I don't feel shiny today, just kinda stressed and confused but trying hard to work it all out. 

So...after trying to sort out some mixed signals from Nikki, I decided it was time to be Bree and came up with a plan.  Nikki talks about going out A LOT more than he realizes.  But when I asked him about it, he's like one to two years down the road.  Okay.  But then he talks about it again with all the signals of I want to be doing this.  Nikki and Bree have a dynamic here, and that is Nikki is afraid to do things, and wants me to pick up on them and make it happen.  So....I asked him if that dynamic was in play here.  He nodded, and I said okay, Friday he doesn't work, he can spend the time I"M at work putting on the makeup we got him and getting dressed.  Then I'll come home and get him, and we're going to go to a small restaurant we both like in a nearby college town.  Highly unlikely he'll run into anyone he knows there like going out in here.  And he got really excited by the idea.  I expect tomorrow he'll change his mind, and then Wednesday change it back, and flip flop, so I have no idea if it will actually happen, but right now my plan is to take him out of this house into public and have a nice lunch, do all the talking so he can hide his voice, and have a nice afternoon.  But he's so hard to read, he talks about a lot of things like he wants to do them and genuinely doesn't really, he's just fantasizing outloud.  I realized how many of my barometers in this relationship are broken today.  So working on re-calibrating them.

And this led into more discussion about whatever i want vs "I want to..." or "I don't want to".. or "I have no opinion on this Bree" if he genuinely doesn't.  The  more we're examining how to be a healthier couple, the more I look inward, and realize I HATE having the entire responsibility of the relationship lobbed at me all the time.  I can't meet someone's needs if they won't tell me what the needs are.  I do inherently have a somewhat aggressive, dominant personality that Nikki loves, I know that.  But I want to be a partner, not a....a caretaker.  Aggressive dominance in me does not manifest into my way or the highway, it more manifests in that I want to be moving emotionally forward at all times and make thing happens because we only live once and I've used up half my time.  Gotta use the rest to the max!  I think he doesn't understand that part of me.  I think he doesn't understand a lot of parts of me, because he couldn't have these conversations with me without straying close to having to lie to me actively on why he does/feels things or having me come uncomfortably close to the secret before I knew. 

I'm confused and distressed because I realize I didn't really know him, nothing I ever interpreted from his actions and words had the full picture.   And now I'm starting to see that all the secrets closed me off from him even though I was holding the door open.  We have a lot of learning to do.  But at least we're moving, and moving in the right direction.  I still struggle with stupid things.  "It's not fair!" crosses my mind a lot, when I realize that I"m literally starting a marriage over after 17 freakin' years.  But I remind myself fair went out the window, and has no place in sorting all this out.  There is no fair here about how we got here, we are here.  There is only what is, and what we can do to improve it.  And I'm slowly letting go of the 'it's not fair'.  The anger about the lies is dwindling, and I'm relearning to trust he's honest with me now.  I had major trust issues when we met, believe me when I say a 17 year lie rocked my world to it's foundations and was a severe emotional trauma for me.  But Dr. Hollandt told me the one that saved my life during all the bad times I went through was that I'm extremely adaptive and quick to process.  That is working in mine and Nikki's favor now.  Sometimes I get tripped up by my emotions, they are still in there, just slowly packing away the negative ones after processing them so its' healthy and not bottling them, and actively reinforcing my healthy emotions so they are growing and working for me.  Life is a process.  I keep forgetting this is only week 7 since it all went down, and I start to feel angry and frustrated at myself why I still obsess over this thing or feel angry at that, and I sit down and look at the calendar and go "Oh yeah, it hasn't been that long, I'm actually doing GREAT and adapted really fast, this is okay".  I've hit the point where I don't feel guilty anymore for my feelings.  That is a huge step, was raised on guilt from both sides of my family. 

Grandpa, you prepared me well by teaching me to adapt and deal with what is.  If there is an afterlife, I hope you see that I'm using all the lessons you gave me to the fullest and doing my best in a hard situation.  I was graceful, listening, and learning.  I focused on what I can do to help the person in my life who is hurting, and making new friends along the way.  And I really wish you were here to talk to these days, but I've wished that every day since, both the good and the bad days.  I think I'll want my grandfather back for the rest of my life, or Alzheimers.  Whichever comes first.  I really had a freakout on my wedding day because he wasn't there.  Which resulted in an absolutely horrifying and involuntary laughing fit I couldn't stop until the mayor calmed me down enough to get married.

Sometimes I'm really frustrated trying to explain things to Nikki.  And I think useless things like "If you were a girl like me, you would understand!" Which is totally unfair, and I'm trying to pack that away.  I have as much gender norm expectation as everyone else.  And it's hard to understand Nikki telling me he feels like a girl right now, then not getting it or acting like it in ways I recognize as female.  Most of his behavior and emotional talk tracks so male to me I have to remind myself genderfluid, genderfluid, genderfluid.  And that is totally in me, not him.  I expect certain things from someone who tells me they are a girl.  Trying to learn to not do that and I'm trying to learn the language to frame my thoughts better and try to get it across.  I didn't realize how much common language I really  have with my friends, for all they tease me about taking away my girl card.  I don't care about girl interests so much, but I DO think and speak like one. 

And I'm back to 'trying', although I still don't know what I'm 'trying' to do.  But I got makeup again too, nair for my legs, and am actively trying to present in a better way.  I never really understood what people meant when they said i"m not even 'trying' because I didn't do these things, but I am putting in an effort to share things with Nikki and do them together.  And maybe I was worsening the dysmorphia by not doing them, I don't know.  I'm going to see if making an actual effort to change the appearance works on the inside.  Sometimes it does. 

And if Nikki doesn't hurry up and shower faster so that I can heat the soup and we can eat something I might start eating my desk.  So hungry.