Dear Anita,

It does make me feel better. In fact even right after writing to you I felt better. This is because you and I have gone through so many positive exercises on how to approach this that expunging the above after I saw the note immediately allowed many of our conversations to sink in. It was as though when I wrote to you I was able to get back on track to all of the posts that have transpired. To me this is a sign of going through a great deal of self development.  I visualized my thought process is going into a box, that box being shared with you, and subsequently that box dissolving. The dissolving box is the sadness that I felt momentarily when I read the note. I did not judge myself for that sadness because I know that it is inevitable it is human. Moreover and more importantlyI never once faltered and felt bad. Never did the thought go through my mind, oh that’s so sad I miss them too. Nope, it was more just a normal reactionary emotion versus guilt or feeling that I would want to take a step back and change my decision. This is true progress.

Shortly after I got this mail, I ended up going to dinner with a few girlfriends. One of the girls is a good friend of mine and she brought two other girls that I didn’t know as well. I found myself feeling that I didn’t need to truly try to get to know these other people. As in – I was glad for the company but didn’t have to go above and beyond to overly engage with them. If that makes sense. I mention this because it is a stark contrast from me years ago as I used to feel I had to be the ring leader in engaging others. When the two girls left, I was able to talk to my friend alone and we did talk a lot about self development. She too has had some issues with her mother, but never to the degree of mine. She does not know about my decision as I have not talked to her in person for a long time, and it was quite comforting that I could listen to her and her life and some of the things that she was going through without feeling the need to pour onto her all of my Distress. I realize this is because I do not have that much distress. What a concept. I am not perfect but I no longer am Distressed and distraught I  every moment, what I have our decisions, and life events, I do not have a bundle of stress and drama that is constantly brewing through my veins at every moment. As a correlary, I noticed this is also why perhaps I needed some space from my sister, every time I speak to her I feel like there is an explosion of distress that is coming out of every pore, she doesn’t have to say anything at all, she doesn’t even have to say oh I am stressed out – I just get this energy from her. Perhaps this is ingrained in me, or perhaps it is reality.  Also while speaking to her I realize that there are many qualities that her and I share. Now that I am working on some of those qualities I observe them from the outside. I notice that before I am able to finish a sentence, She has a comment about something. I know that I was often very guilty of doing this. Noticing this from the outside I realize it is not a good quality and I want to continue to make sure that I don’t do that anymore. This is not anyone’s fault per se it is just because of the sheer amount of distress and anxiety that we have suffered with our whole life.  In addition, I find that she likes to relay everything back to her. If I am saying that I had a good day at the lake she will quickly add an oh yes me too I really had a great day. She is unable to listen without having 1 million thoughts in her head. I suffer from this too and I’m working on it, listening to her and seeing how that makes me feel and how it honestly sounds makes me want to work on it even more.  And all of these things I am not judging or blaming my sister, she is younger than me and is going through a great deal herself. I am picking up on these habits and ways of being, and noticing my similarities and it pushes me to further develop.

In addition, I noticed that I do not like to have excessive social interaction. What I mean by this is that before I would be the type of person to stay on the phone with summer for hours on end, because of many reasons, because I like to be social, because that was the thing to do. I realize that I like to compartmentalize my social interactions with others as I find a lot of comfort in myself.  I don’t need to seek it out in othes

It goes for everyone I find comfort in my own self I do not feel the need to talk to someone for hours and take on all of their issues and become someone’s therapist. I feel it is good to have some level of social interaction but once again put that into a box and then also walk away and have my own self to attend to