Kate... uncensored

No fitting title. no pretty words.

I'm not sleeping, I'm feeling insecure.  I'm once again over-analyzing and unable to empty out my brain.

I have this urge to crawl out of my own skin.  To get out and run away from myself.

Holiday visit wrapup

This holiday season I learned:
 - It's not a good Christmas unless somebody cries - as opposed to childhood when it was a good Christmas if nobody did.

- My mother thinks I left because I was bored.

- My brother is, as always, hysterical.

- There will inevitably be a leftover, non-tagged, wrapped present somewhere in my parents house, forgotten about. And someone will have to open it to determine what it is.

- "Just from Daddy" presents are not as good when Dad gets stumped for ideas.

- The guest bed at my sister's is bliss with blankets.

- The less you have time and privacy to "take care of business" the more you're bothered by weird sex dreams.

- Some cookies will never taste the way they did when you were a kid.

- The Detroit airport is as bad as I remembered when it comes to connecting flights.

- Kisses at midnight on new year's eve are just as good, if not better, without champagne, horns & funny hats.

Insert annoyed groan here

I love my father.

I hate that because he lost his job he has nothing better to do than sit around all day thinking of ways to "fix" my life.

I hate that he calls my husband to give him a talking to and that he does so because apparently my husband's father called him.

Then my father calls me and informs me he will be calling later tonight with my mother to speak to me.

My wedding night would have been much stranger with my father and father in law there.

Whining

Turn back now.  Run even, in whatever direction will get you away from the whining...

Because this type of whining and bitching is purely driven by me being emotional and most of it is completely irrational.

I may or may not want to complain about the fact that I have to wake up early and put my husband on a bus to Memphis.  He was supposed to travel last week, but wanted to be here when I got back from NY.

So instead, he changed his ticket to leave tomorrow morning. 

You ask, why am I whining?  Don't I like when my husband leaves town?  Why yes, I do, as a matter of fact.  

But tomorrow is my birthday, (which I wouldn't normally advertise) and I'm bummed about spending it alone.   Because while spending it with my husband wouldn't be special - since he has never made a show of it,  never bought me a gift or initiated a dinner or anything, it has to beat sorting and packing and feeling sorry for myself.

Woe is me.  (I'm rolling my own eyes here)

This post may be deleted later as I realize how pathetic this sounds...

All Saints Day

I'm not a saint.

I've been called one dozens of times; as recently as Saturday actually.

People assume it takes a saint to be married to someone with a disability.  Sure there are times it absolutely sucked, but I always scoffed at the idea.  "Oh, you're husband is blind? You must be a saint!"

(Although, in truth, there should totally be a patron saint for those married to the blind)

I didn't marry my husband for noble reasons.

I didn't care for my grandmother, my father or my siblings to be seen as "good".

I didn't help my friends and their children to be saintly.

I like the feeling I get when I can do something random to make someone smile.  People I know and care about have received everything from flowers to groceries, diapers to cakes, dinners to tires, a massage appointment or a lawn mowed - because I care.  The majority of the time, they never know I have anything to do with it, because I don't want or need thank yous or misplaced worries of having to repay the favor.

If it beats out all the wrong I've done and my saintly moves get me into heaven - so be it.  If I knew it wouldn't help, I'd still do it.

For each person I've done something for, I'd like to think they've done something for someone else, which inside my heart, helps me. 

Trifecta

Anyone else have bad news?

I know it can come in threes, like death and natural disasters.

Here, preparing myself for breaking my own bad news, I hear some from my family.

They gathered tonight to greet me hello.  Unfortunately, they were cranky by the time I drove in after I spent two hours stopped behind an accident in Ohio.  When they leave, my mother makes a drive by announcement that they have bad news to tell me.  My sister tells her that she'll tell me so Mom, Dad and Brother leave.

Dad got let go from his job today. 

Perfect timing, universe.   Thank you ever so much.

All that's left is a band of gold... or not.

As we sat in the waiting room, paperwork filled out, anticipating the called name that would take him away for his MRI - I took his watch, his cross and held my hand out for his wedding ring.

Which he wasn't wearing.

Which I haven't noticed he hasn't been wearing.

Since July, apparently.

I reacted. Wait, forget that, I overreacted.

I asked him when he stopped wearing it and he answered. 

He started to offer some other words, but I shushed him on account of the eight or so other people in the waiting room.

They called his name and I was free of him for thirty minutes.

I used the restroom, I got a bottle of water, I returned a phone call and I paced a bit. 

Returning home, he retreated to his office to catch up on the work he missed by making the appointment.  I went into my bedroom to read and relax.  I decided to not start the conversation, I felt too emotional.  I have felt raw since Thursday and his subsequent return from out of town.  Shortly after reading I fell asleep.  I remember standing just long enough to strip and crawl back under the covers.  Next thing I knew, it was 5:30 a.m. and he was up.

Upon reflection, I think, was my reaction based on guilt?  That somehow I've not noticed his left hand?  It's amazing how you see someone everyday without seeing them.  (Yes, please feel free to insert the blind joke here)

Or is it anger?  If he has given up, enough to quit wearing his ring, why did I not know?  And if he's been done since July, then what the fuck am I still doing here?

Shock and balls

Funny how you can know someone and at the same time be surprised by them.  Some people don't seem to have the ability to shock you.  Perhaps you know them too well, or maybe you can predict the things they'll do or say before they have the ability to do or say them.

After a late night text saying "I love you!" and the inevitable analyzing that brings, I decide to suck it up and email him.  I don't have much of a voice these days, and I think I need the chance to review what I'm saying rather than blurting it via voice mail.

(And what is it about being able to write what you cannot bring yourself to voice?)

In reply, Wednesday, I get an email from the Other.  Talks about everything under the sun.  Everything except the text he sent me last Friday night.  Somewhere in the context of this email is a thinly veiled invitation to have a threesome with him and new girlfriend.

Yes, in my head I hear tires screeching.  I feel a sense of whiplash as I go back and re-read the last part of his email. 

I'm not sure many men would have the balls to broach such a topic.  Sure, thinking and fantasizing about a threesome with your current girlfriend and a woman you still consider a friend who never really gave herself a label. 

But, really? 

Sure, I'm a very open woman.  I've never hid from you my predilections, you're well aware of my interest in women and my willingness to bring in the right third person if enough thought is put behind it.  We talked about other women plenty of times and I teased you about it. 

But, REALLY?

You know I still care about you.  We can both ignore it and I can act perfectly normal hearing about your new woman.  I can hold in my comments when you tell me about her past, her present.
I can pretend I wasn't hurt when you admitted you were drunk when you sent the text, whatever that means. 

But, Other, really?!

I did call to respond to that email, but got voice mail and couldn't bring myself to leave a message.  He's lucky I'm so far away, and I can't figure a way to slap him across the face from so far south. 

Oddly enough, that was not my only offer of group sex that day... 

The world revolves around me

Things that leave me perplexed:

- Why so many people search for "bad wife" and end up here.  I am so not the worst wife.  There's got to be someone worse.  I wonder, if it's bad as in undesirable, or bad as in misbehaved.  Bad is too loose a term.

- How one broken window can cost so much money.

- How can you black out if you're blind? They need a new term, since this one doesn't really work for them.  When the doctor asked my husband if the room went black, I started laughing hysterically.  Which does nothing to help a bad cough.

- Speaking of coughs, why does medicine that puts everyone else into a drowsy state leave me feeling chatty?

- Why you'd be interested enough to read the entire archives here.  Several people have recently, and while I admire and thank you for your dedication, I'm curious, why?

- Why I have such a disdain lately for being dressed. Along those lines, why am I so ramped up?

- Why the Other called Friday.  Oh yeah, and the doozy - Why the Other sent a text late Friday / early Saturday.

                I love you!

Hear that? It's my head, hitting the desk.

Broken window, broken wife

Here we are, on a Thursday evening.   Both a little quiet, save for coughing fits. He,watching football, me, reading.  The book - The Marriage Benefit.

I think to myself, how I could try to work harder on things.  I could make this better.  I could work enough for both of us.  I'm too hard on my husband.   I should be kinder, more generous, able to overlook problems...

Then?

This:

He fell into the window.

Back to bitch in two seconds flat.