F.I.N.E.

As anyone who has seen The Italian Job knows, FINE stands for Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. This is how I have been feeling this week.

People want to just hug me and let me know that they are thinking about me, which is great, but... Whenever anyone asks me how I am doing (which is a normal thing to say to someone,"hey, how are you today?") it freaks me out. Are they asking the normal, everyday question or are they gently trying to feel out if I am still all messed up?

Also, my hormones are going ape-shit! I feel like I have PMS (which would be fine), but I feel like I am going to cry most of the time. I am tired, my allergies are acting up just a bit, which gives me a perpetual headache, and I can't make up my mind about anything. I simply can't seem to be bothered to care about much of anything. I am leaving for China in 2 weeks and I don't care. My birthday is next week and I don't care!

On another emotional note. I got an e-mail from Elaine. She ended her abusive relationship a few months ago, and was writing to apologize for throwing away our friendship. She sent the e-mail to both Smug-Sister and myself, so Smug-Sister and I talked before responding to her. I did respond and we seem to have started an e-mail dialog.

I am feeling conflicted about this. There is part of me that knows that I had to ask for forgiveness from a few people when I ended my abusive relationship and that I have never fallen back into those destructive patterns. So, how could I possibly deny someone else that same forgiveness? I have also missed her terribly! But there is also a lot of hurt in me on this subject, and I am not sure that we could get back to the same closeness that our friendship had before. She was our sister in every way. Just because she stopped seeing our brother did not change that, and she throw that love away.

I am finding that when I am hurt, I want to pretend that it never happened, ignore it completely, and never discuss it again. I am not sure how to proceed with Elaine, do we discuss all the hurt, or try to pretend that everything is OK now. Just as much as I don't want to talk about losing my baby with people, I don't want to re-hash this pain with her. I want to eventually get pregnant again, and I want to eventually have my friend back. I am just thinking that it can't be healthy to hide all my feelings of hurt and pretend that they are not there. I don't know what to do.

Smug-Hub is feeling very protective of me on this issue. He does not want me to be hurt again, to see my in tears over her again. He wants me to be very careful about opening myself up to being hurt again. I know that I can't turn my back on her when she has come to me in a venerable way, hat in hand to admit to what she has done. She did not even ask for forgiveness, she said that she did not expect a reply, but she wanted to say that she was sorry. How could I turn my back on her? I am not cold enough or hard enough to do that.

So, I guess that it is worth it to me to take the chance and see if the friendship can be salvaged.

Anyway, I am feeling totally and completely F.I.N.E. today.