Counseling

So, maybe this isn't something that I should be "public" about, but I'm going to anyway:

Eric and I go to marriage counseling.

I won't go into why, since it's a pretty long story, but I will say that it's not because our marriage is in jeopardy. Mostly, we are looking for ways to keep our relationship strong under the strains of military life. Those strains, by the way, have become more and more difficult to deal with than I ever thought they could be. The closer we get to the deployment, the more they pronounce themselves.

The biggest issue that we have these days is my fear and anxiety about the upcoming deployment, and the ways that it impacts our family and marriage. Which are many, I might add!

Lately, I have been having trouble focusing my thoughts, because there is so much going through my mind all the time, and I jump from one worried thought to another at an almost frantic pace. Sometimes it even takes my breath away. It causes problems for me when I'm trying to cook, clean, or sleep. Cooking and cleaning because I just can't seem to focus on the task, and sleeping for obvious reasons.

The counselor has given me a strategy to help when my thoughts start racing like that. He says for me to sit down and write out what I am worried about to force my brain to slow down and process it. I have always liked to write, and when he told me to do that, I realized that writing is a strategy I have actually used in the past, just for different reasons. Mostly when I have a big project I'm working on, or a lot going on in a particular week, and I start to feel overwhelmed. I will sit down and write out everything I can think of that is important about that project or week, and when I'm finished, I feel much more able to focus and be productive. And I'm more able to keep a clear picture in my mind of what I need to do. So in applying a writing strategy to my speed-worrying, I can not only slow my thoughts down to the speed that I can write, but I can also get a more focused picture of just what it is that I'm worried about, and what I can do about it.

I've tried it a few times, and I have to say it's working pretty well so far. I did it last night before I went to bed, and I slept much better than I have been lately.

The counselor also says that he wants to help me come up with ways to shove the worry to the side and focus on cherishing the time we have left together before deployment. He gave me the assignment of writing down three things each day that really gave me joy. He asked me to come up with a few during the session, and I was shocked at how hard it was. Not because there are not countless blessings in my life that I find immeasurable joy in, but because the fear of losing Eric is so intense that it just hurts to think of all the good things in life that would go with him if he died. It just hurts.

But I want to conquer that, so I'm going to do my best. Here is today's list of three things that gave me joy:

1. Nate wearing his Buzz Lightyear costume all morning, and Caleb calling him "Buzz" because he knows it makes him happy.

2. Playing peek-a-boo with Sam in the den after the big boys went to bed. He smiles so big at me when I do that, and sometimes I even get a giggle out of him.

3. Listening to Eric laugh at something on t.v. It was a "real" laugh, and one that I don't hear every day. I love it.