It turns out I’m really good at what I do.
I can herd cats, I can track the million little contingencies that keep stopping workflow on several of my project’s dozens of tracks, I can figure out the best way to accomplish a task and which whip to use to crack over which back.
I just hate it.
My job. It is killing me.
It is paperwork and confusion; I am not given the right direction/information half the time. I have been here over 6 years because we’re a family, not because I’m a specialist who knows what she’s doing. I hate seeing all these little issues from the past that - at the time, I had no guidance on, so I did the work wrong - come back to bite us in the ass. It’s demoralizing and makes me look really dumb.
I will be doing this for another year and a half, at the least. I don’t have anything in place for when things end - when these projects are finalized. I’m scrambling all day every day just to cover shit here at the office - I need to take the time to prepare for the next adventure. There are classes to take, volunteer hours to do. Applications, references. Statements of purpose. I need to do these things now.
The stress - I try to hold it away from me, but just shutting down my feelings about it doesn’t keep it away. Not really. That’s why I have insomnia, why I need cookies and chocolate. It’s why I’ve gotten sick more times in the past 6 months than I have been in the past 6 years.
gah. boo. hiss.
I need a kitten.
You know how there’s deep-dark stuff inside of you that you leave untouched for some future day when you can make sense of them?
A friend posted a link to an article about her dad who, like my dad, is a college professor. Her dad was smiling and looked so healthy and happy. Like a really cute old guy, you know.
So the tears came out of nowhere (well, they came from PMS-land, actually), and I sighed and wrote this out. And now, I’m going to go start dinner. I’m done with letting the sad things get to me. It’s ok that it makes me sad, and it’s always going to make me sad. But I have a happy life, and I’m going to focus on that.
I’m making shrimp gumbo. Should be good.
We’re talking about our next steps - cohabitation, and down the line, buying a place together. Exciting, happy stuff.
So I rounded up my financials. You know, to get a handle on them, to incorporate ugly little realities into the picture. So we can deal with everything up front. You know, being mature and honest.
I haven’t rounded up my financials in a couple of years.
Hence the tears.
Two students loans, an auto loan, and a credit card. Nothing’s gone down in these two years since my last ‘reality check’. The gradual trend has been upward.
I’ll be getting a second job, then.
[whimper]
Ok. So, I haven’t been keeping this space updated with all the heart and head goings-on in my little life over here. And I think it’s because of 2 things: 1) I’m flying without a net and I get scared that from one day to the next my whole everything will get pulled out from under me like it did last time- and I’ll feel so foolish in front of you all, and 2) I’m afraid I’ll jinx everything.
The truth is that things with my boy are simply wonderful. No lie, we seem to be beyond what the problems were that got us broken up in the first place (which, of you want/need a refresher, was this: we both freaked out about falling really hard, really fast for each other- I exhibited certain weird behaviors, so did he- we clashed, he jumped overboard. The end).
It feels different this time around. I feel different. I feel better.
He met my family (minus my father, who lives in Europe this half of the year- fyi: don’t think it’s swanky, it’s really not). It was dinner at my mom’s with my sister and her whole family (BIL and 3 nieces). It went so well. So well. I was ecstatic and relieved.
I’ll be meeting his mom an stepsister at the end of the month. And I’ll be going up with him to Monterey next month for his brother’s wedding in which he’s the best man.
These are huge, big, earth-shattering deals in some ways- these are events that I don’t think we were prepared to accomplish as a couple before our split. But here we are now, integrating into each other’s lives, and it’s a little scary, but mostly it’s fun. A lot of fun.
I had an appointment with my shrink today, and I updated her on absolutely everything- and she was happy for me, and said ‘I think you really have a shot with this’, meaning this relationship. I take that as a sign that I really am doing the right thing. I’m in the right place. Where I’m supposed to be. It’s not imaginary, I’m not making it up. It’s real.
And last but not least- we’ll likely be moving in together before too long. We talked about it this evening. Possibly as late as after the holidays, but I wouldn’t be surprises if it’s sooner. And I feel good about it. All of it.
If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up.
We are back together.
I have received the expected reactions from friends: concern, distrust, and also happiness for me.
I’ve not in the past, nor will I, entertain an ‘off-again, on-again’ relationship. We have both said that we want to make it work, and I believe him and I believe myself. I’m ready.
Life begins now.
Just talking. Good talks, no tears, less and less anxiety. Understanding.
This is the lightest my heart has felt in a very long while.
It was a very productive meeting.
I’ll be sorting things out for a few days. So will he. Nothing may happen. Something may happen. Either way, I have no regrets, I said what I needed to say and I think he listened. He said what he needed to and I listened.
Nothing or something. Either way.
I feel pretty good. At peace. That’s all I’ve been wanting, is to feel at peace.
He started chatting with me again recently. Late at night, a chat window suddenly pops up. I was mostly non responsive in the first few.
Then the other night I was having a mini-breakdown again and writing out a letter addressed to him telling him how it all hurts so much still, and why. I had finished writing it and was reading through it and messing with typos, snorfling snot through the tears, and up popped the window.
He said something to the effect that he didn’t know if it would be ok with me, but he finds links all the time to cool things that he wants to send to me and is that ok?
I responded that I didn’t know how I felt about that, that I was writing out my feelings at that very moment and that it was addressed to him.
He started talking about his shrink and about how the best letters often never get sent, and it felt patronizing, so I said fuck it and I sent it to him right then and there. It was never meant to be sent, just like the many others I’ve also written.
He said it was a beautiful expression and that he’d have to mull it over.
Tonight he contacted me again. Said he didn’t know how to respond, that some of my letter - the emotions I described - made him uncomfortable, … and then we discussed more. And then I said I couldn’t do this over chat. He said let’s meet, and that this time he wouldn’t flake on me. I was quick to tell him that he killed me last time he did that, that that was a dick move. He apologized.
Apparently I’m meeting him at noonish on Saturday, after yoga. If he fucking bails on me again I will set something on fire while beating it with a tire-iron and shouting until my vocal chords are ejected from my fucking throat in a bloody spray.
how absolutely terrifying.
