Trying to Keep the Up

I'm trying very hard right now to keep my spirits up. I keep trying to remind myself that I truly am a very lucky woman, in oh-so-many ways. Due to this busy time of the year I haven't been sleeping well. I'm going to sleep okay, but waking at 3 or 4 in the morning, wide awake. If I do sleep, I'm having weird dreams. Weirder than usual, I should say. I usually dream and often remember them, so the dream in itself isn't the odd part. I just seem to feel I'm walking around tired all the time and I'm not shaking it off.

I know that's not helping.

Compound it with not being a morning person in the first place. Then add a daughter that, from no fault of her own, asks a lot of questions. I love her. Don't get me wrong. My patience is just not good right now. She is still trying to put things into place after having some TCE treatments (yes, I spelled that wrong, it is backwards so it doesn't accidently show up in a search). She is a bit frustrated at the moment with the rest of the family because she feels we are all snapping at her and thinking she is a pain behind her back. Partly, that is true, but not because of the questions but because of the other things that she's pulled lately. (See previous posts as well.)

Case in point? I just found out she went and had coffee with a man she met on Craig's list three weeks ago. WTF? What part of "chill out... give it time... learn to live with yourself first"... doesn't she get? I'm so worried she's going to get mixed up with the next loser and because she is so desperate to be taken care of, she'll 'fall' quickly. I know she wants to be out on her own. She talks constantly about looking for apartments and things like that. She hasn't even gone back to work yet! Let alone, gotten through the winter - her bad time. The bad weather hasn't hit, which usually triggers it, and she is already thinking about all the wonderful things she's going to do.

I think I just need some jammies days... some alone time... and some chocolate. Chocolate is good.

3 a.m.

Seriously? Yeah. I was wide awake this morning at 3 a.m. This was after working Saturday from 5:30 a.m. (up at 4:30) to 6 p.m. and yesterday from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wow, you say! You got off early yesterday! Yeah. I got off "early" to go home and make scalloped potatoes and ham to put in the oven, did laundry, and paid bills.

So why am I so wide awake so early this morning? No clue.

All I know is it is now 8:15 and I'm tired... and will probably be working until 6 p.m. at least.

Have I mentioned I fucking hate this time of year?

yeah.

I Need a Wife... or Something

I've mentioned this before, but I could sure use a wife. Especially in this, the busy season.

I work in the agricultural field. My hubs and I also farm (grain crops only, no livestock). In the fall I am busier than... well, you fill in the blank with whatever comes to mind for horrifically busy.


I now have extra bodies living in my house. Bodies that need to be fed at scheduled times. The boy is used to eating at, say, 6 o'clock or there abouts. Since my children are grown and gone (well, kinda) my hubs and I have gotten used to being very flexible about dinner time. We eat when it works. If he is in the field, he may not get home until 8, 9 or even sometimes 10 o'clock. If it gets too late for me and I get light-headed and need to eat, I'll go ahead and eat. If it is something I've prepared, say, a casserole, then I'll save the rest for him and heat it up when he gets home. Otherwise, if I can wait, I'll wait for him and we'll eat then. If it is something that needs to be eaten right away, I won't make it on a night when I think there is a chance he'll be late. If it is something fast, say, grilling a steak, then I'll just wait until he gets home to fix it while he's in the shower. Get the idea?


When my daughter and the boy moved home and I told her that we were very irregular in our eating patterns and that she should just go ahead and cook and either keep warm the leftovers and we'd eat them as we got around to it, or to just eat what they wanted and we'd fix something when we got home. I know money has been tight for her, so I've not said anything as the grocery bill has tripled and things magically appear on the list that I've not even touched (i.e. cookies).


As of yesterday (about three days ago as I write this) I have yet to see her take the initiative on dinner. I got home last night at 5:30 after leaving the house at 6 a.m. to go to work. I have been working all day. Hubs has been working. All day. Daughter? Has been... doing...? All. Day.


I was pissed. I got home and there wasn't meat thawing to cook, nothing on the stove, not a glimmer of an intent to cook. None. I was tired and really angry. I mentioned perhaps she could get out a carton of homemade spaghetti sauce from the freezer and thaw it and make spaghetti for supper. I heard her banging around as I was getting the dogs out and I happened to hear Hubs say something to her about cooking. Her comment? "I don't like to cook". I like his response... "You like to EAT don't you?"


I mean, seriously. I'm doing all the grocery shopping, paying for it, etc., and she is living at our house free. 100% FREE. You would think maybe she would want to pitch in a bit? Yes, she has been doing the dishes every night (we have a dishwasher... she's never had one. Hardship? I think not.) I have thanked her for that and told her I appreciate it. But really? I just want her to take care of her own child and get dinner around for him and so on and so forth. Is that too much to ask?


On a last note... this morning Hubs woke me up banging around the house at 4:30. (Stupid time change still has us screwed up). He came into the bedroom and wanted to know if I had a key to the house. WTF? Uh, yes, I do... why? Because someone had locked the doors (inside and one to the garage) to his bathroom... and no one was in there. Now, I suspect it was the boy, but really? Why would you DO that? Not a good way to start the morning. Thank goodness the key worked, as we hadn't ever tried it on that door before...


This whole having people living with us may be the death of me yet...

Back to the Normal Ranting

Well, now... that was a nice interlude. Thanks for putting up with me spewing, but that was something I really had been wanting to get off my chest for awhile. A few people in the blog world had heard bits and pieces, but I'm not sure anyone really got the whole resolution to it ... and I didn't want to say it all "over there" where family and all read it. I mean, there is a point of TMI where family is concerned, don'cha know?



So now I have a couple other things recently bugging me. Why is my other blog infected with some sort of maleware? ARRRGH. Seems this has happened before and I just don't get it. Is it coming in on comments? I don't know where it is coming from! I got my computer guru that runs the site to look into it and he thought he got it fixed, but when I go there I still get an error message that scares the bejezus out of me, so I leave immediately. I went through a stupid maleware infection last spring and that was a pain in the ass, so don't really want to go through it all again... grrr.



Guess in the interest of having something to post about I'll save the next rant for the next post.



What? You don't do the same thing?

Changes Pt. 7

So he came to my parents... and he was wonderful. Better than I ever expected. He was so patient with my mother (she can be trying in the best of times). He was so helpful and kind and loving. He tells me he was so happy just to be with me that it wasn't a problem.

I know he loved me ... and held me when I cried because I'd had to be the one to decide to move my dad to hospice. I didn't cry when my dad died... or since... but I cried that night. That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. He was there for me.

...


Since then? What can I say... Our love is stronger than ever, fortified by a closeness that we hadn't had for years. Now he makes a point of suggesting "shall I take a pill"?... at least a couple of times a week, and when a week goes by when I'm sick and I'm trying to stay away from him so I don't make him sick and I don't kiss him or hug him and barely touch him, trying to keep the germs to myself? He misses me. He really misses me.


What I started to say a week ago with my first "Changes" post? Now that we're back to "connecting", it's become a different animal, what with all these people living in our house now...All I'm saying...


So it's gotten to be quite an interesting time of it... my husband and I are basically sneaking around our own house to find times to make love. Me? I'm really lucky to get this second chance with the love of my life. I'll make it work.... it's worth it.

(Thanks for following along. To answer a comment on the timeline of this, I jumped a bit going into my past where things went to hell in 1995 with my breakdown, then jumping forward 14 years with the "dry spell" as I call it... and finally, bringing you to the future with my last year beginning in December of 2008 with my dad's fall and up to today. Sorry to jump around so.)

Changes Pt. 6

Those of you who come from the other blog know all this, but those of you who don't...

My father fell on the concrete garage floor in the afternoon of December 11, 2008. He was unconcious for a few seconds, and my mom called the EMT's. They came, got him up and into the house, but he refused to go to the ER. A few hours later he was getting more and more drowsy, slurring his words, etc, and finally told her to call them back before he lost conciousness once more ... and never recovered.

He was on a blood thinner and had bleeding on the brain from his fall. He had surgery that night to relieve pressure, but he never did come out of the coma and was in intensive care for over a month on a vent and all his signs deteriorated to the point we finally had to move him into Hospice and withdrew extreme care until he passed away a week later.

During this time, my mother also fell and broke a rib and punctured her lung, being hospitalized a few floors from my dad.

When she got out of the hospital she couldn't care for herself, so I moved out of town to stay with her. At that point, my husband and I had been getting closer than ever and he had looked into more medication - which, ta-da! , worked. After I'd been at my mom's for three days and trying to care for her, still taking her to the hospital daily to visit my dad (not yet put into hospice) and long-distance caring for my family and husband (all my kids are grown by now - thank goodness) - it became a flashback for my husband and he was going into panic mode. He called up my daughter and started going on and on about how this was just like California and I was never coming back... etc. He talked to her for three hours and she was trying to get him theoretically "talked off the ledge".

On that third day I accepted that he was not going to last much longer at home without me. I just had known how much he hated hospitals, so knew he'd be bored stiff just sitting around dad's room waiting for him to wake up...



...to be continued...

Changes Pt.5

Almost fourteen years, to be exact.


There were a few times when I had some alchohol and got nerved up enough to try and approach him, but he wasn't having any of it. He basically told me the last time I'd tried to talk to him about it that he had zero sex drive.


I was crushed.


I loved this man. I was so attracted to him. I felt he loved me... and he said he loved me... but the rejection was in such conflict to this I didn't know what to think or feel. I would hear of people who had gone for weeks without sex and how they felt like they were missing out. I would try and think of it like he's been in an accident and can't do anything any more... I would justifiy it to myself in one way or another. But he wouldn't even be close. He would give me a peck on the lips to say goodbye or good morning, but no long lingering kisses... and I loved his kisses... No cuddling, not more than a hug standing in the kitchen... no curling up next to me at night, spooning, feeling his body pressed up next to me. Nothing. I felt like I was living with my brother. We'd moved into a new house, we were having the 'good life'... and we'd never even made love in our new house!


I talked to fellow bloggers and a few friends who were sympathetic and several who told me I should move on, that I wasn't so old that I couldn't find happiness elsewhere. I was told I was beautiful and sexy and funny and I didn't deserve this. I appreciated the votes of confidence... but I was still in love with this man. Deeply.


Finally, and perhaps fatefully, I sat him down one day last December and told him I was to the end. I couldn't go on like this. I didn't tell him I was going to leave, or find someone else, or threaten him in any way... I just told him this was my last effort to connect with him. That it was too important to me. That I needed him to be with me... physically... even if he couldn't "perform" or "complete the act" or whatever you want the term to be... I just needed him to be close to me again.


To this day I am not sure what I said that finally got through, but it did. We both ended up crying and holding each other and committing to trying to make it work... and not an hour later my mom called to tell me my dad was in the hospital and then the whole world tilted on it's axis again...

...to be continued...

Changes Pt.4

He tells me when he got off the plane he didn't know what to expect. He didn't know what I'd meant by my cryptic message. He soon found out. I was smiling. I was confident. I was... happy.

We spent another week in California together. A vacation we'd not had since we had been married, 10 years. We did the touristy things and we went to my Aunt's and had the conversation I intended on having. I got the answers to my questions and it helped.

Throughout this whole time, my husband had been trying everything to keep from losing me, which is what he thought was happening. He made love to me with a passion he'd never had before... and kept his solid, thoughtful, loving spirit close by should I need him.

After we got back, things settled into more of a normal pattern for a few weeks. I then hurt my back and had to have surgery which caused some disruption of our love life. It seemed after that, things just went... cold. I know my husband had some issues when I'd met him with confidence and had some ED issues... but I was okay with that. I mean, geez... guys have all this pressure to perform and it isn't like they can fake it or hide it like a woman can. (Not that I do, I want to make that clear.) It is just a fact of life and I would guess more men have issues than care to want anyone to know.

At any rate, it seemed all the stress and the fear of losing me had really given his confidence a hit and he withrew... gradually, it seemed, then it just came to a screeching halt. When I would approach him he'd be tired, or not interested, and a couple of times he even said he had been so hurt thinking I was leaving him when I went to California that it really crushed his libido. That, of course, played on my own guilt for putting him through all that... so I would meekly turn away and not push the issue.

A year went by.

I asked him to talk to the doctor about getting medication to help. He did... and tried the little blue pills. Nothing. They did nothing. He got up the nerve to ask the doctor for something else, but the confidence went away and the others he was given sat in the nightstand unused.

For years.

...to be continued...

Changes Pt.3

I left.

My husband was frantic. He called my Aunt who hadn't heard a word from me and had no idea I was coming. I hadn't told him that I had not been able to make connections with her yet, but that I just had to get out of the house. He was hovering, the kids were worried, everyone was going into such a protective mode that I couldn't breathe. I just needed to drive... to leave and let my mind go where it would.

For the first time in my life I had to depend on me. I had never pumped my own gas! I had to figure out where to go and when to stop and where to stay that wouldn't get me mugged or worse. I had to spend time just with me and my own thoughts.

By the time I got to California I was truly a new woman. I was so much more confident. Amazing what three days of being alone can do to you. I came to the conclusion that it was NOT my fault I'd been raped. That it was NOT my fault my parents were alchoholics. That it was NOT my fault I look and act just like my biological mom and was a constant reminder to my father. I decided before I even hooked up with my Aunt that no matter what she told me that I was going to forgive my parents and move on. I knew that they had re-written history already in their own minds and whatever I accused them of would be a mystery to them... they wouldn't have a clue what they'd done, for in their minds they had done nothing wrong.

My frantic husband begged me every time I called home to tell him where I was. To tell him he could come join me. Finally, after I got to California and had my epiphany, I told him yes. He could join me. He was on the next flight he could get on. I warned him I was a different person than the one who had left.

He was terrified.

...to be continued...