Keep Your Eyes Forward

This weekend J and I were able to escape to the mountains for a few days.  We needed it.  He needed it to get his mind off work, I needed it to get some alone time with him.  Shocking to say, as we have no children that I would complain about needing his undivided attention.  But the truth is, during the week we get into a rut and routine just like everyone else.  At night, at home, he still has duties to fulfill and chores to attend to.  Yesterday he had to get up at 4am to go in early, so that he and the HR manager could meet with some third shift employees before they went home.  He was able to come home early- for him that meant 6pm- and we had a nice walk in the neighborhood so we could chat.  Tonight is one more night alone for me- he won't be home until 10pm or later, due to yet another meeting offsite.  He said this should be the last one for this year- he and his boss try to visit the many outlying offices twice a year, to reach out and make face to face contact with employees they wouldn't otherwise ever see.  They may not be under the same roof, but these are still employees that J is over and responsible for.  This meeting and dinner is almost two hours south, so it'll be a late one, and even though he gets a break for a few months, I know they will start up again next year.  This morning he was sitting on the edge of the bed, quiet.  I jokingly asked him if he was meditating.  He said he was trying to think of a good reason for calling out of work.  He was being honest, but wasn't really contemplating it.  In the 16 years with the company, he's never called out sick once.  Ever.  Not to say he doesn't have colds or the flu or headaches and backaches.  He just takes his responsibilities extremely serious.  But we have a week-long vacation coming up, the holidays, and then a super long weekend in December where J will use up his last vacation days.  We've got more alone time on the near horizon, so I'm not fretting about his work schedule right now.

It was cold up in the mountains this past weekend, freezing, refreshing, spirit-mending.  22 degrees and bright blue skies.  I was getting all sorts of crazy stares as I wasn't wearing any kind of coat or sweater.  Every time we stopped to take photos of snow or icicles, J stayed in the truck with the heat on, he gets cold easily.  I love it, I stayed out there until my hands and cheeks were numb.  Back in town this week, it's in the 60's.  Yesterday I was out running errands in a short-sleeve T, and I saw others bundled up in wool coats and scarves.  Yes, seriously.  I suppose I was the one this time giving them the "what are they thinking??" look.  I rarely wear a coat in the winter in the daytime, no matter what the temp is.  The only time I ever bundle up is when the wind is strong and biting, or if it's evening and I know I'll be out in it for awhile.  Winter is too brief down here.  We've gone two years without any snow now.  I wait for it like an excited little kid every year, J dreads and curses it because of how it disrupts work- employees calling out, his drivers having accidents, our customers closing up.  Of course, where I grew up on the beach, there was no winter.  I think they are still having 80's right now in my hometown.  I don't miss that at all. I wish J and I lived in a place that had truly serious snowfall. My dream life is a self-sufficient log home in the mountains, where we could stock up on all our essentials and plenty of firewood, and snuggle in for the winter.  But only as a retirement option, only if neither of us had to leave and get on the roads.  J and I are old-fashioned, we still like to read real books and magazines, play board games and cards.  I could see us getting snowed in somewhere and relaxing.  It probably won't ever happen, J abhors cold weather (and sitting still), so I don't ever see us moving much farther north than we already are.  And we're on the 33rd parallel, not north by any stretch of the imagination.

I am a bit nostalgic this week for some reason, still.  I think it's the approaching holidays.  When Halloween rolls around, I start thinking about childhood and my hometown, friends and old memories.  When I was a little kid, I can remember that one day every year, coming home from school and my mom would be hanging the Halloween decorations.  She had a big paper scarecrow she would put on the front door, with posable arms and legs, we would move him around every day to a new position.  In the windows she would hang these little dancing witches and monsters, made from cardboard and string and tissue paper.  I don't know how to describe them, I don't think they make them anymore and I can't find them online.  Even though it would be warm outside, she would open the windows to make them blow around in the breeze. We usually made a ghost by draping a white sheet over the lamppost in the front yard.  After Halloween came the paper and cardboard turkeys and pumpkins and pilgrims all over the house, and her wooden carved bowls shaped like acorns which she would fill with all sorts of whole nuts in their shells.  I loved picking out all the hazelnuts and cracking them open, they were always my favorites. Then it was a short jump to Christmas, and our spindly little tree with handmade ornaments from construction paper and glitter, and the fake cardboard fireplace with glowing orange and yellow lights to mimic the flames.  Our tree had the big old-timey bulbs, the ones that got super hot to the touch and made noises that sounded like crickets chirping as they blinked off and on.  My little sister and I would just sit by the tree every single night once it went up.  I can remember how we would take off pieces of tinsel and hold it stretched out across our thumbs and blow on it, making whistling sounds that were annoying, but my parents never once told us to stop. So for three months our house stayed decorated in some fashion.  I try to do the same here at my house, but my decorations are shiny and new and don't give me that sense of joy and wonder like the ones from my childhood.  Unless you grew up in the 1960's, you probably don't remember decorations that were made from assorted papers, and not plastic.  I miss those times.  Now Halloween is dinner out with J so we (he) can avoid all the kiddies, I spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws, and at Christmas my parents come to our house every year.  I haven't returned "home" for the holidays in many years. And it wouldn't be the same, even if I did.

Maybe I'm also a bit nostalgic because on Facebook this week, I saw some friends of mine celebrating the birth of their first grandchild.  True, plenty of my friends have grandkids already.  But, this was my old boyfriend, the one I dated on and off and on again from 8th grade all the way until I settled down with my first husband in my early 20's.  He went off to college, but would reconnect with me whenever he was back home.  Even when I was with W, I used to dream about this guy all the time, and in my dreams he always showed up to rescue me from my crappy marriage.  This is the boy I always thought I would marry one day.  Red hair, an easy smile.  He's a well-respected doctor now, still in our hometown.  He's the reason I got on FB a few years ago, I desperately wanted to see what he looks like now.  And he looks the same, completely the same, completely handsome.  My dad sees him every once in awhile around town.  He eventually married another girl we went to school with.  She was divorced and had two small children by then.  They never had kids of their own, although they've been married for so long, these girls are very much his.  So the oldest daughter just had a baby.  I saw the photos of my old boyfriend, sitting at the hospital waiting with his wife, then photos of them holding the baby.  I can't describe how I felt seeing those photos, not jealous because his wife was my friend once too, but it was a weird unexpected feeling, and I don't know that I could even put words to it. It's odd, my hometown is bigger than where I live currently, but was small enough that plenty of my high school friends just stayed there and married each other and started raising the next generation.  Life was good when we were all kids, riding our bikes to the beach, going to football games on Friday night, meeting for pizza and video games at the mall.  I had a damn fun childhood.

So maybe I'm just thinking about the old me, the first half of my life me, the one who existed before W got into my head.  I wonder what my life would have been like, had I not met him.  The week W and I were moving into our new apartment, the old high school boyfriend and I went out to dinner to talk.  He wanted to reconcile- we were off and hadn't been "on" for awhile.  It was over 12 years of back and forth with him, but it was done now, I knew.  He tried to woo me, he spent hours trying to convince me to give him another chance, but I was already with W.  But I think about it now, knowing what I do about how the relationship with W turned out.  What if I had stayed in my hometown, what if I had given the old high school flame another chance.  I think about all it means, how it turned out for me, having left my hometown. A strained relationship with my mother, a nonexistent one with my sister.  Missing out on my nephews growing up.  People who were best friends with me thirty or twenty years ago, but wouldn't recognize me if they saw me walking down the street today.  I don't actually miss living my old life, it was wonderful but also as awkward and unfulfilling back then as it is now.  But I just wonder sometimes.  Who would I be now, instead of the person I am at this moment?  Or would it have mattered where I lived or who I was married to, if I had kids or not, a career?  Does any of that really define me now?  Would I be happy or still struggling with depression?  I would like to think that no matter what I would still be the same person, I would still like the same books and music, I would still have the same favorite color and favorite movie, I would still have the same dreams for myself, the same sense of humor.  I would like to think that my very core, my soul, would not be unduly influenced by the people and places that surround me. Even so, it doesn't stop the what if's of life that pop up, or the pangs of yearning for the old days.

Of course, leaving my old life and my hometown was the only way J would be able to come into my world.  And I know nothing could be better than that.  If J was my destiny, then all the choices I made- good and bad- were the right ones.

MISS GEE

How Do I Hold Up My Head?

Another long day here at my house.  It's a little after 7am as I start this post.  No idea when I will finish it, I usually leave my posts up all day and come back to them throughout the afternoon.  It is gray and very foggy out this morning, I can hardly see across the street right now.  I am sitting here in the office, watching the SUV's and minivans go up and down the road, all the stay-at-home moms taking their kids to school, then coming back to do their mom thing, whatever that is.  Probably the same thing I do- laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning toilets.  We've had a few days of overcast skies but no rain.  Still too much green and too much humidity for me to feel like autumn has arrived, so we're still in summer mode.  Shorts, T-shirts, sandals.  I'm ready to break out the big woolly sweaters. I'm ready to crank up the fireplace.  Last night our backyard was covered by a herd of deer- moms and babies.  This morning it's a blanket of huge black crows out there.  You know, there just isn't really anything to complain about.  Why do I feel like life is such a burden right now.

J left for work a half hour ago.  He won't be home until 10pm or later, as they have an off-site meeting tonight.  This has been a rough week for me.  I hurt my back again on Sunday, so I've been creeping around in pain, shuffling around like an old lady who lost her walker.  J and I planted two dozen small trees (about 2-3 feet tall) in our back and side yard, hoping to create a living wall to block out the view of our neighbors.  They have decided to use their own backyard to throw all their junk- a wrecked car, broken dog crate, old basketball equipment.  Total violation of the HOA policies, which we pay quite a bit yearly to have enforced.  We've reported them several times, but so far, no actions have been taken.  So we planted fast-growing hybrid willow trees (photo from online catalog below) and hope that by planting so many of them, they will shoot up and out and we won't have to keep looking at the red piece of shit car with the crushed front end.  I try not to let things like this bother me, but it seems like we get notices about everything- leaving the garbage can out when it isn't trash pickup day, letting a few weeds at the curb grow too tall- but when we call the HOA to complain about something it appears they don't have time to send the same nasty letter to our neighbors.  It makes me angry, but to no avail.  Oh well.  Life isn't fair.

I think I've put out about all the fall decorations that I'm going to this year.  As I stated last year around this time, J doesn't celebrate or like Halloween.  He grew up in a very religious and very strict home, and Halloween was just absolutely forbidden.  So he's not a big fan of it.  When I was a kid- back in those good ol' days when our mom could turn us out all by ourselves in the neighborhood- the excitement of Halloween night was next to Christmas morning as far as we were concerned.  We looked forward to it SO much, my sister and I.  The first year J and I were married, he gave it a gallant effort to make me happy, but he just didn't enjoy Halloween one bit.  He tried to get into it, buying a funny mask and even going to the door to see all the kiddies.  But he said he just doesn't want to partake in it anymore.  I understand.  He doesn't have all the wonderful childhood memories I have of this holiday, he's not sentimental about it.  But, I let him have this one.  I decorate for fall, but on Halloween night we usually go out to dinner and come home late.  One year we kept all the lights off and just watched TV down in the basement.  The constant doorbell ringing drives our cats crazy.  I love fall decorations though, and try to buy ones that are not Halloween specific.  I buy "pumpkins" but not "Jack-O-Lanterns" so I can leave them all out from October through Thanksgiving.  And I especially love this time of year because all the stores have black kitty trinkets.  Since we have a house full of black cats, I can't ever pass up a black cat statute or painting or sign.

J and I always seem to be moving forward in our life together.  Whether it's home improvements or financial planning, working on our health or making new memories.  When it's the two of us, it seems as though there isn't anything we can't accomplish when we work side by side.  He motivates me to push onward, and I give him a reason for wanting to do something in the first place.  But I am still stuck in my personal life.  I can't seem to get any momentum going.  I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to throw in the towel, as far as staying at home.  J isn't ready for me to go back to work yet, and I'm starting to think he may not ever want me to.  The other day one of my former coworkers asked him what I was doing, and he told me he proudly said I was at home taking excellent care of our family.  I'm not sure where he came up with that, since family is just us two.  But he told me he's very very happy to have me continue to stay at home.  What he doesn't realize is that some days, that puts even more pressure on me.  Before, when I worked long grueling days, it's almost like I got a free pass- I came home pissed off, grumpy, tired, I didn't want to cook, didn't have energy to clean or exercise, and was growing fatter every day because of the stress eating and fast food lunches.  Now that I'm not dealing with any of that, I feel as though I have to be perfect.

I have nights where I have to put on that fake smiley face for J, and I don't like that.  He's always loved and accepted me no matter what.  But I feel that somehow we struck this unspoken deal- I got to escape from the awful job but in return I have to be happy from now on.  He doesn't understand that, although that job was breaking me, it wasn't the sole cause of my sadness or anger.  So much of it is still inside of me.  I've been able to let go of a great deal of the anger, but the heavy sorrow and listlessness continues to knock me down.  Most days I can get back on my feet well enough, but there are some days where I just can't find anything to grasp ahold of in order to lift myself up.  I thought my pottery would save me, I thought that being free to be creative and work on my art every day was my ticket to happiness.  But it just gave me something else to fret over (why isn't it selling?) and something else to get depressed about (everyone must hate it).  Instead of just enjoying the creative process and falling in love with my art, I instead constantly obsess over the minutiae of the business side of it.  I just can't let go, with anything.  I never stop worrying, I never stop wondering what's going to happen next instead of taking in the moment.  I never stop questioning if what I'm doing or feeling or thinking is the right path for me.

Perhaps my real issues are stemming from anxiety, and not depression.  The anxiety seems to always come first, and it sometimes ends up as depression.  I've suffered from panic attacks for a long time now, and maybe I need to devote a post about that subject.  I have always been a very anxious person, very controlling, very type-A.  If I'm not perfect, then I tell myself I suck as a human being.  I even look at my blog too critically.  I'm not sure if it's even helping me at all, the way I hoped it would.  I know I said I was writing it strictly for myself, but I find myself sometimes worrying about what a potential reader will see or think.  I'm whining, I'm lazy, I'm spoiled, I'm a moron.  If I was keeping this in a private journal, I would probably write the same things.

I know one of the things J wants me to work on, is my confidence level.  He sees my anxiety as a symptom of not believing in myself, in my actions, in my dreams.  He thinks if I were more confident, I wouldn't question absolutely everything, I wouldn't second guess every little thing, I wouldn't drive myself so crazy and I could relax and enjoy my life.  I wouldn't talk myself out of things I want to do, because I'm afraid I might fail.  I could cook a new recipe without worrying if it'll be good or not.  I could go hike without worrying I might get tired and not make it to the end of the trail.  I could keep painting without worrying if anyone else buys it.  So what if dinner isn't great, I tried and I'll find another recipe to try out.  So what if I don't make it all the way until the end of the trail, I'll walk as far as I can then turn around, having at least walked part of the path.  So what if some stranger doesn't want to purchase my art, at least I've enjoyed making it and I'm doing what I've always dreamed about.

Maybe J is right, maybe by not believing in myself, I've created the anxiety, the stress, the depression, the panic attacks, the defeatist attitude.  But where do I gain this confidence, since I've never really had any before.  J can't give it to me, the world isn't going to drop it in my lap, I can't buy it.  I've got to dig deep and find it- somewhere.  Could the answer really be that simple?  Could a low self-esteem really truly create all of my negative issues?

MISS GEE

(The trees below are only four years old!  Hope we'll get to see ours get that big.)

Hands Are For Holding

When I was growing up, I thankfully had no insights into what an abusive relationship looked like.  My parents didn't have a perfect marriage- absolutely no one does- but their squabbles were minor.  Slightly raised voices whenever they had polar opposite opinions on how to do something.  Stuff like that.  I always thought of my parents as being "old", but of course now that I'm closer to 50 than anything else, I realize that when I was in high school and rebelling against them, they were only around 40.  I thought they were old farts and didn't understand young teenage love, and had no life outside of just being mom and dad.  I forgot my mom was 19 when they got married.  But when I was 40, I spent my days and nights in love with J and our marriage was about fun weekends and flirty emails at work, kissing and snuggling in bed at night.  I am sure my parents probably felt the same things about each other, I just didn't see it because I was too immature and, because they were my parents and (gross!) I wasn't watching for any shared smiles or secret winks.  They are still happily married after 50+ years together, and managed to survive raising two spoiled bratty daughters.

My younger sister got married straight out of college, to the boy she dated during her last two years there.  She was married and a homeowner long before I even met my first husband.  Soon came two children of her own.  They've been married for over twenty years now.  They don't have a perfect marriage either. They argue a lot over minor things like my sister needing help with the housework when her husband wants to go watch TV out on the patio instead, or can he please go take their oldest son to soccer practice because she has a meeting at work.  I know for a short time a few years ago, things were tense and their line of communication shut down, and they went to counseling.  She told my mom that things are much better now.  They are still the "fun" couple, hosting BBQ's and taking vacations and making time to go out to dinner sans kids.  I see my brother-in-law playfully hug my sister, and while they may still yell at each other (their household is so noisy with two boys I think "yell" is the normal volume level) they also still laugh together.

When I met W, I just assumed things between us would fall into those same lines.  I'd had plenty of boyfriends, but he was my first serious adult relationship. At 13, do you really expect to marry that boy who passed you a love note from three rows over?  Go to the school dance with him, yes, but marriage?  W was the first man I dated that I thought, okay this is a guy I could marry.  And I did.  And up until that point, I thought an abusive marriage was that story on the news where the guy looks like a derelict as he snarls in his mug shot and she has a face covered in bruises and a busted bloody lip.  I was one of those misinformed women who said, geezus why is she still with him, how could she let him put his hands on her that way?  That would never happen to me!

I know I've posted before about the verbal abuse and growing physical abuse in my first marriage, and how I can't shake it off and let go of it, even though I'm now married to a wonderful man who adores me.  J has more than once told me that if I need to see a therapist about it, he wants me to go.  I am not against it, but I really don't think a stranger can offer me the insight that I need.  I know logically that none of it was my fault, that whatever happened was about what my ex had going on in his head, and it wasn't anything I said or did, it wasn't how I acted.  For a long time, I would tell myself that I provoked W into the fight or pushed the wrong buttons.  I knew his triggers, yet I didn't always avoid them.  Why was I the one tiptoeing around, couldn't he restrain himself and his anger?

When I look back, I knew probably from the first few weeks that this was not a man I should get involved with.  But I also thought that passion and drama somehow just naturally mingled.  All the times he ditched me to go get high, all the weekends he acted like he was still single, all the moments he made me cry and didn't feel bad for one second.  And that was while we were still just dating.  Sometimes that drama made me feel alive and excited, and I confused it with real love.  I did truly think that once we were married, he would settle down and grow up, but frankly his behavior just got worse.  Maybe things got a little better the first year or two, when work meant wearing a suit and tie and going on interviews at NASA (yes, really).  But he fell into a downward spiral at an alarming rate, and he intended to take me down with him.  I don't do drugs, I don't drink, I don't party.  I just wanted a normal life and a happy marriage, I just wanted my husband to be a responsible, caring partner.

The marriage fell apart over a decade later for all the reasons I've listed in previous posts.  But many marriages disintegrate yet stay intact.  I overlooked the screaming at me and the poisonous names he called me for a very long time.  At that point, I didn't see it as abuse when he told me how fat and stupid and lazy I was.  I just thought I was a terrible wife and he was stating facts about me, as painful as they were to hear.  How could I be those things when I was working two jobs while he sat on the couch smoking weed?  I didn't see it at the time, I just told myself if I tried harder, things would get better.

I don't remember the first time he laid hands on me.  It was much much later.  His anger and depression and drug use were all out of control.  The physical abuse started off with him pushing me into the wall, or throwing me down on the furniture, or grabbing my arm to jerk me around.  Usually when he was yelling at me and wanted to make certain I was paying close attention to his every word.  It became more frequent during the last two or so years of our marriage, until we couldn't have a rational discussion about anything without him rushing towards me like a bull seeing red.  He would raise his fist and shake it in my face.  I knew within a short matter of time, if I allowed him to push me around without consequences, that given the next opportunity he would escalate to a slap or punch upside my head.  I've posted before about him instead punching the wall or door next to my face as he pinned me against it and screamed at me.  I have no doubt whatsoever that he was capable of even more brutality, and I knew that was the road we were headed down.  Once he told me for the final time that he would not seek counseling, I knew it was completely my choice.  Did I want to continue to stay and hope that things would get better, or was I going to wake up and see him for what he was?  Was I going to be that woman on the evening news with the battered face, telling everyone he didn't really mean it, he's really a great guy, I said something that made him mad and it's all my fault.

Now I would never in a million years judge any woman caught up in an abusive relationship.  I am unbelievably fortunate to have a solid family support system, who reached out over the miles to help me legally and financially when I was ready to break away from the marriage.  And I was even more lucky that I met J at the time I was trying to move forward.  Without any of that, I may have taken the path of least resistance and stayed with W, simply because it was familiar and I would have been scared to do otherwise on my own.  Add in the fact that there were no children involved either, so I could escape without looking back.  I can understand how a young woman with little kids, no job, no other family could give in and overlook the faults of a man who takes care of her yet abuses her at the same time.  It was so easy for me to make excuses for W, it was easy to tell myself it wasn't abuse because I didn't have a black eye.  But any time a person lays hands on another in anger and intimidation and causes any kind of pain, that is abuse.  It doesn't always have to draw blood or leave a visible bruise or warrant the police showing up in the middle of the night.

I know there will be people out there who say what I went through was not true abuse, W was just a dick and I should get over it.  I am in a secure happy marriage now, and that other part of my life is best left to the dark shadows of the past.  I agree with the getting over it part, but for some reason it's still with me.  J of course makes me feel loved and safe and wanted, and when I'm with him I am certainly not brooding over the jackass I divorced nine years ago.  I am not for one instant second guessing any of the decisions I made.  I did the best that I could, and in the end, it worked out for me.  For so many women, it won't. I wish there was a J out there for every woman, but sadly there are way too many W's in the world.

Maybe I dwell on the past because I'm still the same me, and perhaps that scares me.  Did I truly save myself back then, or did I flounder and allow my family and J to rescue me?  What does that say about my strength, my weakness?  If I found myself in another bad situation, would I be able to take care of myself?  I can sit around and hope that nothing terrible ever happens to me in the future, but that would be irresponsible and unrealistic.  One day my parents will be gone, one day J may not be around for me.  It will just be me in a showdown.  Do I have enough self-preservation to survive, or do I submit because it's easy?

I don't know what kind of person I really am.  W used to tell me all the time "you're fucked up" and who's to say I'm not and I just don't realize it.

MISS GEE

More Of The Same

J left for work at 6:30 this morning, and won't be home until 9pm.  He has a big shot from corporate trailing him all day long, doing an audit, one that will continue tomorrow.  Actually, this is a "pre"-audit audit, to gauge how prepared his department is for the actual big week long audit at the end of the month. The audit is to get some kind of new certification, and although it's an internal audit, it's still the weight of the world on his shoulders right now.  J says he isn't ready, but I also know how self-deprecating he is when it comes to important projects at work that he has to head up.  Still, I heard him throwing up not long before he left.  I asked him if he was sick, he said no.  I think he's just like the kid who gets the tummy ache because he doesn't want to go to school.  J's been with the company for 16 years now, so it's not like he's expecting an ambush or bad news.  He just hates it that much.  I can't convince him to go work somewhere else, or even think about it.  He gets unsolicited calls from headhunters all the time, but he never returns them or even considers it.  People at the company who have been there longer, are heading for the front door in droves to go work elsewhere.  I don't know if it's J's loyalty that keeps him there, or it's just he's comfortable bunking with the devil he knows.  In 30 years this is only the second company he's ever worked for since he was out of high school.  I'm not sure he would know what do to with himself at a new job.  I don't think he wants to work for a new company, he just wants a new location.  This weekend he remarked how it was almost a year ago that his dreams were crushed when he didn't get his promotion.  Honestly, he's just never been the same since then.

As much as I loathe it, I am dedicating myself to housework this week.  No pottery, no reading.  Just a quick blog post this morning while I finish my coffee.  I had one of those moments last week.  During a phone conversation with my girlfriend back home, she told me she was going to use two of her vacation days this week to clean her house.  I realized with shame that every day right now presents me with that same opportunity and I ignore it.  I surface clean- just enough to wipe away the crumbs and vacuum up the cat hair- and our family deserves so much more.  Yesterday I started on one side of the house, and managed to get three rooms done and damn if it didn't take all day.  Everything.  Scrubbing baseboards, cleaning windows and ceiling fans, dusting every little knickknack, washing out garbage cans.  I even took each light bulb down and washed away all the crud that somehow gathers on the surface.  Who knew?  I cleaned areas that I wager I haven't touched since we moved in here.  I cleaned things that no one else but me will ever see or even notice, but that's not the point.  I wasn't looking for J to come home and say oh wow honey, you cleaned behind the toilet, that was so thoughtful of you!  So as soon as I finish this post, I will be giving the same top to bottom treatment here in the office.  Somehow I will clean around J's paperwork- it looks like a big mess to me but I'm sure he has it organized in a way that makes sense to him!  And no, my kitty isn't comatose, he just likes to keep me company when I'm typing away.

I am feeling better this week, my depression doesn't seem as severe.  Last week, I'm not sure what was wrong with me, nothing was really going on that would put me so down in the dumps.  But I was.  I even skipped my weekly support group meeting on Friday, and got an email from my leader saying they all missed me and hoped to see me this week.  I didn't tell J that I had skipped it, he would fuss at me with concern.  I have more blood tests this week, and two doctor's appointments next week.  My one doctor said, if my blood work looks better, she'll let me go three months before I have to come back, instead of monthly lab work.  That would be lovely.   Between the hospital stay for my liver, all the ongoing lab work, my broken tooth, and the hand surgery- all of them unrelated to one another- I've been poked with more needles since April than I ever have been in my entire life. Thankfully we have decent health insurance, we've needed it this year.  Who knows what the future holds though?  I am trying to stay blissfully ignorant of all the current political hubbub, and I couldn't tell you the first detail about Obamacare.  Oh, I read about it and watch the news, but depending on the slant of the paper or channel, I couldn't tell you if any of it's truth or party-related opinion.  Our household is divided- J and I are of opposite political parties and we coexist happily with no conflicts when it comes to that subject matter. We joke and say we just cancel out each other's vote at the polls anyhow.

The weather has been helpful this week too.  We had a big rain come through on Sunday afternoon and evening, and the temps dropped.  I am grateful for it. The trees haven't started to turn yet down here, but I am seeing hints of pale yellows and a blush of light red here and there.  Pumpkins are appearing on doorsteps all over the neighborhood.  The crows descend on our yard every day, and my cats sit patiently in the windows to watch their noisy antics.  Yesterday I was able to open the windows in the morning and leave them open the entire day, for the first time this season.  Normally I have to close them up in the afternoon and turn the AC back on.  I've been getting out the autumn decorations but more than likely no one will enjoy them but me.  My parents were supposed to come for a visit next week, but my father hurt his back and doubts he will be up for traveling by then.

J and I had "the talk" this weekend.  No, not the one you had with your parents when you were turning thirteen.  The money talk.  An update on how we're doing since I stopped working five months ago.  It wasn't a bad talk, and certainly not an argument.  There are a lot of places we started saving money the instant I quit my job, as in the gas it took to fill up my SUV for the 1,000 miles a month I commuted to the office.  Now I barely drive 20 miles a week going into town for errands.  But on the downside, I no longer put 25% of my paycheck into a 401K with matching contributions from my company.  Bummer.  J just said, we need to do a better job of cutting back expenses and sticking to a budget.  Uhm, what budget?  Yes, that's the problem, we haven't really set up one yet. And he did mean we.  And the biggest hunk of our expense pie that needs to be trimmed, is our traveling.  The actual cost of our travel is hard to figure out. We fly for free and stay at hotels for free, all because of points earned on credit cards and gambling at casinos.  We are platinum for the airline, platinum for the hotel, diamond for the casino, VIP for the cruise line.  Points and points amass.  We've flown to the West Coast for free, we've flown first class for free, we get free upgrades to suites at pricey hotels and on ships, we go to the head of the line at the casino restaurants and eat for free.  But guess what you have to do to earn all these freebies and points?  Spend!!!  So how free is it??  Exactly.  J said it's been a nice ride, but it's got to stop after this year, and he swore it has nothing to do with me not working right now.  He said we can still travel, but not at the expense of trying to keep up our "status" levels.  Since I don't gamble, if we never went to another casino ever again, I am great with that.

J and I went to a big arts and craft fair over the weekend, and it made me realize I am nowhere near being ready for that step with my pottery and painting.  I will continue to concentrate on my online business instead, and that's okay.  There isn't anything wrong with dreaming or making plans, but being realistic is also nothing to be ashamed of.  I know it's just a hobby, and just because I have business cards printed out with my "business" name on it, I don't see myself working the southeast craft fair circuit full time.  I talked to people on Sunday who do nothing but travel to shows every weekend, no matter where they are located.  I thought about just the expense of the travel, the cost of the booth space.  I would never recoup that with my small items.  I make and sell "supplies" to other folks, and most people who come to those fall festivals are looking for the finished product that they can immediately display or wear when they leave with it.

At this point, I don't expect any big changes for either of us for the rest of the year.  We'll go on our planned vacation in November, we'll see family and friends over the holidays.  We'll both celebrate turning 47 in the upcoming weeks.  J will continue with his long days at work.  I plan to keep plugging away at my art- and do better with the housekeeping. We'll go find fun local outings to attend on the weekends.  So unless something dramatic happens that I need to report, you can assume life goes on here as it always does.  It's time for me to get this blog back to where I originally intended for it to go- deep in my head to work out the many longstanding and unresolved issues that I continue to dwell on, the ones that continue to shape my daily thoughts and decisions.

MISS GEE

Swimming Through Cobwebs

My sadness continues and I don't know why.  I've started three other posts this week, only to abandon them because I couldn't get my thoughts together enough to say what I wanted to say and still sound coherent.  I have serious brain fog.  I have serious melancholy.  I have day after day after long day, free to do whatever I want, free to get my shit together and I can't seem to do it.  My horoscope this morning said that I needed to bring more optimism into my life.  All I could think was, having optimism doesn't actually make anything better, it just makes you think it's getting better.  And frankly, I'm sick of my whining.

I asked J this weekend about me going back to work.  It's been five months now since I left my job, and other than getting my (non-selling) pottery listed on Etsy and losing 30 pounds, I haven't accomplished a damn thing.  J said he really does not want me to go back to work right now.  Our old company would love to have me back, other departments said they would take me and I wouldn't have to deal with my horrible ex-boss.  I am flattered, but J said even if I do go back to work, he doesn't want me coming back to that place.  Long time employees are jumping ship, and newbies are fleeing within months of starting.  It's just turned into a terrible atmosphere.  J would get gone if he could, but he's toughing it out at least until our house is paid off in three years.  Not having a mortgage would free him up to find a less demanding career, perhaps doing something he wants to do, instead of something he has to do in order to be a fiscally responsible provider and head of household.

I do have a guilty conscience that I am now at home and J has to continue to work.  It's not as though I'm at home raising children- or chickens or goats or anything.  The cats are very independent and prove it to me every day by strutting away to go sleep in the nearest sunny spot.  J is now doing all the heavy lifting in this marriage.  I worry about him becoming resentful, but after all, isn't "retirement" the desired outcome of people our age?  I doubt most couples both retire on exactly the same day. My mom never worked, even after we kids were no longer under foot.  J's mom stopped working decades ago.  I may not be a mom, but I'm still a wife and a partner, I can still claim "home maker" or "house wife" as my title if I have to, as lame and unnecessary as that might be.  I worry that even if J really wanted me to go back to work, whether for the money or to keep me sane, he would say he wants me at home because he thinks that's what I want to hear from him.

Perhaps my most recent sadness stems from the post-surgical pain that is still lingering.  It's not horrible, but it is constant.  I still wear my brace when I need to, and I have been icing down the site every day to help with internal bruising, swelling, and pain.  The surgeon assured me it's perfectly normal, that while he was repairing the tendon he had to move aside many of the nerves, therefore they got pretty beat up in the process.  The pain I was having before the surgery seems to be gone, so once the nerve pain ends I hope that my depression lightens as well.  It's been a long year.  Many of the major things I planned to do once I left work- gardening, painting, cleaning up the basement- were put on the back burner.  I have to believe that being pain free physically, will also help heal much of the emotional pain and self-hate as well.  I haven't had a pain free existence for about seven years now, it would be remarkable to experience it, to not even have to think about it anymore.  Pain makes me feel worthless, hopeless, less than a whole human.

I feel as though I have NO RIGHT to complain about anything, pain included.  I feel beyond fortunate, and I get mad at myself for feeling anything other than spiritual bliss and complete gratitude. I may not have won the Powerball, but I've won the lottery of life.  But that's been the point of my blog.  I have all the comforts that this world has to offer, but I am still always so miserable and so very unhappy.  Why?  Besides untreated depression.  I've tried to start a daily gratitude journal, but I don't keep at it for very long.  I haven't tried in a long time, and perhaps it would be a good project to get rolling again.  Last year, when I was going through a rough patch, J gave me a stack of blank index cards and every day for a few weeks he had me write down five good things that happened that day, or five things I was happy about.  He said I couldn't repeat anything from day to day.  Every evening I had to give him my card and he kept them all.  I know he meant well and it was just an exercise much like a gratitude journal, but it just showed me how much I had to struggle just to come up with five happy thoughts for one day.

J still says that the only thing he wants out of life is for me to be happy and healthy, which was the number one reason he wanted me to quit my job and stay home.  But he also said he expects to see results and improvements, to make the financial sacrifice of my job worth it.  Every night when he gets home, he asks me two questions.  Did I take all my medicines, and did I get on the treadmill.  Those are his chief concerns about my day.  If I answer yes to both of those queries- and by that I mean did I actually truthfully do those things and I'm not just saying yes to appease him- then everything else in his world is okay.  All the hardships and frustrations he endured himself at work, are worth it so that his wife can take care of herself.  That's the type of husband he is.  And of course if I'm not doing those two things, my blood pressure monitor and the bathroom scale will tattle on me.  Not that he looks at or keeps track of any of those numbers, but I do.  If walking two miles on exercise equipment in the basement sends my husband over the moon with joy, then I would be a pretty big idiot not to do it faithfully.  If I forget to unload the dishwasher or take out the trash, those are offenses he can and does overlook.

I don't want to go on prescription medications for depression, I already take enough pills every day for all my other physical ailments.  I don't think I could stand adding more to my routine.  I've turned to the web for help.  At this point I'm open to anything.  Herbs, tea, yoga, meditation, organic, vegan. I don't care. Just something to clear away the doleful dust bunnies in my brain and get me back on the right road.

Yes it's dawn as I write this and a new day, but sometimes that fresh start is the hardest part for me to deal with, it puts so much pressure on me.  Sometimes it's the very end of the day, when it's all over at least for just a little while, that I look forward to the most.

MISS GEE