Coming to

There may be a page in my journal titled "The Siege". ("Don't call it that," grumbled Brian.) It lists out the impressive amount of things that hit us in November and December -- job woes and loss, car repairs, illnesses. It felt cathartic to make that list, as an acknowledgment that a lot of shit was happening all at once.

Thankfully, life is calming down. Here's what's going well:

• Overall, our health is good.
• I figured out that my occasional nasty headaches following car sickness were actually migraines.
• Why is this under good health? Because now I know what's happening and how they're triggered.
• God bless Obamacare and CHIP. 
• While Brian quitting his job was stressful in some ways, it relieved lots of other stresses. 
• He nailed an interview and was offered a new position at a library.
• We got together because we kept running into each other that fateful autumn back in 2007. One of those places was a library service we both worked at. So, this seems auspicious.
• It's only part time, but it's evenings and weekends. 
• Meaning: we don't have to shell out for childcare.
• This is the first Christmas I will get to spent at my own home 
• I owe this to my grandmother, who talked sense into my mother about her holiday expectations. She had previously told me she was "tired of playing second fiddle" and that she expected all of her children to be at her house on Christmas morning.
• Uh, no. And can we get a GOD BLESS GRANDMA? I am not sure what we'd do with her, which is problematic as she's almost 88. 
• We're making most of Reed's gifts and we're excited for his reactions.
• Our gifts to each other are luxury food items that we like but rarely get: truffle salt, lemon curd, lingonberry jam, fancy pants tea from France

In the thick of things, I started getting hard on myself because I decided I wasn't handling this transition well. Why couldn't I just ACCEPT what was happening? Part of my anxiety issues stem from times in my life when trauma occurred and I developed some defense mechanisms to cope with the stress that weren't actually useful. Or is it that my anxiety caused me to develop poor defense mechanisms? Doesn't matter -- what I realized this past month was that when things got tough this time around, I was able to identify what was happening as it happened instead of getting steamrolled and picking up the pieces afterward. I was transitioning just fine. 

This is progress.