The Hellish Joyous News
I have had a rough past two days. It should have been nice. I guess I made a post right before we went to the Cape May Zoo on Friday. That day turned out very nice. Trip took off of work, and we went down with a picnic lunch – took the kids out of school for the day, and spent a nice two hours touring the zoo. It was free except for a donation. We gave them $10 and I donated three bottles of essential oils which they had on their wish list. The kids were mostly good, our lunch was cheap and healthy, no traffic, and a pleasant evening when we got back. I even got my new slip cover for our ugly ripped chair. Then everything turned sucky.
I took some downward spiral to despair. I can’t put my finger on exactly what set me off, but one little family at the zoo with their little girl (and 3 big brothers) got me thinking, and I am running out of time – I know that. An aquaintance of ours just had to have an ovary removed and it made me scared to think that my already short timeline could possible be much shorter than I imagine. My hope in moving to Asheville and being in a position to afford another baby is going nowhere. Whatever it was, I cried for a good part of the night – unable to talk about it. Just sucky and sad.
Then Saturday I got up and took the kids to soccer, Mommy came to meet us there. Then she came for a quick visit. They were both good, but Elliot was fantastic on the field. It was great to see. But after that in the afternoon I was just down and had a bad headache. I don’t remember what we did except hanging around the house. Trip took the kids to mom & Dad’s tent in the evening and I didn’t go.
Sunday, I got The Curse. I had been taking some hormone to alleviate a problem I have with extremely heavy flow – but this month I didn’t – mostly because I just kept forgetting and then didn’t see the point. I see the point now. But I just took lots of Advil and didn’t do much.
Monday was shit. We walked to Ocean Grove to watch the Memorial Day parade, but Trip had promised Mom and Dad we would watch it with them at their tent which was at the bitter end of the parade route, instead of sitting in front of cousin John’s house like we usually do. At the tent were: my brother and sister in law with their son, their very pregnant friend and her husband, and the husband’s cousin. No Mom & Dad. And no Parade. About 5 cars rode by and a few people, but the parade effectively ended long before it came to us. Then my sister in law came to announce to me that she is going to have a baby, due in January. Somehow I put on a smile for her, and said something, but I could feel tears coming fast. I felt so trapped in that little tent, and I just wanted to go cry. I am happy for her because I know how much she wanted a sibling for her son, and that is nice. But I had so many bad feelings. I’m not even allowed to want another kid, apparently. I still am angry about the way my mother in law responded to our announcement that we were expecting our third child. She never said anything and barely spoke to me for a few weeks. It turned out she said she was worried for us and thought we couldn’t afford it. Thanks. I guess it’s a small blessing that she wasn’t there to carry on about how fabulous it is that a new grandchild is coming. Now I’m just praying she gets another boy, because if I have to watch her with a girl I might barf.
I pretty much moped around all day. I know that sucks. It’s not fair to Trip and it’s not serving any purpose. But I’m sick of pretending everything is fine when I’m hurting inside. And I have to do it all the time. But last night when we finally went to bed, I knew the tears were coming. I told Trip I had to go in the guestroom, and he asked why and I told him I had to cry for a while. He said I should just stay, which was kind of nice, except I didn’t really want to bother him. But after a while, he just said I really need to go “talk to someone”. I am not crazy, I’m sad and for very specific reasons. I really don’t see the point in doing it. Not to go into excruciating detail, but he told me my problem is everyone else’s problem. It’s making Trip sad and angry and he doesn’t think anything else matters to me but getting a baby girl. He thinks it’s shortchanging the boys with my lingering sadness. For me I think the bigger part of the problem is wanting a baby girl, but knowing that Trip doesn’t and that no matter how important it is to me, he doesn’t want it. I think the boys are mostly oblivious, and that none of them can possibly understand what it feels like to me to not have someone to share my “girlness” with. So he’s miserable, and I am too. And I think we are a big mistake together. I asked him if he though I should leave or something like that but he says no. I don’t even know where I would go, but I just want to escape.
And we have our other major problem centering around sex. I think it’s time for me to put all of this down in a letter for him. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I feel sick to my stomach from all the stress.
Still Good
I was all excitedly going to title this entry Back on Track! because I have been so good – drinking water, exercising, doing cool projects (genealogy), major cleaning and taking care of the family. But then I got nervous that this was just a flash in the pan and couldn’t commit to saying I was truly Back on Track. However, just making myself sit down to take a minute to share in my blog is good. It makes me smile – imagining that I am not alone in the world (I mean truly I’m surrounded by family and several good friends) but that I can record my actions, and let out some feelings and fears or whatever it is and someone might be inspired, or amused or at least commiserate. Yesterday was one of those Non-Stop days. Kids to school, cleaned, folded & ironed one load of laundry, washed & folded (AND put away!) a second load, visited my inlaws, babysat my pumpkin head nephew (instantly add 2 hours of aggravation to the mix!), cleaned several areas of the house behind this kid, took the kids to the book fair, hosted a playdate for Elliot, took Alex to soccer, jogged the track while he practiced, went grocery shopping(!) made dinner & cleaned up, then went to help my buddy M____ for two hours 10-Midnight, who has her inlaws coming today and needed some help getting the house together. I’ve been helping her out a lot, and in exchange I have asked if she will come here and help me scrub, sand, prime and touch up my kitchen cabinets and table & chairs. It’s been on my list a long time and I know that it really gives the whole kitchen a face lift. It will go nicely with her though – we really work well together. One troubling thing lately – I’ve been having coughing fits related to my asthma. It’s really scary – I can’t catch my breath and I’m scrambling to get my inhaler – last night I managed to forget my inhaler when I went to M____’s house, and it happened twice. I had to try to force myself to breath slowly and kind of shallow to stop that scratchy tickly feeling. It’s kind of starting to happen right now, so I gotta go take care of myself. One update on that family tree for Aunt Leon – those stupid printers couldn’t print it (that’s not the big problem) but couldn’t bring themselves to ever call me about it, despite my enclosing my phone number with each request and specifically asking them to call with any questions or problems. So I wound up printing it myself, meticulously cutting the edges and taping all 36 pages together! But it looked really nice and it was mailed out on time. So that was cool.
Back in the Groove
It’s 6:16 am – and I have only had 5 hours of sleep. The good news is that before I went to bed I took care of loads of annoying stuff I needed to do – and even did my nails very nicely and got all the things I need for my presentation ready in a pile. I even had a nice bath, (had a good shave) and touched up my gray hair. Why I am up this early I don’t quite know, but it does mean that I can get to my exercising – and that’s what I’m doing as soon as I get up from here. I had a good day yesterday for the most part, although the kids were kind of hard for a while. I have to get them outside when they get crazy running around and yelling. I wrote several letters and sent them along with pictures to family and friends. I even remembered to get my Great Great Aunt Leon’s 100th birthday family tree scroll done and sent to the printer. It’s going to be 25 feet long! I decided to print it in black and white and it’s only going to cost about $10, which is fabulous!
Today I am making my Family History presentation for the 2nd grade classes, and I’m so excited about it. I’ve worked for the better part of 2 weeks making displays – a long family tree scroll, a US & Europe map showing our countries of origin, made up a genealogy terms crossword puzzle, printed out charts for the kids to fill in. The presentation to Alex’s class was very nice and it went pretty much as planned. I wound up making the Traditional Family Recipe: Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies in the morning before school. (We have no recipes passed down from “The Motherlands,” but I did tell them that this is something I began doing as a child with my Grammie and still enjoy today.) I even made up a quick story board of pictures of our Black Swallowtail butterfly who hatched on Sunday and brought it along – and it turned out they were beginning a week learning about the life cycle of a caterpillar! Nice slam dunk!
When I get home, it’s lawn mowing time – and after that I ‘m not sure. I’ve been working towards these presentations so intensively I’ve let a lot of other things sit – plus I still have 2 baby gifts to make and some other sewing to do ASAP. Maybe it’s time to get back to the machine (recently repaired to the tune of $179!!! after a piece of a broken needle got down into the works and almost ruined it for good). Thank God I brought it in when I did. Oh well, I’m off to exercise. Later!
Caught Up in the Family Tree
I feel like I’ve been immersed in family history research for days on end. I just finished cutting out 9 family trees, loads of green squares for the kids to glue in place, and just finished making directions. I would hate to have some kid cry and say, “But I don’t have a daddy!” or something like that just because my tree might have one, so I intentionally left it rather blank, with directions to customize it at home. Still, they look very cute.
Today our Black Swallowtail butterfly hatched out of her cocoon! I was peeved that I missed watching it emerge – because I had been checking it every few minutes – it really looked like something was happening soon. Sure enough, the little thing was out of it’s cocoon, and Nathan called to me, sounding rather surprised that a butterfly had gotten in our jar. I sat holding it on my arm while it dried out its wings, and then placed it on a parsley plant and came out a little while later to see it flutter away. It was so cool. And I took pictures, but still can’t do my photo posting quite as easily as I would like.
In other news, my boozy neighbor managed to fall asleep with her speakers blaring out the window – playing Van Morrison, “I’m in Heaven, I’m in Heaven, I’m in Heaven, when you smile” (aka the most repetitive song ever written) HOWEVER, there was something wrong with the CD and it would get almost done and then repeat the song. This went on for about 45 minutes before I thought I was going to have to go over there and kill her. Whisper-Yelling out the window didn’t work. Banging on her door and yelling in her window didn’t work. I finally assumed she wasn’t home, and when her landlords appeared I ran down to beg them for a key or something so I could shut it off. I even heard other neighbors yelling for her to shut that fucking music off! I kind of wish I had just called the cops on her just to throw her into a tizzy. As it was, I got the key, and went in to stop it. And she was home in bed with the lights on and completely passed out. (When I say asleep, I mean probably drunk as a skunk and “on Meds” as she says.) I don’t know her medical issues, and frankly I don’t want to. What I really want to do is move the hell out of this dump and go to Asheville, where people care about their neighbors!
Last night I actually was at a party at her house, sitting on the porch with her friends, and drinking Sangria (and plenty of it!) It was my first time over there (not going to be a habit) and actually this evening is the first time I’ve ever stepped foot in her house. (It was a wreck). And honestly, if she had woken up to find me unlocking her door, and carried on or yelled at me, I might have had to sit her down and tell her about herself. Why the hell are her speakers always pointing out the window, anyway! In any event, I had a nice time last night, and I saw that I’m not the only one who knows Cindy cannot hold her liquor (or whatever the hell she’s on) at all!
So much to tell – Thursday I spent hours on end researching history for the school secretary (pro bono, I might add) but it was a lot of fun for me. She knew only her grandparent’s names, but I was able to find back several generations using Census records, and in contrast to research on my own family, it was pretty easy to find her people in every census – they even lined up (and had uncommon enough names) that I could find the person as a child with his/her parents and then move back a generation almost every time till I ran out of Census records to check. Today, I got an email from Ancestry saying they just added the 1841 UK Census, so I had to blow about 2+ hours looking for my England people, and while I did find some new things, my folks are far more elusive than I would prefer.
I am all set to make my presentation to Alex’s class tomorrow – I only need to whip up a batch of cookies (stupid last minute!). Tomorrow morning should be lots of fun! Elliot’s class presentation is Tuesday, and should be great – I’m feeling prepared for it – and at least I’ll have the cookies ready a little more in advance for his group!
Tonight we went to Trip’s cousin’s 21st birthday party. Made me feel quite old, as we were up with the “grownups” and all the kids were downstairs playing “Beer Pong” (while my kids watched – they were quite comfortable in the room with the big kids.) My sister in law continued her streak of being a freak. She lives to shock and disgust everyone, but I particularly find it loathsome. Tonight she: Text messaged my husband Trip a photo of someone’s balls with the message “You’ve been teabagged” (Lovely). Regaled a somewhat large mixed group about her dog’s medical problem which warranted the creation of rather female looking genitalia which she described in some detail (foul). Described in detail the female medical problems of Trip’s cousin’s wife, who just had surgery. (Maybe she didn’t want everyone to know her business. Oh well, too late now!) And another favorite, (and she does this crap all the time) – she prompted her son as he was saying his goodbyes (he’s 3) to yell to the birthday boy “I hope you get lucky!” Aww, how cute! There were other things – she makes me so sick – yet another reason I’d love to live far away from her.
I am very close to finishing my heritage scrapbook, but I don’t know if I’m close enough to continue working on it tonight, or just give up, bring it as is to Alex’s class and try to finish it up before Elliot’s class presentation. come to think of it, there really isn’t any reason to show a bunch of 5 year olds – they really won’t appreciate it. There, that was easy! I’ll just put out the butter to soften up and hit the hay.
Overdoing it on Girls Night !
I am actually hung over from maybe a bit too much wine last night. Maybe not just a bit too much. But it was so fun. A little wine, weed, chocolate fondue with fruit, brie and bleu cheese. I brought my ipod and made a photo slideshow of all of our playgroup pictures and all my friends’ photos, and I made a nice mixed CD for my buddies. (and it really was easy to just plug it into their tv). I even rode by bike there, with the fondue pot in my basket on the back, (so I could drink and not drive). Last time we were together at my house I played the Jack Black song F*ck Her Gently and they were all rolling laughing, so I made it a point to include it for them on my CD (last song). The girls were all there and my friend’s young daughters had joined us, watching the photos which included some of them as babies. Sure enough, here comes the song, and I bolted up off the couch trying to figure out how to get the sound down on her stereo, and loudly singing LA La La la (to the tune of “You don’t always have to fuck her hard, in fact some times that’s not right”, trying to block the sound. Maybe you just had to be there. I told them all about Asheville, and how I can’t wait to move.
My realtor (Yeah, that’s right, I’m calling her “My Realtor” her name is Joan Sunris and she is awesome!) was here last week on Thursday, and then this week came with her report. As much as I bitch about things in our house, I am still proud of all the work I’ve done here. After the shit we looked at when we were searching for a house, I would think this house was a dream – even for a realtor. She thinks we could get $450K for this place, and I am all for it! I have a spreadsheet in Excel – actually two worksheets – the first is the house sale breakdown – how much debt we have all together, and how it would line up if we were to sell this house and buy my new Asheville house. We could wipe out the debt, pay off the house, buy a new car (for $10K – we would need a second car out there) and just have a $50K mortgage for 15 years! The 2nd worksheet breaks down the monthly expenses here versus there. Of course, a lot of this is educated guesswork, but i figured we’d triple our auto expenses, but could eliminate so many of our debt payments and Trip’s crazy expensive train commuting costs. Even with a much lower rate of pay (which remains the biggest unknown variable), we could start saving money (what a novel concept!). And we could be living in such a beautiful place, in a brand new house, with Trip so much closer to home. I feel so hopeful about the future now – and I will just do all I can to make this happen.
Right now I’ve got to start my morning off – I’m going to make my smoothie and do the right things today. I’ve been working hard on a family history presentation I’m making to Elliot’s class, and now I want to do something more involved with Alex’s Pre-K class, even though it’s a little tougher with them. Oh – I almost forgot! We are going to my cousin Duane’s house for Mother’s Day! – NOT to the Ocean China Buffet with my Mitchell in-laws (love them, but yuck!). Last year I had to miss it, and I was particularly steamed about it. I guess I’d better make some Mother’s Day cards – Last Minute Lucy!
Monday’s Mess
I’m not going to complain about the weekend. It was actually quite nice, and we got a lot of things done. Trip has been very attentive, even though we never did actually have a big talk about our problem. It’s hard to fit time in for heavy discussion. However, we did clear out our shed, I planted my flower boxes and we even moved the furniture around in our bedroom. Today I started off badly. I wasn’t organized this morning, we flew out the door, and the boys both forgot their backpacks. I was very pissy but I decided to put on a happy face, forget about the morning and I went grocery shopping. Now I’m posting a quickie here just so I’m not neglecting all things, and then I’m going to run around and put my house back in order. Maybe I’ll go to M____’s house – she is still going through her miscarriage, and I’m trying to be a good friend and support, since her husband is being an asshole. (He’s away on an unavoidable business trip, but he could pick up the freaking phone!!!) She is through the worst of it now, but still could benefit from some attention and support. So I’d better get to work!
Whirling Dervish
I don’t even know what a whirling dervish really is. But I am one, I think. Two days of constant motion. I can’t say I haven’t caught up at all, but it’s still weird to do so much and still have so much yet to be done. Yesterday I didn’t stop running around until about I got home and did housey stuff from 3-6pm, and then it was into soccer, home to make dinner, then practically bed time. Today I had a realtor out to look at our house to give us a ballpark figure for selling it. I didn’t have it quite in the condition I had hoped, but it went well enought. Then I checked in on my buddy, who is very likely having a miscarriage today. I had left a message and said I would do anything she needed for help. She wanted me to come over, she was in no shape to deal with her housey stuff, but is having company this weekend, and just wanted someone there with her. So I blazed through her house, too because I was all fired up. At least that felt nice, helping her out. Then we went to see our friend Ron from the Magical Garden do a presentation to the Montessori school about worm composting, which the kids seemed to like. Then we “enjoyed” about 2 hours of screaming from one or the other of my spoiled whiney turd kids. They complained because we didn’t walk to pick up Elliot from school even though the reason was that they didn’t come out when I called them after wrestling their bikes out of the shed for them (which I now have to put away…) Then Nathan bitched and screamed because he wanted to walk to the library for the cupcake fundraiser (which they really didn’t deserve, but I do like to support the library). Then home to start dinner and off to soccer, which Alex cried about because he was tired and he is just a mopey little kid. At least I did two laps of jogging around the track. Now I have to make dinner and wind myself down for the evening. I think I’ll try to get the kids into the tub early before Survivor, which means I have to get to work right now. Trip has been trying to be extra nice I think, though we still need to have a major discussion. We just haven’t had the time. I found out yesterday that one of our neighbors down the street is moving to Charlotte NC, as they packed their car. If I hadn’t seen them I never would have known. I so wish we could just pack up and leave. Later!
Affection
I am sitting to blog now specifically to release some awful feelings – I don’t even feel like I can talk to my closest girlfriends and I know I’m going to cry no matter what, but I don’t even know what to do with myself today. I was hoping to just throw myself into some housekeeping type stuff that needs doing, but I was up half the night crying, but trying to convince myself that Trip and can work out our problems, or trying to just come to terms that this must be the “worse” that we referred to in our vows, but that we (I) might have to accept things as they are because that’s what marriage is about.
In addition to the regular ups and downs of married life, in the background has been a terrible imbalance between my sex drive and Trip’s. I want it much more often than he does, when it happens it’s great, but it’s few and far between for me. Lately it seems like once a week, but at this point it’s very rarely twice in two nights, never on a weekday morning and rarely on weekend mornings, rarely more than two days in a week. And it’s been this way for a LONG time. I remember having a talk with him about this before we were married – and now I keep thinking I was stupid – and I shouldn’t have expected things to change. It’s not fair, really for Trip either.
He got a cold when we were away, and didn’t feel amorous, and actually was kind of gross, walking around hacking. But I think the last time was several days before we went away (last Sunday). Nothing on our vacation, then a fabulous “date” (that’s my general euphemism) Friday night, though he still has the cough. None Saturday, then today I was going to the store to stock up on food – we are out of everything – and he says “Don’t forget to pick up some fancy hats for me.” And I’m kind of pissed because he knows a) I HATE the condoms, and b) I HATE having to buy them – juvenile maybe, but honestly, I have to see these checkout people regularly, and I didn’t want to be there at Costco buying a huge box of rubbers. He goes, “We have 3 kids, what do they think they came down from Heaven?”. As it happened the people at the checkout were complete strangers, so I felt fine buying the box although I hid it under the other stuff on the checkout belt. And I was kind of glad, because I pretty much assumed Trip’s comment meant we were going to have a date. So I got myself to bed by nine, when he did, and he turns with his back to me, and really settled down, and I asked my usual, “Are you going to sleep?” and he tiredly says, “yes”. And I said “Sweet dreams” not sarcastically, I was more already deflated, but wanted to kind of make nice. here come the tears writing this… So I laid there and review in my mind – he DID say go get rubbers – we didn’t do it last night – it can’t be his cold, because that didn’t stop him Friday – and I know I’m going to get my period any time now (might as let it all out) so what is he waiting for? Then I just got out of bed because I knew I couldn’t just fall asleep and I was crushed (AGAIN).
I came down here and did some web surfing – even looked for a job in his field in Asheville and emailed him two. Then I remembered my borrowed book, The Sex Starved Marriage buried under my papers at my desk. My girlfriend ___ (who is the only person I’ve spoken to about this problem) loaned it to me. I had mentioned it to Trip after she gave it to me last week – I told him I thought it might help us. I won’t re-play the entire exchange – I can’t believe I’m actually sharing this – but he doesn’t really understand that this is a serious problem – it isn’t HIS problem and he had been calling the shots on this for our entire relationship – sometimes it’s a little better than others, but he just can’t know how much this hurts me, and that’s partly my fault. I have talked with him about this many times. Specifically asked for sex more often, kissing, caressing, whatever. I actually started crying a few weeks ago as I watched a couple (actually my old neighbor who I think is an asshole) but he was walking with his wife, arm in arm, rubbing her shoulder and gave her a warm kiss and hug as they parted ways. I never imagined I would be in this kind of touchless relationship.
I have heard how some friends who are in the opposite situation from me about their perspective. First I thought, “What I wouldn’t give for ‘almost every night’!” but then I can imagine how they might feel. And they felt like when their husband would initiate any kissing or touching if they responded it seemed like an invitation to sex for their randy partner. I can only imagine. I called him “Roomie” a few weeks ago after a particularly notable dry spell. Wished it would make him prove me wrong.
Recently, adding insult to injury, Trip’s old friend Todd was over for an impromptu visit, and as we were sitting around while I made cookies with Alex, Trip says, “So this is Family Life.” And Todd goes, “Well I don’t notice any physical contact between you two.” then something like “that’s one of the things I thought was a perk of marriage, someone I could hug and touch” – gets up and squeezes my shoulders – “how can you not want to touch her?” I laughed, (nervously) and cover up with, “Trip doesn’t believe in that – no Public Displays of Affection. hee hee.” (which he has told me – accept it seems to apply to when we are home alone, as well). I hate that it’s so obvious to any casual observer. I don’t want our kids to think that what they see in us is a healthy relationship. It pained me hearing Trip’s brother say how he & my sister in law think it’s important for Caleb to see them touching and being affectionate. Same with other friends. Lovely.
Reading this book has put my thoughts into words. And I was crying again thinking about all these years, and how talking about this with him in the past has yielded nothing. He said something like being asked to provide affection takes away from the spontaneous heartfelt display. I’m not saying it right – he assures me he loves me and I believe he does in a way, just not in a sexual way – and I love him. I can’t imagine disrupting our home (it could be happier – I’m working on it) but we have a good family. But I don’t want to live my whole life like this – feeling like a beggar half the time. So that was enough for a night of crying. Even when I fell asleep, somehow I woke up several times and some new aspect would occur to me or whatever and then I was crying again. I didn’t want to fight with him about, I’m actually almost tired of talking and trying anymore. I woke up tired, my eyes are puffy like a frog, but I was mostly sad, not angry. I walked to our room, and Trip’s clearly mad. I almost leaned in to kiss and hug him to try to lovingly break the ice, but I stopped in my tracks at his anger. He said something like, “Nice to have you sleeping in the guest room all night” I didn’t say anything. I took a shower and came down and I told him I wasn’t trying to be angry with him, I’m really sad, and honestly I didn’t think it would help matters for us to get into any kind of big talk about it last night because he’s sick and needs to sleep. He feels hurt that I wasn’t there. This is going on forever. I guess you get the picture. I don’t know what to do. I guess we might talk about this some more. SSM recommends that I write down how I feel and I guess I’ve done that here but I need to write specifically to Trip and tell him or just read it to him. It’s not the kind of thing I want on paper – curiously, blurting this out to my computer seems safer. I do feel a little better – my head is clearer now. I think I can make a list – always a good start.
Gossamer Threads 