Stress Reliever

Haven't blogged in a while, mostly due to the fact that I've been too distracted to think about writing.  My husband and I were sued in small claims court for breaking a lease just over a year ago, something we felt very justified about doing.  The landlord had even left a voice message the day after I had declared my intentions to move, and told me to do that very thing.  The day after we moved, however, we received a message from him saying that he had told us to move, yes, but he had never said he was letting us out of our lease, so pay up.  We felt cheated about all of this, like he had deliberately deceived us about everything up to this point, and this latest message was no exception.

So we went to court, well-prepared, found child care for our son for the morning, made sure he got to school okay, found time off work for my husband during a busy time, and showed up early.  But the plaintiff never showed up.  It's rotten, but he never has to show reason why he didn't, but if we had missed our court date, we would have lost our case immediately.  His case was simply dismissed "without prejudice" so he could file again.  And that he did.

So we prepare again, find child care, go to court early, and wait.  This time the plaintiff shows up.    Nerves begin.  I start shaking.  Hoping it will all turn out okay.  This time we had also filed a counter-claim, which we figured we had good reason to.  But the judge saw otherwise.  He didn't see that our reasons for moving, or that the landlord's obvious deceit had been all that serious.  So we lost our claim.  Now I am nervous.  What if we have to pay this guy even MORE money?  He already has our security deposit of one month's rent, and an extra month's rent we paid while a lawyer reviewed our case.  We didn't feel like he should get one more dime from us.  Not one more cent.

The judge asked him if he had advertised the apartment for rent anywhere, in the paper, on the internet, with a rental agency . . .  The landlord said he hadn't, but he had a sign out front!  It had a phone number, where anyone who saw it could call and someone would answer, he asserted.  Wow.  I'm underwhelmed.  Luckily, the judge was, too, and said even though we were liable for the rent, the landlord had to make reasonable efforts to rent the place and limit his damages.  He had not.  So 2 month's rent was reasonable for him to have received from us, and that was all we owed!  So we didn't need to pay him any more money!!!  Woohoo!!

So even though we lost our counter-claim, it was a win for us, as far as we were concerned.  We just didn't want to pay more money to him after all we had been through.  And that's just what happened.  It's hard to believe after months of stressing over this, that it's finally over!!  We can relax a bit, and hopefully enjoy living here now, as much as I can anyway. 

And that's the basic outline of what happened.  That's probably all I'll write about the whole debacle since I'm sick of thinking about it.  Time to move on.  :)

Lessons

Went to therapy today, and wanted to put some thoughts down on paper.  So, why not share that with the whole damn freakin' internet, I asked myself?  So here I am.  All the better to blog ya with. 

So there have been a few "breakthrough" moments I've had lately, but a couple of the major ones were today.  For one, I realize I've been considering my mood to determine how I'm doing.  I mean, I am supposed to monitor it for therapy and to help regulate my medications, but I've let it completely determine everything.  On an average day, I would say I wake up, ask myself how I feel, then make a decision as to how productive I'm going to be.  Right now, I'm not doing too badly, depression-wise, but I've been lacking in motivation--and motivation to become motivated, for that matter.  It's led be back down the slippery slope, regardless of my medication, to then feel bad about myself for not fighting it more, and then to feel even less motivated than before.  Next, I grow to hate myself, do nothing, and nothing changes. 

My therapist reminded me to do my best to let my actions determine my life, not my mood.  My actions are my life, and if I'm depressed or doomed to be so for the rest of my life, I need to learn to live with it in some form.  I've done so little of the things I've always wanted to do, and my life is absolutely FLYING by so rapidly.  I've become hyper-aware of my birthday only a few days away, and I'm close to 40.  Not that life is over at that point, but I'm reaching stage where I had always expected myself to have done more as I looked into the future at whom I thought I was going to be.  And, even worse, my attitude, lack of motivation, and even my self-loathing are rubbing off on my son!  It's a worst case scenario, as far as I'm concerned.  I couldn't be more disappointed in myself, honestly.  I hear him say I'm boring, that he hates himself when he does something he regrets, or even say he wants to hurt himself, something I've never done or said, but he seems to take to heart.  It hurts me deeply.  I think I was so caught up in how the medication was doing, how I seemed to be feeling better, although slowly, that I kidded myself as to how critical the situation really is.  It's serious.  Time to take it seriously.

Not that I expect to pretend.  I am lousy at just burying my feelings deep inside and play-acting that everything is fine.  Won't do it.  But if I am busy living life, I'll have less time to feel lousy, won't I?  So that's what I'm going to be working on.  And no more self-insults.  Even the "clumsy me's" I tell myself when I drop something or stub my toe.  No more "what an idiot's" when I forget something and have to go back home.  Not going to do it anymore.  My son hears that, and does the same.  I'm not an idiot because I forgot something.  Everyone does it.  It's an inconvenience.  But I don't want to teach myself to hate myself.  Or teach my son to hate himself.  That's it.  The end.  No more.

Lastly, I took a lovely phrase from "Dirty Jobs" and Mike Rowe.  He said, "Don't follow your passion, but always take it with you."  So I don't have to think that my childhood fantasies need to have been fulfilled to have a fulfilling life, but I can be passionate about my life.  Everything I do can be worthwhile.  I can bring that passion to anything, and do it well.  I just need to try. 

So here's an outline of my pact with myself, to work toward happiness, a better life, and becoming a better role model for my son.  I sometimes fool myself into thinking he won't imitate me, that he isn't learning everything unless I intend to teach it to him, but that's not true.  He's learning a lot about life from me, and how to deal with it.  It's time I started to deal with it.