I’ll warn you, this post is long. And not for the faint of heart. So if you don’t have time, or if you don’t have the courage to listen to me moping and whining & trying to unravel this yarnball a bit, then I would suggest turning around right now, and don’t look back! You have been warned!
So I'm driving back from Battle Creek after visiting Gadget (yup, that is his call sign. Found that out when we went flying with a friend of his a few weeks back. Boy, does it ever really fit him well! And I think I like that better than just EE as that describes him so much more fully) for the weekend and am just wondering if I can find a technology that will allow me to talk and have it convert it to text. When I am driving, is when I do most of my thinking. It gives me the ability, the space, to try to work out all of these thoughts and issues in my head. Things I want to write about, but typing takes so long, as I think so much faster. Or I forget by the time I sit down to post to the blog. Which, I’m sorry to say; I’ve not been very good at lately. So if this would work, that would be really, really cool! But overall, I have to say I’m pretty frustrated with it so far, as it will only go so long & then stop, it doesn’t understand a lot of my words, and some of the sentences come out very funny, or not at all.
Gadget had to go into work today, he wasn’t scheduled too, but then on Wednesday he had to stay 4 hours over, and then was told that he’d have to go in 4 hours on Sunday, which turned into a full shift on Sunday. So I just left the apartment but I don’t really want to go. Although I have to admit, this is the first weekend since he’s moved back, that I’ve not cried on the way home from leaving. Maybe I am getting used to it. Maybe it was just because it was still new that I cried. Maybe it just had to become a part of the routine.
We tried to breakfast together this morning, but I didn’t feel good last night & it carried over to today. So mostly he ate, and I tried not to look at food & sort of dozed off a couple of times. I felt awful for doing that. He was trying so hard to take care of me. I did manage to eat about 10 bites of oatmeal and I had an apple at the apartment earlier. And it all stayed down, so that was good. So when we got done, I laid down for a nap & he got ready to go to work. It was hard to have him leave. And I went to whole weekend without telling him I loved him. That made me feel horrible. I mean, I know he knows. I really try to show him more than tell him. But I think overall I’m more mushy gushy than he is. Sometimes I will say it and he will not say it back. It is hard, but then I have to remember that I’m saying it for me, not to hear it back. And sometimes he does and that just makes my heart soar.
So as I’m driving I realize that it has been almost a year since I first expected him to ask me to marry him. We were on our way home for Christmas, and we stopped at Coldwater to get a present for C, and I was kneeling down looking at some holsters and he mentioned that he had saved back a present for me so I would have one to open. And for whatever reason this feeling, a mixture of excitement and nervousness & chills, came over me that I was just so sure it was going to be a ring. But it wasn’t. It was a pair of beautiful pajamas. Then later on Valentine's Day; when we had been together for a year, how very disappointed I was because I thought for sure he would do it then. We had gone to Charley Creek Inn for dinner, I had excused myself to go to the restroom & when I came back he was fidgeting with something in his pocket. He pulled out this black velvet covered box, and my heart just jumped into my throat, I couldn’t think or breathe. And it struck me that it was the wrong size. And when I opened it, I remember being so very disappointed to find earrings, instead of a ring for my finger. And then I’m trying to contain that feeling so that he wouldn’t see, or know. I love those earrings, and wear them frequently. They are also a reminder of what I was thinking, and then I kick myself every time that I would have the nerve to think he would do that. Who am I to think that anyone is ever going to want to marry me?
And it’s not like we haven’t had many different talks about it how he feels over the past few months as we’ve been working through this move & all the changes it brings. Like not being sure whether he wants to be dad again, and what all the right answers are to his questions on what he really wants to do in his life, and what he wants in his life. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am more of interference than anything. I know he likes his solitude & being with me would not bring more of that. He is just so used to being on his own; doing things by himself that he really doesn’t know how to do it with someone else. I get that.
Now he is living in Battle Creek again, which means one of us driving 2 hours each way each weekend to see each other is another complication I suppose. But yet those days during the week gives him the space & time he needs. But then if I’m always going up there, I don’t get the time around my house to do what needs done. So that gets frustrating. And his house needs a whole lot of work now. And now he finally has the time to do it. D is still living there, and is working 3rd, Gadget is working 2nd, so the timing of when they are both awake & he’s able to do the work, doesn’t match up. And he really wants to get the remodeling done. So he’s hoping the noise encourages him to move out.
And I can’t help but think, maybe he’s holding off until D is out of the house & he’s got it remodeled, because then he’d have a place for us to come to and it wouldn’t be the chaos that it is right now. Between trying to get his house down here rented, finding D a house, having to live in the apartment, and trying to get the house fixed I know it all has him crazy.
But it is hard to hope. I want to very badly to hope, and believe that it is going to happen, but it is very scary. I’m tired of being hurt & disappointed all my life. And I want it so very badly. It’s scary to think how badly I want it too. I'm afraid to admit that out loud because of course I don’t want to jinx it & I am very afraid that it's never really going to happen. So I end up not really knowing what to think or feel.
Sometimes Cheryl and I talk about how thinking proceeds to doing and so I would really like to know what the right things are to think so that I'm thinking the right things and doing the right things; making smart decisions not just setting myself up for failure. I know that I just need to go on like it's going to happen & I just need to get into the frame of mind. I just keep telling myself that positive thoughts lead to positive actions and that negative thoughts lead to negative actions. Most of my life has been a negative playlist in my head. I need to change playlists.
So every day, practically, since last Christmas, and especially since Valentine’s Day, I've been wondering if today was going to be the day. When we would go someplace and I think though this would be lovely place for him to ask me and then not be disappointed when it didn’t happen. It is so hard to admit to the disappointment and still try to tell myself that it's okay if that doesn't really matter and that need to be thankful and grateful for all the blessings I have in my life. That I have this incredibly awesome man who loves me and that doesn't really need to be anything more than that right now. Just enjoy where I am right now and be thankful for where I am right now and take my time.
I know that he's trying to make the right decisions, the right choices, for not just himself but also me & the boys. Yet sometimes that thought gets supplanted with the fear. The playlist that says “this is so very frustrating because it seems like he is no different from any other man, none of them really want or are willing to be bothered to raise somebody else's children. But we are a package deal and why do I have to wait my whole life without somebody just because I had children with the wrong person. Sometimes I feel like I am being punished for that. That I'm not ever going to be able to have a husband again until the boys are out of school. It is hard to say that it's okay to wait that long because honestly, I just don't want to.” And then it goes on to say “It just seems like life is never about what I want it's about what everybody else wants. My life & my wants & needs just have to take a back seat to everyone else’s. That I’m never going to get a turn, what I want doesn’t matter.” It gets so frustrating; makes me so very angry because I like to think that what I want & need do matter, that it is important and that what I want really isn’t asking all that much.
