Egad the year is almost over!
Saturday, December 24th, 2022 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joyfinderheroNot sure what to write, except that I want to be making entries more often -- and here it is more than a month later.
Today is Christmas Eve. Against my actual inclinations, I'm in either the second or third year of celebrating Christmas with three other people on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and then their extended family in the afternoon. It's always a little difficult, chiefly because of archaic wishes and performance anxiety. My free choice in recent years was often to spend the day working in a hospital or in-patient unit, or to spend the day alone at home or maybe outdoors. But since forming this relationship, I've been here.
It''s interesting to look at how much I have behaved avoidantly about so many relationships. Especially when I feel guilty, and even more especially when I'm not acknowledging that I feel guilty, my lifelong reaction has been to walk away.
I walked away from two marriages when I couldn't manage my feelings, most especially my resentment at being treated as 'less than.' In one case, it was the husband making a decision that I thought we should have discussed together. In the other case, it was realizing that his political views ignored my lived experience (this is still a cop-out description but I don't have a better one).
A conversation with one of my kids the other day brought forward how avoidant I have been as a parent, making assumptions about what my kids wanted or needed but failing to look deeply into that. Even when they were children I wasn't necessarily attentive to their actual need for my company and attention. And there's so much I can't really say about that.
Today is Christmas Eve. Against my actual inclinations, I'm in either the second or third year of celebrating Christmas with three other people on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and then their extended family in the afternoon. It's always a little difficult, chiefly because of archaic wishes and performance anxiety. My free choice in recent years was often to spend the day working in a hospital or in-patient unit, or to spend the day alone at home or maybe outdoors. But since forming this relationship, I've been here.
It''s interesting to look at how much I have behaved avoidantly about so many relationships. Especially when I feel guilty, and even more especially when I'm not acknowledging that I feel guilty, my lifelong reaction has been to walk away.
I walked away from two marriages when I couldn't manage my feelings, most especially my resentment at being treated as 'less than.' In one case, it was the husband making a decision that I thought we should have discussed together. In the other case, it was realizing that his political views ignored my lived experience (this is still a cop-out description but I don't have a better one).
A conversation with one of my kids the other day brought forward how avoidant I have been as a parent, making assumptions about what my kids wanted or needed but failing to look deeply into that. Even when they were children I wasn't necessarily attentive to their actual need for my company and attention. And there's so much I can't really say about that.