This is one thing I don't understand about adult group interactions of late. I will be involved in a conversation with the guys, and obviously engaged with them. I think my body language says I'm part of that interaction, and interested in staying that way. Then the other woman in the room (Kitty in this case) gets right in my face, and speaking only to me, starts a completely different conversation. That night she wanted to talk to me about coffee, and where to get a great cup in Chicago. To explain this she started detailing all the local shops, and which ones had good latte and which had good chai tea. She went on about this for nearly an hour, neatly seperating me from Forest and Wayne, while not allowing me a word in edgewise. A. I'm not a Chicagoan, and have no interest in where the coffee shops are. Giving me street names and directions for Chicago means about as much to me as street names in Prague. No clue. B. I don't drink coffee. I have no interest in it, no taste for it, and caffeine makes me ill.
Finally our waitress deigned to come check on our table, and the coffee monologue paused to complain about her ranch dressing not tasting right. After that I was able to tell her that I'm not a coffee drinker. That pretty much shut her up, however by that time I had no idea what Forest and Wayne were talking about, and was pretty much left to sit there in annoyed isolation for the rest of the evening.
Yes, I am a woman, and there are things about women that I love. This conversational seperationist thing, however, is not one of them.
After staying up so irrationally late on Thursday night, we settled ourselves in to the new sleeping arrangement at Wayne's. We used to sleep on a fold-out couch, but they got rid of that, so instead we tried to spoon on the one couch they had left. We didn't last like that for very long. I got squished between the back of Forest and the back of the couch, because our hips were falling in line with each other, and there just wasn't room. After a while of being too tired to do anything about it, I put my head with Forest's feet, and stuck my feet under his pillow. That was much better, and I'm pretty sure I slept nicely. Forest, however, got booted in the face one too many times, and woke up. So we ended up sleeping in shifts. I from 6am to 10am, Forest from 10 am to 2 pm.
Then at 3 PM we had breakfast, and realized that we'd slept away so much of the day that it wasn't possible to go to the Art Institute. We decided to hang out, shop a bit, and go to "Brew and View" to see some movies that night. We ended up basically hanging at Wayne's, because it was really cold outside, and then "Brew and View" had cancelled its movies for the evening in favor of having a live musical performance. We went out to the coffee shop and played cards and talked until another obscene hour, and then hit the sack. Forest slept on the love seat this time, not even attempting the couch idea. I can't say I blame him.
Saturday we got up at 6:30 in the morning, and were on the road by 7, so that we could be in Lansing in time to see Forest's family and go to the ice cream show.
I've been to trade shows before, but nothing quite like this. The vendors set themselves up in a big conference room, and then start handing out free food. It's a good thing we were starving, because it started out with pizza, then nachos. Then there were about a hundred ice cream booths, of every kind imaginable. There was fried chicken, candy, cake, and a million kinds of toppings. The whole idea is that you run through there and eat just about as much as you can. It was pretty fun, although Forest and I were both stuffed and ready for a nap by about 2 in the afternoon, which is just what we did.
Forest went to work, and honestly I wasn't lonely, because I tumbled into bed, and didn't wake up until our friends showed up to game. At least I was able to stay awake for the whole game that night, though!
I drove Forest in on Sunday, just to listen to our book-on-CD in the car. We're listening to Michael Crichton's latest book, Timeline, which is a really great book. There's just no good stopping place in it. Forest and I have been prone to drive around for an extra half hour just to finish a chapter, because it's so good. I guess that's the CD version of a page-turner. It's a fascinating novel about quantum travel through the multiverse. Leave it to Crichton, right?
I wanted to listen to the book all afternoon, but of course I didn't want to leave Forest back in chapter 12, so I restrained myself. After he got out of work and we drove about listening to the book some more, we went to help Will clean up his basement. We stuffed the dumpster in one trip, and they decided to play chess and then Tekken for the rest of their time together. I read Berkley Breathed's Outlands, which is terribly funny, and was content to amuse myself.
After that I drove Will to work, so that Forest could get to his friend Bridget's house earlier than planned. I was hoping that meant he'd come home earlier than planned, too, and we could have a bit of time together to end the weekend. This turned out to be the one true dissapointment of this week. Time crawled by, and he didn't come home. Instead of mutely going to bed and forgetting about it, I wrote a note about how I felt about it, stuck it in the door, and then went to bed. He called at about 1 AM to tell me he'd be in around 1:30.
Then when he came in, he read my note (I was asleep) and came in with a million apologies and feeling terrible, and didn't seem to want to listen when I said it wasn't as bad as all that.
Because really it wasn't. I spent lots of time with him, and even though there wasn't a lot of alone time, I was prepared for it, so it didn't shake me up. I had, however, been hoping for a bit on Sunday night, which was the only real disappointment of the weekend. I wasn't depressed, though, or sad, or anything, just disappointed. From his reaction you'd think I had told him he'd stabbed me or something. We've got to figure out some sense of proportion, here.
It happened last night, too. I said some annoying little thing that was supposed to be funny, but I guess it came off as a backhanded insult. He was incredibly hurt by it, and then I was hurt because he didn't want to talk about it, and we both ended up in tears. Happily we snuggled each other to sleep, and got over it. What is this, though? We don't set out to hurt each other, and this sort of petty dispute shouldn't bring either one of us to peices. Maybe we're just so close that we affect each other on a terribly personal level. Maybe I've just never been with a really sensitive person before, and it pains me more than anything in the world to hurt someone. Forest lets you know when he's hurt, no bones about it. I guess maybe I need to learn how to handle that.
I feel pretty good about things today. He went out with his sister last night, and I didn't see him until around midnight, but he at least was willing to have a hot shower and some conversation with me, which is really all I need to get by. (Pathetic, aren't I?) We had our stupid hurting each other bout, and then some really nice cuddling.
That's one thing that worried me this week. Up until just recently, there's been no limit to our displays of affection. As he's been becoming more and more burned out and tired all the time, he is in less and less a mood for snuggling, kissing, and so on. We have been out of rhythm with each other, when I've been in the mood to hold his hand, he hasn't been, and when he tried to hold mine, I didn't notice that he was reaching for me, because I was engrossed in other things. I have started to miss the little things like that.
I can't wait until he doesn't have to work at Olga's anymore. I keep hoping maybe that will make it better. He's just so tired all the time, and always feels like he should be doing something else with his time. I don't think he's taken an hour to himself since Christmas time. That's crazy, but I can't persuade him to lay off the schedule a bit. He is convinced we need the money (which I'm not so sure about), and insists that he doesn't need as much sleep as I think he does.
Judging by recent evidence, I think he's completely wrong on that point, but there's just no arguing him down on this one, believe me, I've tried. He's so stubborn on this point that he doesn't even want to go over the budget sheets with me, to see where we have extra money that just goes to waste. Hell, he could afford to quit one of his jobs just by coming home for a couple of meals a day, or packing them in the mornings instead of eating out. But I can't convince him of that if he won't sit down and look at it with me. We've been saying we're going to do this since last fall, and we never have. It's getting to be a point of irritation with me, especially since it causes other problems. I don't mind being responsible for paying most of the bills. I don't even mind the tedious and time-consuming process of planning the months ahead, and writing out all those checks every week. I *do*, however, hate the fact that I know I'm not that great at it, and that I know a lot of our money goes to waste because of it, and I'm relatively powerless to do anything about it.
This month I'm going to try to refinance my van (which I have had for a year at a ridiculously high interest rate) and pay off one of my student loans entirely. We could cut about $80 from our collective monthly bills by putting his car on the AAA insurance policy with the house and the minivan, instead of keeping it seperate. So far I'm talking about an extra $200 a month, and that's without even really trying. Less eating out would be a huge savings, as would less gas if we were willing to make the sacrifice of our freedoms and ride in together more often. Gas is a real pain in the ass when you have two vehicles and one of them is a minivan, and prices are the highest they've been in 20 years. I'm almost ready to trade the van in on one of those gas/electric combo cars that get 60 miles per gallon. Well, almost. I still love the comfort and safety of my van. It's nice not to ride with my knees higher than my navel.
I digress. The main point of all this rambling is that Forest is miserable because of his schedule and financial crap, and in the long run, this only makes me unhappy too. I am frustrated at this point, though, because he won't let me try to do anything about it, and he's not willing to change anything. So he enjoys making both of us miserable?
No, that's not it. I think that he honestly doesn't think he can change that. Once he's miserable, I think he feels that's the way he is, and there's no changing it. Every suggestion that I have (and many of them are good ones, damnit) he dismisses, because he doesn't think they will help. What makes him so unique in the world that things that make other people feel better can't possibly assuage his personal misery? Is it that precious a feeling, that he just wants to stay that way for want of any other inspiration at the moment?
I think you can't change things by just waiting for it to happen. If things aren't right, I fix them, or at least try to do something about it. I might fail, but at least I don't wallow about in unhappiness for weeks at a time. I understand that he might feel stuck in his current overworked rut, but it burns me no end that he won't even consider the alternatives.
What sucks most is that I ought to be able to talk to him about this, but every time I bring it up, he seems to get more irritated with me about it. He seems to think I just don't understand. Well, I'm not stupid, maybe I WOULD understand if he would talk to me about it. I think he doesn't want to, because he's worried he'll make me unhappy.
Aha! The journal reveals itself to be useful once more. I just realized that he is always condemning himself because he feels he makes me unhappy, but I don't think he sees that the real reason I'm unhappy is that *he* is unhappy.
I don't know that it changes anything, but it's an insight.
I love him dearly, and honestly wish we didn't have to go through this. Is this part of getting to know each other? Last night we reassured each other with many loving words, and promised each other that we'd work on it. How is it that we seem to have all the major stuff out of the way, like trust issues, personal compatibility, love, sex, openness, honesty, and then these little things pile up to form a road block?
We're just not good at being unhappy together. When one of us is down, the other one falls with him/her, and there just doesn't seem to be a good way back up again. That's not a good thing. In an ideal world we'd both always be happy, and there wouldn't be a problem here.
It tears me up, because I don't want to lose him in a heap of despair whenever life contrives to throw shit in his face. I don't want to lose him at all.
