Redistributing the Eggs in the Carton

I know some of you have probably heard of the egg-carton analogy:

In my carton there are three eggs. Two huge ostrich eggs and a small little robbin egg.

Think of the egg carton as a teeter-tauter/see-saw, with the two ostrich eggs taking up most of the carton on the right hand side leaving a little room on the left, which is empty and slightly lifted up in the air. The little robbin egg has slipped out of it's slot and is nestled up against the ostrich eggs, safe from falling out of the carton.

Obviously, the weight of the carton is not balanced.

The 12 year old and the 5 year old represent the ostrich eggs.

Over the past nine months, I have put all my energy into my two beautiful, broken hearted children, ignoring most of my own needs. I have held, hugged, reassured, soothed and wiped many tears from 12 y/o and 5 y/o but have never shed a tear for myself. The few tears that were blinked out were for others.

I needed a cleansing "woe is me" cry, yet for some reason, I refused to allow myself to cry. It's too late now and best of all, I currently do not feel like crying.

Leaving that city on the day that vileman was arrested was the best decision I made besides not bailing him out of jail (I am so proud of the way I handled his call from jail and so thankful I didn't rush to his aid). Had I not fled and instead, stayed in our home; I would have boarded up the house to keep vileman away then retreated to the bedroom, where I would have pulled the covers over my head and stayed there. Not leaving would have prevented us from moving forward and healing.

When we moved in with my parents, they were not going to allow me to wallow in despair. My priorities were the children. Their needs and my counseling sessions with the Healer have kept me from going coo-coo. Unfortunately, I completely threw all my time and energy into their activities, losing myself along the way.

Those two big ostrich eggs saved the little robbin egg from falling out of the egg carton but it's time to redistribute for balance.

The first egg to be placed on the left side will represent diet and exercise. I'm ready to focus on this part of my life and feel I'm going to be successful. No empty promises to myself this time. I already feel lighter thanks to a divorce and getting rid of the house and though I still maintain the original 15 pound weight loss since June 25th, it isn't significant enough to be noticeable in my clothes, face, butt and stomach. I have a plan that I started implementing last week and will talk about in a future post.

Second egg in my carton will be the need to focus on my mental health. I was seeing the Healer once a week up until my divorce in January. I quit going because I no longer had good insurance after the divorce that would allow me to go with just payment of my co-pay. To pay out of pocket would have been unaffordable. Also, the 5 year old "graduated" from counseling in December so I just assumed I had "graduated" too.

I heard from the Healer in February and she asked if I would be willing to come back and see her. She offered to see me on a pro-bono basis for four weeks. After those four weeks were up, she extended it for another four weeks . . . (how f*cked up am I?!).

Truth is, I love counseling and walk out of her office feeling lifted and empowered.

So for now, I plan to focus time on those two new eggs along with my children. With time, the carton will eventually fill up with more and more eggs representing other areas of my life; all equally distributed.

And as I redistribute my time, emotions and energy from fully focusing on my children, their ostrich size eggs will return to"normal" healthy sized eggs. This should help them progress on and no longer feel the responsibility of keeping mommy happy, fulfilled, and busy.