Mornings are going to be rough...

I have decided mornings are going to be rough. Right now, I have my coffee, my laptop, my Bible, iTunes and my 8 year old all keeping me grounded and sane.

I want to talk a little this morning about exhaustion. Can I just share right now that living two lives can be completely exhausting? So many times over this weekend I just felt total relief that I had one life (the more important life, I might add) to be worrying about right now. In SL, I loved being so many of the things I am in RL. I loved listening to people - learning about them, having them share their thoughts, worries and concerns with me and then in some cases, feeling like I helped them in some way. Helping people makes me feel whole. I even helped people recently in the midst of my own pain and sorrow. I tend to push pain and sorrow and my own needs and wants aside often for the sake of others. I also tend to let people think everything is just fine on the outside when on the inside I feel as if my insides have liquefied and are being sucked out of my body with a vacuum.

Speaking of vacuums, one thing I always loved about SL is the fact that nothing is ever DIRTY. :) There's never a house to clean up. Last night after a great dinner (cooking again! YAY - I decided to make a mini Thanksgiving, since it's my favorite holiday) I was talking with E (my daughter) and J (my husband) and we got around to discussing goals and expectations just certain ones we have for each other. For whatever reason, I felt bold enough in that moment to say "I expect you both to help keep the living room clean. One of the things that drew me to SL was that everything was clean, neat and in order. I need a room in this house that is clean, neat and completely in order - it makes my brain feel settled - and that room needs to be the living room." One thing I can say for SL, I think I found some cajones there. Old Stephanie never would have had the courage or power to stand up for herself. Standing up for others has never been a problem. Standing up for ME - that has been tough. I have been recognizing lately that I feel stronger as a human being - more likely to admit I need things or want things a certain way. More dissection on that later.

So...as I talked about at the start of this post...a big part of giving something up is breaking the cycle of events that happen even before the habit itself. Last week I tried several things. One time I find myself powerless against the "need" to log on is after I pick Emmy up at school. I got into the habit of rushing home and logging on - regardless of whether or not I had any errands to do. Many times I would just throw the errand out the window. I considered everything an interruption of my SL anyway. Every moment of the day I wasn't online, I was thinking about what I was going to do when I did log on. I frequently resented the day-to-day "interruptions" like grocery shopping, stopping at the post office, going to the store for something or even volunteering. Last week I practiced stopping everything when I picked E up and we would do things OUT of the house. We went to an antique store last week and the library too. Getting back in touch with reality, while difficult for many to comprehend who have not been addicted to something like SL, is absolutely instrumental in feeling better. I am going to list below some of the other things I have found helpful in distracting me from getting into the cycle of events before they even start:

• Standing up and walking around, finding something to wipe, scrub or wash
• Finding other things to do with my hands...Thursday night last week it took knitting, the television (thank you, Olympics!) and a book for me to eventually just close my eyes and fall asleep
• Logging on to FaceBook and catching up with real life friends there
• Logging on to YouTube and listening to music
• Cooking
• Thinking and talking through needs and ideas about life with J or others

Eventually the urges pass and I emerge healthy and forcefully fight that draw that I have been feeling from time to time.

Tonight I will be logging on to attend an art exhibition (in Second Life, I kind of got into the photography thing) and will mostly likely have to change my hair and clothes (that have not been changed in maybe five days) and look nice for the event. There will be lots of people/avatars I know there...I am not sure how many know that I am transitioning out of SL. I intend to keep a space there for now, as I haven't completely severed all ties with everyone (more about that later), but I need to only go in-world on my terms. J has encouraged me to not give it up completely...but I think that's because he knows that I will just pester him to do stuff around the house and keep him from spending the entire night in HIS office online if I did. :)

Anyway, I am kind of dreading being in-world tonight. The last couple of times I have logged on, I have been IM'd (Instant Messaged) constantly. It just goes ping-ping, ping-ping non-stop and I get into long conversations and then find it hard to just log off. Although, I will say, yesterday when I meant to be online for a couple of minutes and instead was online for over an hour - it turned out very well. Sometimes God knows - He communicates between believers who NEED to talk. Two people who may have never spoken before - only knew of one another - and suddenly BOOM...a conversation happens that benefits both people and calms some of the stormy seas of confusion and acceptance that still exist. I think tonight before logging on - as strange as this sounds - I will offer my time online to God. I feel like if I do that, it will help me with the entire experience. It's 30 minutes long...I can survive that.

Leaving everyone with a song today. This one has been on repeat in my car lately. It makes me feel strong and healthy...for some strange reason. I don't think many people would disagree that Alanis is a STRONG woman. LOL.

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