework is to give three meaningful compliments that stretch farther then “oh thats a nice shirt” - there has to be some depth.  I have found that this is a whole lot harder then I thought it would be.  Yesterday I gave one compliment, today, so far, I have given none. It takes me time to really think about a good compliment and how to deliver it appropriately.

The other side of the task is to lessen the amount of shit talking I do. This, I fear, will be even harder then complimenting people. It makes me cringe to think about how quickly and how often I critique people.  I do engage in “constructive feedback”, of course this is all still behind people’s backs, but it is better then straight shit talking….or at least that is what I tell myself.