Relationships

A New Kind of December

/ Luanne Shernisky / 3 Comments

Lying poolside in December and basking in 79 degree sunlight is truly a dream come true. After a lifetime of cold, snowy winters, I decided that I wanted to turn in my sherpa lined boots for flip flops.


Sandman SnowmanAs a kid, I loved sled-riding, building snow forts, and ice skating. The frigid temperatures never bothered me and snow days off from school were the icing on the cake!

Fast forward 30+ years and things have certainly changed. The only winter sports I engage in now involve clearing snow from my car and successfully traversing icy sidewalks and parking lots with the hope of not falling down.

I didn’t believe it would ever happen, until my son and daughter-in-law moved to Florida two years ago. When my daughter joined them this past summer, what had seemed unlikely suddenly became a possibility.

Aside from wanting milder winters and more sunshine, there were other things pushing me to move:

  • I  finally earned a college degree and was eager to find employment that would reward that effort both personally and financially. Good jobs in small towns aren’t plentiful, so I would have to consider moving anyway.
  • I spent the last three years helping mom care for my dad who had dementia. He passed away last March, but my mom has grown increasingly dependent on others, in addition to suffering several falls. As the child living the closest, I would (once again) be the main caretaker. This would force me to remain in my current job, for the foreseeable future, without any chance of personal growth.
  • The relationship with my significant other was comfortable in some ways, but after nine years I needed a commitment for more than a dating relationship. Because he was dealing with issues of his own, I believed our future was limited.

So, I side-stepped all my fears and left. I’m currently job searching and am being somewhat particular about which ads I answer. I want my choice of prospective employers to be the right one. I’m enjoying the time off with blogging and other projects that I never found time to do. Lately, I feel guilty about not applying to more positions.

My mom is living with my brother and his wife, which is a much safer situation for her, since he works from home. Because I came to Florida she had to give up her house and move, which she’s not happy about. More guilt.

Within two days of telling my significant other that I was leaving to seek new opportunities, he began the process of change that I had been hoping for. Always loving and supportive, he encouraged me to “spread my wings,” but is hoping that I will return to share a new and improved life with him. Yep, you guessed it…even more guilt.

Lying under this palm tree I’m thinking about how happy I am on one level, yet feeling guilty for the above mentioned reasons. Then it struck me:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France

I’ve apparently got some self-reflection and work ahead.

Is It OK to Be Needy?

/ Luanne Shernisky / 2 Comments

 

The word “needy” has always gotten a bad rap, but is being needy really such a bad thing?

“Give to the needy,” is a familiar phrase during holiday food and toy drives, with needy referring to those less fortunate than ourselves.

“You’re so needy,” is a statement I’ve heard one person tell another in a variety of circumstances:

  • parent to child
  • partner to partner
  • friend to friend
  • employer to employee

What they’re really saying is, “You’re expecting too much from me” which connotes something negative and refers to a relationship that has gone out of balance. In some cases this is true; but not always.

The video clip features Dr. Sue Johnson, a respected psychologist who specializes in couples therapy. With her is a panel of therapists discussing the issue of neediness between partners. It’s only a bit over six minutes, but touches on the important points of healthy relationships that I believe carry over from specifical couples to ALL relationships:

  • Humans are wired for interdependency
  • Dependency needs vary from family to family; therefore, couples must learn to strike a balance
  • The ability to be a part of a team AND an individual, at the same time, take maturity and skill
  • Oftentimes people view needing another as a sign of weakness when in reality having someone we can trust and rely on makes us stronger
  • Codependency is an unhealthy, out of balance state, whereby one person regulates their emotions based on their partner’s behavior

Healthy relationships

As long as our needs don’t cross over the boundaries of the other person, they’re probably within reason. If our expectations allow them to remain an individual and true to themselves, then that relationship stands a good chance of success!   🙂

Decisions

/ Luanne Shernisky / 4 Comments

Well here goes nothing. Or something. We’ll see…

Starting a blog is the something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but kept putting off. I had all the right reasons:  I worked full-time, attended college part-time, and was helping with the care of my father, whose dementia was growing worse. Combine that with shopping, cooking, banking, laundry, apartment cleaning, homework, helping my mother with things  she used to depend on my father for, and I stayed pretty darn busy! What precious little time and energy leftover was spent with my adult children and significant other (when they were available), trying to relax and enjoy life.

This past year I graduated and my dad went into a nursing home (both of which provides plenty of material to blog about.) It also freed up time in my evenings and weekends. I promised myself the blog would be on my New Year’s resolutions list for 2015.

So, here I am. A fifty-something Baby Boomer with a newly minted Public Relations degree…and hot flashes. I’m in a transition period and menopause, all at once. Talk about fun! I’ve worked at the same company for 17 years and because there’s no room for advancement, it’s time for a career change. I want to find a job that fulfills me, while utilizing the education I’ll spend the rest of my life paying off.

I’m still trying to accept the recent changes that have occurred: the fact that my dad will never hang curtain rods for me again, among other things. My oldest son and daughter-in-law moved to Florida 18 months ago. They are doing very well, just bought a house, but I miss them a lot. My middle child (another son) is single, lives and works here in our hometown and is super busy. I don’t see enough of him and have concluded that it’s easier to get an audience with the Pope. My youngest, a daughter, is spending the upcoming spring semester in Washington D.C. completing an internship, and will graduate in May. She is a talented writer, a total introvert, and probably the only girl her age who wants to live with her mother forever. She thinks we should move to Florida to be near her brother and sister-in-law, who she feels will be starting a family soon.

“You will be near your grandchildren and we can be like Dorothy and Sophia on the Golden Girls,” she quips, referring to the popular late 80’s TV sitcom, featuring the mother-daughter duo played by Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty.

Decisions

Honestly, though….I’m in a tough place right now with some big decisions looming. What’s my next move?

I despise the western Pennsylvania weather and have wanted to move to a warmer climate for most of my adult life. Stringing Christmas lights in palm trees is my fantasy; living by the ocean my dream. The job market here isn’t promising either. At some point my mom will need assisted living and my brother and sister live out of town. The situation with my SO (significant other) is complicated. He’s a wonderful person and very good to me, but he has a lot of his own issues. Looking ahead I don’t see much outside of a dating relationship. If I had a great job, loved the climate, had more financial and personal security and living space, then I’d be content to stay (or would I?)

But I’m not content and once my daughter graduates in May, I will no longer be location bound. Her graduation has been my deadline for making the decision.

So, how does one decide whether to stay or go? How do you prioritize who and what matters most in a descending list? How can I make the right decision based on what I want when that also means sacrifices?

And what about fear? Yeah, I’m scared of the changes, but fear kept me stuck in a bad marriage for too many years. I don’t want that to happen again. I don’t ever want to forgo a truly meaningful life simply because change is scary.

Any suggestions?