To you

I’ve been thinking about you lately. Its hard not to when I keep having these dreams. Last night we were both graduating at the same time, me from high school, you from junior college. You didn’t even go to juco as far as I know, so doubt it means anything. Except you’re still occupying part of my brain. But yeah, I was thinking about you. And trying to put myself in your shoes, to the extent I’m aware what your road has looked like. I don’t know much, but enough to know we’ve had very different lives. And that’s enough to know that a lot of my judgment has been unfair. How can I be upset at the things you say and do, if, at best, I can put together a feeble guess as to the ‘why’?

Now about me. With everything said before, I still do feel like some of my anger is justified. Its occurred to me the reason my romantic relationships have so rarely worked out is because I have always needed a friend more than a lover. Not just a friend, a best friend. Someone I can share everything with, bounce ideas off of, celebrate happy moments with, vent to when I’m frustrated, someone who has my back when I feel threatened, and that I can reciprocate for when they feel under siege. I’ve had lovers before, but I’ve never had that. Not even close. And so, I think the base root of a lot of my anger is that I don’t think you’ve ever understood that this is what I wanted from you more than anything, what I needed from you, and if you did understand I never felt like you tried to fill the part. That’s enough about me.

We had a connection once. I can’t ever forget, no matter how hard I try, the way you used to make me feel. Like wherever we were didn’t matter because we were the only two people in the room. Someone nearby would try to intrude on our bubble, say something probably stupid, and you’d flash a little smile out the corner of your mouth that only I could see, and so, that moment was ours and no one elses. So often, nothing even needed to be said, I would just look at you in your eyes, and know that we were on the same page, and know that you knew that too. I felt so special being in your presence, just talking to you. We hugged a few times, and those hugs were the best hugs I’ve ever had that didn’t come from a baby (sorry, but babies give the best hugs!). Its no exaggeration to say that, for better or worse, very few people have made as much of an impact on my life as you, A.

There’s so much negativity in my life, and I’m stuggling to cope, but I don’t want you to be a part of that. I’d rather think about you through the prism of our happy times, and the way I used to feel so important to you. Because you were, and are, important to me too. You don’t want to be with me, you don’t even want to be friends, it hurts, but its ok. Maybe I’ll make peace with that fully someday, but even if I don’t, that’s not your fault or problem. What I want to leave you with is that I am here for you, however you need me, always available for a chat if you’re sad or angry or happy or anything in between. I would never betray your trust. You deserve to be happy.

Me

The burden

I’ve only had two full-fledged panic attacks, I think. The first one I was with a group of friends. I didn’t know what was happening when my body went numb and I was hyperventilating. My friends laughed at me and made crude jokes like I was physically disabled as I desperately tried to regain feeling in my extremities. The last one, I was freaking out really bad, I thought I was dying. I was in a bed, in a dark room. Almost all of my family was in the next room over. For hours I was screaming, literally screaming for help; I didn’t want to be alone. And they just turned the tv up and ignored me.

And that’s the truth. It has been my whole life. The people I care about don’t care about me if it’s literally any imposition at all. I’m just supposed to be happy and nice and never need anything. So I guess it’s just me, then, now, and always.

After

A brutal experience working at the bank call center to have the bulk of my paycheck going to childcare, my husband and I crunched the numbers and realized we’d actually save more money doing the stay at home mom gig. One day of overtime for him was a weeks worth of full time employment for me, his company actually takes pretty good care of him.

During my time as house mom I was able to do a lot hands on work with her education prep ( happy to say she’s doing great with) and with the support of a number of learning games I even had a little time to myself to lay down some groundwork in my own activities.. a little video game action, some painting, and mountains of housekeeping maintained that never ends. I even did a refinish on our kitchen counters at one point.

Most recently I got the kid enrolled in kindergarten for the upcoming year despite my deep fears that I’d be too inept to navigate my way through it or that the Rona will further destabilize society in such a way that the risk outweighs the rewards of social education.

The plan once she enters school is for me either pick up a stay at home job to keep floating with our one car vehicle sharing or devote that time to put in a faster pace for painting completion. I have a number of large pieces on the verge of completion and in the past as I listed my art I was able to sell the works which at least set a baseline for introductory valuations. I’m not entirely confident but it’d be nice to see at least one of my desired pursuits come to fruition.
Aside from my own personal endeavors, with the pandemic assistance provided this last year we were able to pay off the loan we took out for new windows in the home and we’re looking to take out another small loan within our fiscal comfort zone to complete the rest of the renovation, some hard floors to replace the shambled carpet, fully functioning kitchen appliances, and a furnace replacement/duct cleanse. What’s exciting about that is it means we’re not in a stagnant space, the home won’t fall into disrepair because we’re unable to maintain and that’s a good thing.