Hey Dr. Smarts! Welcome back!
I missed you! Glad to have you back. New Year’s Eve… don’t leave me hangin’… what happened?
I’m thinking I’ll have to assign you a new flirting assignment… STAT! I’ll think about this a bit..
I didn’t hear anymore on the reason behind BF’s brattiness over the holiday, or what his parents might have been fighting about. From what I can tell it’s the same story I’ve heard before. Pops is putting too much time and energy into his company, and moms feels he’s neglecting her and the family. This makes me ponder. What would I do if I were a patriarch close to retirement, motivated by success, with somewhat spoiled and unappreciative kids, and felt (whether real or imagined) that my partner was too demanding or unsupportive? What would I do if I were the matriarch realizing that my children were on the verge of all living in different states and having their own lives? And I had a big empty house to run, or follow my busy husband across the globe to a place I felt was not home? What if I felt neglected by my husband, having sacrificed so much for him and the children?
All I can say is that no family is “normal” or without its own issues. People are complex. Communication can be hard. And oh did I mention… this adds to my already staggering commitment issues. Change and time appear to not be friends to marriage, at least in this case. I’m thinking I need to start reading blogs about happy marriages to retrain my brain to the possibilities. Ha!
It appears I’m having a bit of writer’s block today (started this reply at 8:30am). Could be due to the major head cold creating a fog in my brain. Or the meds I’m taking to try to clear the fog. Or too much to catch up on, and not knowing where to start.
My weekend was not thrilling due to the fact that this cold hit me Thursday morning and is still going strong 5 days later. [insert whiny sob here] I spent most of the weekend on the couch or in bed. No fun. I’m hoping it runs its course by Friday. I don’t want another weekend on the couch.
[end whine]
I’m so happy you’re feeling a renewed “like” for your job career. Positive feedback is a great motivator for more positive feedback. YAY! Keep up the great work. I honestly have no idea how you get so much done on a regular basis. Though I guess that might be it, that you do actually like your career path. Seriously, I’m so thrilled vicariously for you finding a field/direction that is good for you. YAY!
I, on the flip side, could use a little of your direction. I get assigned one or two small random tasks per week with little to no deadline. It’s not helping me stay motivated. In the rest of my free time I could be asking for assignments, helping/volunteering with other people, doing research, or taking an online course tailored to my field. But I’m really just not motivated. I fell into this job, and the job before that, and the job before that. Even if I discovered an interest in another field at this point, I don’t know that I could responsibly afford to make the change… since it would likely involve additional education and/or a pay cut due to lack of experience. I’ll most likely stay in this field at a desk job until something else falls in my lap. Sad by true… or maybe that’s the Day-Quil talking. Yes, I’m sure it’s the Day-Quil.
Note to Self: purchase famous “What Color Is Your Parachute?” book and get to discovering a career you give a rat’s ass about!! And quit whining. LOL
In somewhat related news, the job #2 stuff is at a stand-still. I’ve made the minimum effort possible and really need to step this up, since my school loans are now all in repayment and looming over my head like a luxury car payment each month. I have the means to make the extra cash flow if I just apply myself… now I just have to dig deep and find that motivation. For our readers that may be thinking that I twirl on a pole on weekends… so NOT the case. I do a direct sales home-based business in my free time. Like Tupperware parties, but I don’t sell Tupperware.
GOYA is on vacation… I’m assuming because she doesn’t want to catch the plague cold that I have. My mind and body have shut down this week. In a very new-age Dharma (of Dharma & Greg) way I’m feeling it’s in response to the week I’ve had. My mind, heart, and soul have been through the wringer this week, and my body is following suit. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe I needed this illness as a break in my regular day-to-day, and a recovery from the crap. I’ll elaborate…
We talked earlier in the week about this via instant messaging, but I’ll give a quick synopsis here for the readers. (Disclaimer: Sorry SassyPants is such a Debbie Downer this week. Everyone is allowed one week of shit in their lives. This one is mine. The rest of the year will be full of sass and rainbows, promise!)
On Tuesday I received an email from a friend that casually mentioned she heard an ex-boyfriend of mine from about 3 years ago killed himself last year. I was floored. We didn’t date very long, and didn’t have any direct friends in common. But I did hear from him after we broke up. He had reached out and called me the summer of 2009, he was depressed and talked about suicide. I talked him through it and got him calm. I thought he would be ok… but that only lasted a few months apparently. He took his life within 5 months of that call.
When he called that day, we’d been broken up for almost a year and it hadn’t been a long term relationship… we’d only dated a few months, so I didn’t have much emotionally invested in the relationship. He’d also moved to another city an hour out of town… so I just figured he needed someone to talk to that day. I thought he had other people in his life/around him that he could also talk to/lean on… but I have no idea. I wasn’t really sure why he called me of all people.
I’m feeling some guilt now about not following up to see how he was doing… and more feelings of guilt because part of me was relieved I didn’t get another call from him. Now I just feel like a jerk. I didn’t think he would go through with it… not that I said that to him. I said everything I could to lift him up. I know his suicide doesn’t have anything to do with me, he had a handful of his own issues. It’s likely something he had his mind set on, I don’t know… it’s just sad. I was just really sad about the loss of a human life. It’s that empathic side of me.
I’m dealing with it much better now… I have very sweet and supportive friends that know all the right things to say.
I got through that day at work with only a few tissues, I’m too private and tough to show too much emotion at work. And I didn’t want my co-workers to know my business. Or his. I got through the day by thinking that I’d get home, have a good private cry in the shower, and BF would hug me and we’d zone out on the couch like zombies. Well I went home, had that private cry in the shower, and was ready for my hug… but it didn’t go down like that. Now I’m not here to bash BF, he’s a decent guy. But the timing was bad. He’d had a couple drinks by the time I got home (though I didn’t find that out until 2 days later). He wasn’t prepared to see me upset… about another guy… that I used to date… and his attempt at empathy in telling me about an old pal of his from private school that killed himself wasn’t really what I was hoping for. Neither was BF’s stance that suicide doesn’t make sense. I know it’s not very PC for people to judge and declare that suicide is dumb, stupid, lazy, for quitters, not worth pity… whatever. I don’t think anyone should make those judgments because you can’t see/live someone else’s life in their shoes. No one can ever really know the complexity of living someone else’s life, feeling what they feel, or knowing their thoughts.
Needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood to hear BF tell me whether or not my emotions were warranted. (“Don’t tell me how to feel!”) So instead of yelling at him, I apologized for trivializing his friends’ death and reminded BF that this was fresh news for me. I told him I didn’t expect him to fix anything, or give me his opinions, or tell me how to feel… all I was asking for was a hug, and a quiet night of vegging on the couch. I’m going to assume it was the booze that somehow kept that sentence from sinking in. He wasn’t hearing me. He was on a rant. And when it was apparent to him that I wasn’t listening to him as I sat there hunched over and frustrated… he took his dinner into the other room and played video games. After another cryfest due the kick in the gut I’d just experienced, I texted a friend to see if I could crash in her spare bedroom for the night. I didn’t want to talk. To BF. To anyone. So I left… without saying good-bye. I sent him a text about an hour later to let him know where I was. He hadn’t realized I’d left.
The next day at work flew by in a blur. I could have done without my oh-so-understanding mother changing my nickname to “Grumpy” for the day. She’s so sensitive. But everyone else was really sweet. I was in the shower when BF got back from working late around 11pm. I walked into the bedroom to the lights out and him in bed. I crawled in and said, “I’m not ignoring you, but it’s late… we both have to get up early… and I’m too drained to talk right now.” So we went to sleep.
Thursday is when the sore throat/head cold started to really kick in. I got sent home from work and spent the rest of the day in bed or on the couch. BF got home that evening and we just kinda hugged it out in the kitchen without saying anything. Then we sat down with dinner and talked everything out. My overall impression is that he’s still very immature and selfish when it comes to relationships. I made sure to point that out to him in a way that made him see how he was behaving. Booze aside, whether he felt he’d done anything wrong or not… I was hurting, and he didn’t once contact me in that 2 days to ask how I was. He admitted it was stupid to get his ego involved over a deceased ex-BF. It was a knee-“jerk” reaction. And I explained that I have trust issues enough as it is, if I can’t come to him when I’m hurting because I fear him kicking me when I’m down… then it’s not a very good relationship. Was he a jerk? Yes. Could I have raged and demanded and sulked? Yes. But it comes down to the fact that he’s selfish and immature in relationships… and I like to think that I’m empathetic and forgiving. I like to think I’m the “bigger man”. But I won’t be forever. I gave him this opportunity to see how easily he could throw it all away, by being open and honest about how he hurt me. And what I expect from him the next time. If he can’t learn from his mistakes with me, he’ll have to learn them from someone else. Past experiences, mistakes, and forgiveness can only go so far. If there isn’t growth and maturity… it’s time to cut strings. If he can’t grow up and be the man I need, he’ll end up back on the dating market. Tough shit.
I debated this. I really debated ending things now. He’s a grown man that should understand basic things like hug your girlfriend when she’s hurting, call her to make sure she’s ok, apologize for hurting even if you think you’re right whatever the issue may be, and don’t do nothing when you claim to love someone. Some would say that this is a “small stuff” issues, others might say “deal breaker”. I don’t know, I lean toward deal breaker… but in my history everything was a deal breaker. I can count on one hand the relationships I’ve had that made it past 6 months. I’m trying something new this time. Communication, learning from mistakes, and love… not breaking up. That’s always been my MO.
Is BF really worthy? Maybe not. I’m not prepared to make that call yet. Though, if I hadn’t been the “bigger man”, if I had told him to move out and never talk to me again, he would have done exactly that… because he’s a child with a tantrum thinking he’s right and that’s that. And it would be his loss. But I see better in him underneath (or maybe that’s wishful thinking). And in our heart-to-heart talk, he heard the truth from me. Do I relish that I got him emotional and made him cry? Yes, absolutely. Part of me wanted to see him feel emotion. Part of me wanted to make him hurt just a little too. And part of me thinks maybe his tears means he does love me after all. We will see.
Truth be told, the next time he “BF-fails” again at this level, is the last time. It’s his turn to be the bigger man.
I’m asking you to hold me to this, Smarts. Sometimes I need to be reminded when I’m being a push-over.
(It’s after 3pm… I keep coming back to this reply with more to say. And as thoughts burst through the Day-Quil sporadically.)
Oh, Vegas is off… we’re changing it to a girls weekend at Myrtle Beach in March. I’m thinking it’s just what I need.
That and some effin romance. I want some damn flowers. And presents. And fancy dinners. And back rubs. And… hugs. Dammit.
(Note: he did give me plenty of attention and affection this weekend. I'm just being a brat. LOL)
Hope the rest of your day was as productive as your morning. I’m about to go home… my warm bed (and Ny-Quil) is calling to me.
Not-So-Sassy
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