Mrs. Yehaskel, Tear Down This Wall!

Its still weird to me that I'm a "Mrs.". And a mom, for that matter. I didn't even have to get a license for that one. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm super, super stubborn. It can be a great quality and it can also be a really dumb and negative one. Honestly, I don't know how some people in my life put up with me. When I'm feeling defensive (like, lets say for the last week or so) I have an amazing talent for putting up a huge wall, locking my arms across my chest and going into hyper-protective mode. I can do that for a long time. The intensity builds up and up until things just hit a breaking point. But once I start to let the wall crumble, it falls fast and everything is so much better. Resolution starts, and healing begins.

I honestly never know why I let things escalate and get that far. Its painful, unpleasant, and it can be stopped. I can stop it. But I don't. Its like I'm a total glutton for pain and tension and heartbreak. Sheesh. Why don't I just whack myself over the head with a club? Drive a nail through my arm?

The good news is that I'm recognizing what I do and the patterns I fall into. And in the iconic words of the GI Joe cartoons I grew up with, "knowing is half the battle." Indeed.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the knowing. I'll be 37 years old tomorrow (sorry, WHAT????) and I still feel like I don't have a clue most days. Maybe the beauty in aging is that each year I'm better at accepting that I don't know squat.