An inexplicably strange weekend

I have no idea what was wrong with me this weekend. Much of the time, I just felt 'off', and I don't know why. Friday was okay. I took care of Kirstin's violin, then dropped Forest off at work, before going home until it was time to pick him up.

Actually, looking back on it, I can't recall the period between dropping him off and picking him up very well. Perhaps this is part of the problem. I'm centering all of my plans around when I'm dropping Forest somewhere, and when I'm picking him up, and I'm not thinking about making my non-Forest life a sane one. I *do* exist when Forest isn't around. I need to be better about making plans for myself. Most days I know his schedule inside and out, but I have no idea what I'm doing after I've dropped him off somewhere. Even if it was just "Saturday night while Forest's at work I will be at home cleaning the house" it would be more forethought than I have otherwise been doing. Lately I drop him off, and then I sit in the car wondering what I ought to do next. It's pathetic.

So I suppose that's item number one of the reasons I feel 'off'.

Saturday was an exceedingly hectic one. I drove Forest to work in the morning, then drove back to Eaton Rapids to immediately pick Kirstin up and drop her at my mom's house in Onondaga so that I could go to a bell rehearsal in West Lansing and then a symphony rehearsal in East Lansing. I spent a rather tiring afternoon, between my duties with my bell choir and helping my mom and Karen chaperone their 90 3rd and 4th grade participants. It's a neat experience for everyone concerned, and I'm glad we did it; but it is also rather stressful. Basically, they put about 250 elementary school age kids in the Passant Theatre, which is adjacent to the backstage area of the Great Hall, where the symphony is rehearsing. They schedule the kids to be there at 2:00, and warm up at 2:45. The symphony starts rehearsing at the beginning of the concert, and plays through at its own pace, regardless of the needs of the kiddies. By the time the kids got to the stage, it was almost 4 PM. That's a LONG LONG LONG sit for 250 kids who've been told to stay in their seats and be quiet, and have no other source of diversion. The adult chaperones (myself included) are hard-pressed to keep things under control.

Between obligations I managed to make little baggies of pretzels and M&M's for all the kids to have on the bus ride back to Eaton Rapids. I was proud of myself, and felt rather like a PTA-mom-for-a-moment, but then it was over, and all I really wanted to do was get some serious adult company. There's nothing like a hundred or two little kids to make you think that an evening at the bar sounds appealing.

Instead, I had promised Kirstin we'd go do some Christmas shopping, if she'd been good (which she was). We went to Lansing Mall, and it was extremely busy, but we didn't have to wait in long lines or anything. We started out by going to Olga's, and having a bit of dinner before Forest got too busy. He's been having a bad time at work lately. The manager is screwing up the schedule, and giving certain people the good shifts, and certain people crappy awful ones that no one in their right mind would work. Then he schedules too many waiters and waitresses at a time, so that everyone gets tiny sections and no one makes any money. It sucks. So, seeing Forest was good, but not-so-good, because he was pretty unhappy. I wish there was anything I could do that would make his life happier.

I guess that's the thing number two that's making me feel 'off'. Forest's been down a lot lately, and I can't do anything about it, because it has nothing to do with me. Circumstances have conspired against him. He's stuck at Olga's with a crappy manager, he doesn't have a driveable car; plus the city wants to tow it away. He hasn't gotten to see his friends in a couple of weeks, largely because of the transportation situtation, and I don't think the cold weather and constant snow are helping the situation any. When he's unhappy, I have to work hard to remember that it's not me he's unhappy with. Most of the time I can do that, but I'm not so good at it when other things are bothering me.

Kirstin did a great job shopping, and we got a lot of things accomplished. We ended up at the mall until it was time for Forest to go home, which was alright with me. I had hoped that we would be able to relax together and have some fun, but Forest wanted a hot bath (I can't say as I blame him) and while he was in there, I fell asleep on the couch. He ended up putting me to bed, and then staying up by himself to read and play Final Fantasy and just chill out. I'm bummed out that I missed time with him, and also that the time that he got to spend alone, just relaxing, didn't seem to improve his overall outlook at all.

Sunday morning we got up for the requisite Sunday breakfast with his family, and hopefully a nice family holiday-type day. I'd been looking forward to Sunday all week, because to my thinking, the concert at Wharton would only take up a few hours of the day, and we would be able to put up our Christmas tree, and decorate our house, have hot cocoa, and generally have a pleasant time together.

Alas, it was not to be. We went to breakfast as planned, and from there Forest had to go with his dad to work on the car, and sent me home to clean the house. No, he didn't 'send' me anywhere. I had a choice. I could have gone and hung around at the Store while he was working on the car for a while, but then Kirstin couldn't have worked on her homework, so that was out.

Rather unhappily, I went home, and determinedly cleaned the house. This was not what I wanted to be doing on my day off when I was already feeling like I had no down-time to my name and unknowingly had been neglecting my own sanity of late. Still, I focused my mind on the idea of having a nice neat home in which to put our Christmas tree that evening, and everything was okay. Kirstin worked on homework, I scrubbed and picked up and vacuumed. Our house actually looks pretty nice now.

We rushed to the car, picked Forest up, and went to the Wharton Center, where I rushed around like a madperson making sure I didn't miss my cues with the bell choir, and still chaperoning the insane amount of children in the Passant.

The show went well. I enjoy performing at Wharton, and this was no exception. I remotely wished, though, that I could have been in the audience, holding Forest's hand, and trying to get into the Christmas spirit. There were lovely carols, and lots of other holiday-themed things, and it was all stuff that I would really have liked to have watched. From backstage, though, the view was decidedly limited. Still, the timing worked out so that I had one precious, happy moment of peace. I was standing in the wings directly next to the stage, hauling our bell table to the 'ready' position, and found that I had a perfect, uninterrupted view of Kirstin in the children's choir, singing "Somewhere in my Memory" from Home Alone. The kids did a great job, and all I could do was smile, and watch as my munchkin did her thing. Right near her was my mom, and up a few rows was Karen, with her Union Street choir. Aren't I a sap? It's the one minute I remember standing still and taking the time to be happy all weekend.

Our part of the concert went very well. We were actually early getting onstage, but I don't think that mattered to anyone; and it was the stage manger's fault, not ours. Our piece of music was very challenging and up-tempo, and I had the melody most of the time, and got to do some flashy stuff and stand on the very edge of the stage, down center. It was fun, but I was working too hard to really get to enjoy it! It was neat, though, that I was so close to the edge of the stage that I could see the people and a lot of little kids smiling up at me from the audience. Theatre doesn't have that effect very often; but with music, if you are playing something particularly joyful, people just BEAM at you. It's cool. We were playing a rollicking, rip-roaring version of Go Tell it on the Mountain , which was joyful indeed.

At the end of the concert, we also got to go out and sing in the carolling part, and I always enjoy singing. After all of the kids were safely back with the parents and all of the bells were put away, Forest and I realized that it was far too late at night to go get our tree. The tree farm we use every year is owned by friends of the family, and I'd feel pretty bad about buying a tree anywhere else. They close at sunset, though, and we weren't ready to leave Wharton until after dark. Karen, Jim, Forest, Kirstin and I went out for pizza together. It was pleasant, and I had a good time, but I kept thinking that I wished we'd had a chance to get our tree; but at least we'd get to spend a nice hour or two together as a family before Kirstin's bedtime. I thought maybe we would decorate, or put up our lights at least.

After we got in the car to go home, Forest fell asleep in a big way, and so did Kirstin. I was rather tired myself, but listened to Christmas music on the stereo, and determinedly drove us all home. Upon getting there, I had a sinking feeling that the evenings revelry was not meant to be. Forest was snoring, and so was Kirstin. I was able to wake Kirstin right away, and sent her inside, where she started working on her math homework. Then I commenced to trying to wake Forest up. This is never an easy task. I thumped, poked, patted, and shook. I cajoled, called, whispered, teased. I started to get really cold, and tried letting cold air into the van, tried talking more loudly, and insistently. I tried an impression of his dad's voice, and tried blasting the car stereo. Nothing.

This had been 15 minutes. I began to get distressed. The idea of leaving him out there asleep in the car for the whole night was mortifying to me; but at the same time, I didn't know if he would rather not be disturbed. I decided that for my own conscience's sake, I had to get him inside. I walked around to his side of the car, and opened the door. He instinctively covered himself with his coat. Shouting on top of my lungs, I tried to wake him, shaking his shoulder with my now ice-cold hand. No luck. I patted his cheek, and he smiled, murmured something, and rolled away from me. FInally, still making as much noise as I could, I pulled back his coat. THAT woke him up, and he was mad at me. He said I yelled at him *after* he was awake. I have no idea whether I did nor not; I surely was frustrated with him at that point, and was concentrating on being as noisy as possible. I remember he snapped at me that he was fine as long as he had his coat on, and I snapped back that if we was going to sleep, he should do it inside where it was warm. He went inside. I followed.

I guess a small third reason why I feel 'off' is that Forest and I haven't been sleeping in synch all weekend. He naps in the car. I don't get to, because I'm driving. Then I sleep all night, and he doesn't. It sucks.

So then Forest was mad at me, and I was needing affection and wanting a warm, Christmassy night at home, putting up Christmas decorations. I knew that even if I could get cooperation from him, the spirit I was craving just wasn't there at the moment, and Kirstin hadn't finished her math homework yet, to boot. It was now almost her bedtime anyway.

I ended up being bitterly disappointed, and not being able to handle it with any degree of aplomb. I have no idea how, but I managed to lose it altogether and cried about it, until Forest had to hug me and tell me that it's okay, and I can't always get everything I want. That's the way life goes.

Well, I KNOW that. I don't understand why I can't deal with it sometimes. I guess I was stressed out in the first place, and this was all just too much for me. Christmas is a big deal to me, you know. I love it. I like to have Christmas happening in my house from right after Thanksgiving until New Year's; pretty much the whole month of December. I like Christmas lights, candles, and music. They are homey and comforting to me, and I miss them during other parts of the year. Mostly, though, I remembered what a nice night Forest, Kirstin and I spent last year, sipping cocoa and decorating our tree, and I really wanted us to do that again. It's not going to happen now, though. Kirstin's going back to her dad's house, and won't be back with us until the weekend of Christmas, and then only when she's not at one family gathering or another.

I just feel like we blew it this year, and it's my fault, for being so damn busy all the time, and not getting my shit together sooner.

Thing that's bothering me number four: my current lack of organization.

Forest plunked himself down in the easy chair, and stared off into space for a while, waiting for me to decide which movie we were going to watch. He had offered to put up Christmas decorations if it would make me happy, but I wanted that to be an activity that made us ALL happy, not just me. With his stiff speech and frowning face, I didn't think he felt like doing anything like that. He wasn't being affectionate toward me at all, and even after he'd promised that he wasn't mad at me anymore, he didn't seem to be terribly interested in extreme warm cozy gooiness.

So we put in Shakespeare in Love. Determined to cheer up, I tried my darnedest to let go of my high-flung ideas for the evening's plans. We folded laundry while we watched the movie, and when that was done, Forest went and got a book, which he wanted to read but hadn't had time. I offered to pause the movie for him, but he didn't want me to.

To me, that's not the same thing as doing something together. We're not sharing an experience at that point, we're just sharing a couch. Last night I was too determined to cheer up to let that bother me, though. We do that a lot lately, and I don't know how I feel about it. We'll cuddle up on the couch, and I'll read my book while he plays Final Fantasy, or vice versa. In a way, it's sort of nice. In a way, though, it's not a unified experience. It's strange.

By the end, though, he put the book away, and we snuggled for a bit, and I began to feel as though everything was okay. Forest began to warm up to me again, and we smilingly put Bill Nye the Science Guy on, and stayed there in a snuggly pile through PowerPuff Girls and Space Ghost. This time we managed to go to bed together, which made me feel a lot better about things.

This morning was rough, though. I hadn't had a chance to think things through, and was very, very tired. It didn't really feel like we had a weekend, since we were so busy the whole time. Forest was tired, too, having awakened many times during the night with strange dreams he couldn't remember later. I expressed my concerns to him.

I'm worried because this weekend I felt out of control of my emotions for the first time in forever. Things weren't going the way I wanted them to, so I lost it, like a spoiled 2-year-old. Where was my sense of perspective? Where was my BRAIN? I just don't understand why that happens sometimes.

I told Forest that I was worried that we might fall into the same miserable pattern we experienced for a little while last winter; he was depressed, and I freaked out, and between the two of us, we about drove each other nuts until we weren't depressed and freaked out anymore. I don't want us to lose our whole holiday season to that sort of nastiness. He sort of smiled at me, and assured me that we'd be okay, and he understood my concern.

I have to remind myself that I can handle it when Forest is depressed. I can. I might displease him, the world might displease him, and he'll still be my honey and still love me. Even when he's mad at me, he tells me he loves me. When he's depressed he's not as affectionate or as attentive as usual. I can handle that, too. He's still a very loving man, even when he's down. I'm just overreacting to small changes. Yeah.

My friend Kevin called with a job possibility for me on Saturday, but I ended up running into the manager at Natural Wonders that evening, who apologised profusely and asked me to give her one last chance. Since she was so accommodating as to schedule me on the spot, and basically let me pick whatever shifts I wanted, I agreed. I'm working on Thursday night during Forest's Judo class, and Saturday evening while he's working at Olga's. I'm hoping to keep that coordinated so that I don't work during Forest's free time.