The recording that I play constantly in my mind, I know that it is neurotic, and somewhere I feel that there is some religious or psychological pay-off to punish myself. This keeps me from laying down my true feelings and desires from time to time. I am now at a place where my old habits make me tired and conscious of a need to see better, stronger results for themselves. I am so glad for this mostly private site. Sometimes you just have to save your own life, go to bat for you.I feel like a traitor to the amount of progress that I know I have made.I just have to face my contradictions now, or else the overloaded emotions that seek me out late at night will break apart all of my work over the years. So what is this big thing? When I see what I consider upheaval in the last few years, I see no reward to my child for it. There are moments when I think that I want my family back, and I know that my child feels that way. I have felt such defeat, and I admire the lives of my family and people I have known and admired, who faced so much, much more with grace and aplomb. Despite my early ramblings, I know that my feelings are not unusual. What having admitted it aloud in writing has now done for me, is clear some space around something that felt tight and unmanageable. I came across something I think the Buddha said, it was about death. The statement says that man is afraid of death, no matter how much he may pretend to take it lightly.we all want good lives. I feel that way. My ex husband has written me more than once telling me that if he cannot be happy, then he shall make sure that I am not happy either. Now this is a semi threatening boast of a bully. What is required of me is a restructuring of my beliefs and priorities. Thank goodness that I never had such a etched in stone vision of what I expected my life to look like. Or perhaps the fact that I did not is exactly the problem. Whatever it is or was, I am here now, and I must evaluate where I am and where I am going. I have had the best intentions, but I have not felt like I have made any progress. When I speak like that, what I am really saying is that i have financial challenges that have come from choosing the job I have had for the last few years. I do not want to weigh this entry down with negatives and I am on the look out for placing doubt like salt, everywhere I tap my keys. Perhaps if I were feeling that I was meeting my personal targets in every other part of my life,then, I may not be as concerned.so, again, what this is telling me, is that my ex husband's voodhoo has some legs. I have been dealing with that for some time. It is in my power to change that because it must be done. Not because I want to proove anything to him, but because I have felt so hurt by so many things because they seemed to set me back. Again. I might be rambling. I think, my goal now is to accept what I have not been able to change. Accept that I have made mistakes that have made me feel less than satisfied with myself afterwards, and in a few instances, even slowed down my idea of progress. I am clearing all of this out of my mind today to give myself the start I deserve.