I Need to Get Away (from this eggshell linoleum)

The past few days, I've been battling vertigo on and off. We had a birthday party and sleep-over for one of the kids (ie. no sleep), and I had an important meeting with a potential client. Oh, and then there's the PPMS issues (I don't have problems with PMS, it's what comes after it... I'd refer to it as MS, but that label's already been claimed by Multiple Sclerosis, so I just call it Post-PMS): headaches, dizziness, weakened immune system (ie. catching all the bugs the kids bring with them to the party), and increased sensitivity to moodiness (not just my own).

In the midst of this, I let the dishes pile up. Time, energy, and motivation to bully my charges into doing their jobs was low, and since my son who was supposed to load the dishwasher has been suffering a bad spell with his asthma and his brother was celebrating his birthday, and sisters studying for finals, I let it go, figuring I'd work on catching up tomorrow.

Today. A day of rest--what a novel concept!

Tomorrow. Tomorrow will have enough troubles of its own without me fretting about it now. All would wait graciously to be resolved tomorrow if I were a single parent, but alas Todd's timing doesn't allow for tomorrow (unless it's something HE wants to put off until tomorrow--like transferring funds to cover an automatic payment [yep, he let it slide again, wasting another $34 in overdraft charges], finishing a half-done home-improvement project, returning calls to line up the next self-unemployment job...) So, he's in there now, clanging around the dishes, certainly chipping them, and emitting such attitude that I don't dare go in there ("It's too late") even to get a bite of food--not with the headache already there, hovering just under the surface, awaiting the slightest trigger.

Our daughter wants a ride to a friend's house. No one can help Todd now, once he's in this state, so why not let her go? But she needs a ride. Todd is trying hard to pretend not to be in a bad mood, so he's put on a facade of being approachable. Yesterday, when the birthday party boys needed transportation, he said no. I could do it. So I took a carload of boys to their Lego store outing. And I didn't complain, not until the overuse of florescent lightbulbs in that store began to trigger my latent Epileptic tendencies. That may be part of why I'm so dizzy today. Not to keep track of mileage, but I thought it not at all unreasonable to ask Todd to take a few minutes to drive his daughter to a local friend's house after I made the hour and a half plus round-trip with the boys yesterday. I might have even gone in and worked on the kitchen while he drove her... I'd feel much safer operating a dishwasher in my condition than a moving vehicle with one of my precious children on board.

Todd is not about working together on things, though. So, I drove across town on surface streets, taking it easy and informing our daughter that she might need to take control of the wheel if I passed out. The way back without her? No problem. It would just be me in the car then so it really wouldn't matter. I made it back safely, though I almost wish I hadn't. I don't want to be here. The kitchen is clean, for now, but the distance between Todd and I is even greater. I do wonder what it would be like to work as a team. Tomorrow is our anniversary. He cleaned the kitchen. If he decides to get himself flowers, they should look nice on the counter (the half-finished counter in our half-finished kitchen make-over, that is).

I'm not complaining. It was, after all, just a promise. When we were house-hunting years ago and I said the only thing I didn't like about this house was the kitchen, he said that would be "easy to fix," and he promised to do so . . . . Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after the day after . . . .

All I'm asking for is the occasional mercy of being permitted a tomorrow of my own without being forced to tread eggshell flooring

(that, was never part of the redesign plan).

Fight and Flight

The truth just burns to be told. It irritates and irritates, gasping toward the light of day.

I am literally physically sickened by the truths I can not tell (or will not tell--probably due to my codependency with someone I know cannot handle the truth).

We argued again this morning. I'm able to avoid it much of the time by just leaving him alone. But he had asked for my help. I offered it, but refusing to give it in a way that would feed the codependency, I offered it on my terms. That sent him through the roof.

You see, Todd has finally decided to follow through on his desire to write. He's still deluded enough to act like if you love an idea and write the script, it will get produced and you'll make money, and everything will be Easy Street from there on out, so he's writing during the times most people would either go to work or go looking for work (instead of doing it on the side like most aspiring writers do). I do respect the fact that he's actually sitting down to do the writing, instead of just talking about it. However, he is a beginner... and although he asks for help, he's very resistant to guidance.

Given our history of not working well together, as I watched him plug away on this script, my respect for his effort was tempered by my dread of the inevitable demand for help. It's hard enough to offer feedback to a person to whom you are not intimately related, but when you live with that person and that person approaches the people he asks for help as non-persons--like some technical gadget that should work and needs to be cursed at and bopped (I'm being metaphorical, here--no need to call the police) if it doesn't respond as you want it to (even though you've never even bothered to consult the manual... you get the point)...

So, I've already made it through the first draft of the script and offered a little feedback (being very careful to qualify the fact that this "just might not be my kind of story in the first place.") I also made it clear that format and proofreading for distracting spelling and punctuation errors would be a necessity before asking anyone else to read it. (The script was a mess in this sense.) He did a few revisions on it (content-wise only), and has been prodding me to read it again over the weekend. Mind you, I had things I had planned to do which really need to be done, but I sacrificed and took the many hours required to read the script and make notes of my response. It was still a mess--very hard for someone like me who struggles with A.D.D. (and possibly O.C.D.) to handle.

As I was fighting my way through a story that wasn't holding me, and a visual mess that was distracting me, he sat around watching sports on T.V. I tried to be gracious, but the fact that he once again had time for recreation, but couldn't put forth the effort to fix some of his sloppy errors before asking me for feedback really started to bug me. I prayed for a better attitude and labored my way through the script. Working late into the night, long after he had gone to bed, I finally finished and emailed him the attachment with my comments.

In the morning, he had checked his email before I got up, but he hadn't figured out how to open the attachment (and we've been through this before). So I once again walked him through how to open an attachment, and while we were at the computer, I thought I'd show him a few formatting tips (since I had included notes on that & realized that it might be hard for him to understand what I was talking about just from the notes.)

Big mistake!

This didn't fit his template for how and when he wanted what from me (me, the machine; me, the object; me, the one to be used for his own convenience). I knew that he would be asking me to help him format this later, and that if he just understood a few simple operations he wouldn't continue to make such a colossal time-consuming mess. The problem was, in his mind fixing the mess later on would be no problem--like always, he would just dump it on me, go watch his game, and when the game was over the script would magically be beautiful. (I've come to realize that was how he was raised. His mom created this monster. I guess it's hard for a person to learn to endure the strain and toil of working toward a goal when he has people in his life willing to just do it for him.)

I refused to be the complete push-over, and his inability to put me on auto-pilot to do his work for him sent him into an angry place. By the time I left the room, I was trembling all over and sick to my stomach. He, on the other hand, was tapping on the bathroom door within a few minutes, as if no altercation had even occurred, saying he had read some of my notes and was ready to bat around story ideas--as if we were collaborating on this story I don't even like. I was still shaking, and trying to get ready for church, even though I now wouldn't have time for breakfast. (That didn't seem to bother him).

I guess he can't see any irony in the fact that in the past, even when I've been working on strict deadlines, he has put me off and put me off when I've simply asked him to read a page or two (already polished and proof-read for spelling, grammar, punctuation & format, mind you.) It's like this huge disconnect. He can't see how he uses others, and then ignores them when they aren't of use to him. (By the way, his script is 100 pages)

I hope this script does work out for him, but I also fear what it might do to us. Perhaps this will be the thing that will end up squeezing the truth out of me--whether he can handle it or not. That may be painful, but I really should welcome it nonetheless. I do long to be in that place where the truth is out and I no longer feel the need to tip-toe on eggshells.

A friend told me she kind of felt like I was using Todd, staying with him until the kids are grown, while in a sense working toward an escape plan if things don't work out. I've not given up on the relationship, however. I'm just not deluded by unfounded hope.

Todd's lack of ambition--or at least carrying through on his ambition--has been a major turn-off to me. Now he's at least making some effort (even if it is a bit misguided--and I can't hold that against him, as I have made more than my share of misguided mistakes). As I see it, the self-empowerment moves I am making are not an escape plan as much as they are a grow-up plan--a plan that both Todd and I need.

If he will come along with me, we might survive, but if he insists on remaining the child and forcing me to parent him, then the empty nest just might trigger me to fly away. I'm not denying that. I don't want Todd to stay nest-bound forever, but if he chooses to do so, I will NOT be the enabler. It's for his own good, too. Right now, he lives in shackles. How he can even breathe is beyond me. The truth will set you free.