My husband and I chatted on the phone yesterday for about 20 or 30 minutes. He’s always been a good yacker. Neither one of us has anyone to talk to who fully understands what we went through so it’s obvious that it helps us both to talk about it together. Plus we talk about what we’re going to do (individually) with the settlement money.
I’m meeting him tomorrow at the library where he’ll install Adobe Illustrator on my computer and give me a few quick lessons in it. Why? Because I need it and it’s the only way to get it for free. Because I want to be able to design some of my stuff on my own and not always rely on describing what I want to a stranger. After I get it on my computer I’ll hit YouTube and begin to teach myself the basics.
Some would say (and I would have said this myself two months ago) that I should have nothing whatsoever to do with him but I have 100% accepted the fact that we will no longer be man and wife. I also know that soon enough he’ll be gone and I’ll see very little of him. That’s okay, I’ll deal with that. I don’t want to be his friend or his pal. I know that I’ll feel some loss when he goes, but I know it’s inevitable. I am eager to move on with my own life so I think I’ll be fairly distracted by that.
But there will always be a part of me that feels this is a shame. All I ever wanted was a chance to be relatively financially secure so that I could really assess our relationship. In spite of his arrogance I liked that he was sort of foreign and exotic. But I suppose we see the true self of others when we are stressed or uncomfortable. He saw that I am a nervous wreck and I saw that he would never be able to support me and the humiliation of that caused him to be abusive to me.
To be honest, my entire life is chalk full of regrets. I ruined an 18 year marriage with a good, solid man and I am incredibly regretful about that. I take comfort knowing he has moved on and found a woman he seems to truly adore.
Sadly, I cannot undo anything from my past. I must put blinders on and walk towards my future now. Aware of what I’ve done but knowing it’s not too late to change.
Yesterday I swam back at my pool (yay) and it was great. I should go today but woke up with my eye closed up with crust and it’s all red. I need to buy a new pair of goggles and I may use that as an excuse not to work out today, which is a bad excuse.
After I was done swimming I went to the kids center to see if I could do some case management, but was unable to do so. I did some busy work for about an hour and then just drove around. I ended up going to stores I normally don’t go into (TJ Maxx and Bed Bath & Beyond) simply because I did not want to go home. Being around my mother has become that awful.
It’s easy to take shit out on my mom when I’m stressed so I don’t want to have an incident with her that causes us to stop talking to one another just when I’m hoping to move out. But it’s clear to me that she’s having almost as hard a time being civil to me as I am with her.
Two women sharing a home, especially a kitchen, is not easy! She cannot stand to have a dirty dish sit on her counter top but allows food to basically rot and turn to slime in her fridge. (And who puts water on to boil on medium heat?)
She announced to my dad and I a month ago that she wants us to begin using the dishwasher instead of washing by hand because dishes get more sanitary that way. I agreed of course because this is her house. But I really hate dishwashers! I don’t mind loading them, but I hate unloading them. And if you forget to unload them then when you go to put a few dishes in there and find it full of clean ones, you have to stop and unload first.
But that’s not the part that really gets to me.
What gets to me is that now only she seems to be able to hand wash dishes. Yes, dad and I must use the dishwasher, but she has the choice to use it or not use it. And when she washes dishes by hand, I can assure you, based on the age and condition of her sponge, that they are dirtier when she is done washing than before. It’s disgusting. Don’t even get me started on how she uses the same sponge to clean the dog dishes.
I felt so humiliated for my dad this morning. She was on the phone when he woke up so he just went from bed to bathroom and started the shower. A couple of minutes later my mom comes into the hallway and says, “Eek.” I said, “What?” She said, “Well he just went right in there and I have to take my shower to get to an appointment.”
I’ll never understand why, when she wakes up at 5 a.m., she insists on taking her shower exactly 90 minutes before she must leave the house.
So when my dad gets out — picture this: he’s 80. He’s tired and only half awake. He’s sitting on the side of his bed trying to put socks on when she comes to his door.
“Next time when you wake up, go ahead and use the bathroom to go potty, but don’t take a shower until you’ve checked with me and my schedule. I should have told you last night when I needed to get in. It’s okay, because I’m only five minutes behind. It’s always okay to go potty because it can’t be helped. But next time check with me first before you shower.”
He said, “Okay.”
I would have said, “Fuck you.”
But that’s me.
When she was back in the bathroom he muttered something to me about being lectured by her and I said, ‘Yeah, because you’re four years old.”
I don’t like dissing my mom behind her back that way. It feels really wrong. But my god her behavior is shameful. I can’t figure out why a man like my dad, who had a fiery temper, could have taken this shit from her for all these years.
I said, “I’ve never seen a human being who is wound more tight.” He agreed.
I’ve got to get out of here. I’d really love to be out of here by the holidays but I sort of doubt I’ll get that lucky.
No doubt everything seems worse of late because of the uncertainty of my husband’s court case. I need to remember that and just hold on.
There are two phone calls I’d like to make this week and I’ll state them here so that maybe I’ll actually do them:
1. Call the pastor at the church I want to go to, to make an appointment to meet with him.
2. Call the small business development center to begin to start a relationship with them.
For now, I’ll get some clothes on, go buy some goggles, and get to the pool. I’ll probably spend hours after that doing anything in order not to come home and then at 5 p.m. there’s a StartUp Meetup group about financials I’m going to.
Gah. Breathe. Hold on.
Moving Liquid 