Emotional Conversations(tm)

It's all excitement here, folks!
Yes, the weekend was host to yet more Emotional Conversations(tm). They were largely focused around how we are all finding the recent changes very hard to adjust to. Hermit and Minx had added me into their life, moved house, started new jobs, had family rows and the child has started school, all since August. I've finished college, moved out of home, moved to a new country, started a new job and been integrated into a new family, also all since August.

That's a lot of change, and a lot of stress. To add to all of that, I'm not overly happy about being closeted (understand it's necessary, will stay so for as long as we need to, don't have to like it) and I am not designed to be with people all day, every day. I get very over-stimulated and fairly exhausted. So basically, I'm in the wrong job. Yay stress.

I, for one, do not deal well with stress. Normally I deal with it by sleeping a whole lot. What with my job, and having an hour commute there and back to see Hermit and Minx twice a week, as well as weekends, I just don't have time to sleep as much as my current stress levels require. Hermit has been suggesting for a while now that I find another way to deal with my stress. It's a valid suggestion - I'm MEAN when I'm stressed out. And, poor guy, he's the one it gets taken out on. I'm still very sensitive to hurting Minx and don't want to lose her, so I tend to keep a lid on things with her. For obvious reasons I can't snap at my bosses. When I speak to my family (rarely) I want to have an enjoyable conversation. I feel I can throw pretty much anything at Hermit and he won't budge. Which is true, he won't leave me. But that's not a valid reason for being such a bitch and he deserves far better treatment than he's been getting.

As I said, he's been bringing it up (gently) for a while and just gets snapped at for his trouble. On Sunday, after one-too-many mean responses from myself, he got a bit angry. That's when I know I've really crossed the line :/ This was literally as we were walking out of the door for church in the evening, so it's not like we could sit down and have the Emotional Conversation(tm) that was obviously required. We all sat in the car in mildly uncomfortable silence and when we got to church I stayed in the car with Hermit to try and sort it out. There was an apology (from me), a fair amount of tears (also from me), some hardcore listening (from him) and some useful suggestions (also from him). The conclusion was reached that I do (surprise surprise) need to find a way to relax and let go of my stress. We're not sure how, but it's something to work on. The conclusion was also reached that I need to start accepting my own limitations. That's a whole other post entirely, suffice to say that they are many and varied, and often make life in modern society a challenge.

I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to relax, but I'm trying. I've started to listen to music everytime I walk anywhere (a new and brilliant idea, I know). Not just have it on in the background, but really listen to it. It gives me something to focus on and forces my brain to stop working in overdrive, which it does for the majority of the time I'm awake. I'm finding it useful, thus far. The big question is, can I translate this into needing less sleep?

Anyway, we made up. I'm going to try to stop being such a bitch and somehow he's going to continue to trust that I will listen to him when he says something's wrong, and not jump down his throat.