I was so determined....

...to get up at a reasonable hour (noon), but at 5am I was still awake without not a droopy eyelid in sight. So I kept reading. I don't know what time I got to sleep. The sun was up, that's for sure. And I woke up at 6:30pm. And I was pissed. Again.

I had a laundry list of things to do today, and I felt like since it was already dark, there was no point in even attempting to get anything done. And the hours awake loomed ahead of me. How to fill those hours.

And then I decided, you know what? fuck it, I'm taking a shower and running those errands--I have 3 hours to get them done--and I can make it. Phone calls that need to be made during biz hours, well, we'll try again tomorrow, but for today? We're not giving up.

So I showered including washing my hair (first time since Saturday), got dressed, made coffee, fixed a to-go mug, let one cat out, hugged the others, and headed out to pick up prescriptions at two different pharmacies.

I made it. I got all three prescriptions. I also was able to pick up a couple of things I needed at the store, and I still had time to go to Trader Joe's and get some dinner. And dessert. I knew I needed a dessert.

There was the 24 Karat Cake (carrot cake); Opera Cakes (not sure what these were but they looked yummy and came in chocolate, chocolate caramel, and raspberry vanilla bits); chocolate ganache cake, and chocolate covered panettone w/Italian cream interior.

I almost bought them all.

But I was too embarrassed that the cashier might wonder why I needed so many desserts. So I picked one: The Panettone. It was frozen, so it's been defrosting since about 9:30pm. It will be ready, shortly.

I also bought a bottle of champagne. I love champagne and have decided to drink it more for casual occasions. It's just sparkling wine.

So today was a better day, and changing my attitude helped a lot. I got a lot done.

My list for tomorrow is still long, but hey, it's better than being dead, right?

Just Have Me Euthanized

Aww fuck me. Today sucked on so many levels. This sleeping late, this is no longer funny, not that it ever was.

I missed a client meeting today at noon, a client phone call, two emails, and sunlight.

I couldn't sleep last night, I was up until 5am, I finally was able to fall asleep, and I turned my alarm off when it came on at 10:30am, emailed the client and asked if we could move until 1pm, went back to sleep, and the next thing I knew it was dark, and 6:30pm.

F*CK.

F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.F*CK.

What is going on with me? I mean, I slept like I'd been drugged, and I was groggy when I woke up, tripping and falling all over the place, and I called one clinet back and gave her my maiden name instead of my married name. WTF?

And I dreamed all night about my ex-husband. He was in prison, and he got out sometime last year (I saw his picture on his daughter's facebook page). I feel of two minds about that--hooray for him!! and Crap, what if he's mad at me? I left him in 1996 when it became clear that he wouldn't be getting out any time soon, and yeah, I'd met someone else by then. I hung in for eight years, visiting him in the joint, but he told me two whopping big lies that related to who he really was and how much time he would probably do....and I made a better choice for me--to live life outside of prison and a husband who lived there. And I think it was the right choice. But I still love him. I hope he finds happiness. It's hard for me not to reach out to him, but it's such a bad idea on so many levels. Bad. Idea.

Picking up the pieces of my shit day and moving on. But I'm so upset I'm shaking a little bit.

Gah.

Tired, Sleepy, Tired, WTF?

Wow, I just deleted my first spam comment. Heh.

I'm tired. I mean...sleepy can't stay awake tired.

I just feel exhausted, energyless, pooped, wiped, laid out.

I don't know why, but it's starting to scare me a bit. I've slept the greater part of the last 36 hours.

I accept that I am depressed, and maybe more depressed than I accept, but the sleeping seems to be more about something going on in my body.

I'm taking all my medications, I'm watching what I eat, I'm not exercising because, well, I'm TIRED, but maybe it would help? I don't know. When it takes me 3 hours to screw up the energy or fortitude to go out and get the mail? That's too much.

I have insurance, maybe I should just go to the doctor? I'm going monthly at this rate.

I'm hungry, have been hungry since 5:30pm, but I haven't gotten up to fix something.Oy.

Money=Control

I had a wild thought cross my mind this evening--What would I do if a few thousand dollars suddenly showed up in my life?

My first thought, my very first thought--I'm not kidding--was to...

1. Hire packers and movers to pack my shit and get me out of here before the weekend
2. Go to my favorite town and rent a little house
3. Leave a note and the crappy couch.

I was euphoric...for about a minute.

Magical thinking is sometimes hurtful, but it can also produce the truth.

I know it did in this case.

Pity and guilt is nothing to base a marriage on.

A Confession

I've wanted to tell this to someone for a long, long time, but eventually boxed it up, crated it, and stored it in the corner of my mind that does not think about those things.

When I got married a little over six years ago, I told my soon-to-be husband to put aside about $600-$800 to pay for the reception site. We got a deal on it because a friend of ours was a member of the location. He was then working in Los Angeles, working 80 hours a week or more, making about $3,000- a week, after taxes. Too bad it was a temp position.

At any rate, the day of the wedding came, we married, we partied and ate cake, and when it was time to go, the venue manager wanted a check. Well, the last thing I remembered to do before I left for our wedding some nine hours earlier was put a check in my bra or my wedding purse. I told her I would get one to her in the morning. Our generous neighbors offered to drop it off for us, so they followed us home, took the check, and dropped it for us the next day.

My husband freaked out when he saw the bill, just over $600-. Why? He didn't put the money aside. Indeed, he barely had enough to cover the cost of our wedding night hotel, which was about $200-. Why didn't he put the money aside? I don't know. The more I get to know him, the less I understand him.

We received about $600- in wedding cash and checks. I went through all the cards at our hotel when my new husband left me in our hotel suite to track down his cell phone.

I had to deposit that money the very next day so my check for the wedding venue wouldn't bounce. I was so embarrassed. I didn't even tell my MIL who I was very close to at the time.

And we didn't have a honeymoon--he had to get on a plane the next evening to go back to work.

I should have ran then and there, far far away, but I didn't. And I regret it.

Weekend Arguing

My husband spent the weekend ranting and raving about money, and essentially made me feel like an albatross around his neck. That made me very angry. It was just non-stop bellyaching about all the bills--did I bitch like this when I was working and he wasn't? No, no I did not. I have a job, technically, but payment is a little slow in coming because I'm freelancing. And he's pissed he's stuck with all the bills--even though, evidently, we overspent this month by taking a short trip to visit his parents in California. The trip was his idea.

Why do I expect a college graduate to keep track of his finances? I keep forgetting that "this" guy, doesn't operate like regular people.

Sunday morning he got up and hollered from the bathroom, "why don't you brush your teeth?" Code for "Let's have sex."
I hollered back, "Why?"
There was no comment after that.
He got back in bed, curled up next to me and said, "If the answer is no, just tell me no."
And I thought about it and then I said, from my heart, "It's very hard for me to find fondness for you in my heart when you make me feel like this huge burden around your neck."

And then he starting in with the whining and complaining again.

Really, really, really tired of that.

Then he rolled over the other way, and I could hear him crying. It's a horrible thing to hear a grown man cry and think you're the cause of it, even though it's his behavior that is coming back to slap him in the face. He cannot make the connection between his behavior and my reaction to it.

This guy can't even go to the grocery store on his own. He follows me around like a dog. I quit sending him on errands to pick up stuff because he can never find it. I walk over and there it is--he doesn't look or see or something. So he follows behind me like a toddler while I shop. Then we come home and I cook him five lunches and four dinners for his job out of town. He can't cook, and there is nowhere for him to eat where he works, so we've got this down to a science. But I resent it. He treats me like I'm some money-sucking pain in the ass, and yet he can't really function without me.

It's just a dysfunctional relationship all the way around. I hate it.

Almost

I almost sat my husband down and told him--I'm out of here as soon as I get some money.

Almost.

Now I just want to strangle him. Can I?

Guess What?

when I mentioned in the last post that it was "like she didn't even read my emails?" I was right! She hasn't been reading my emails and thus the communication problem. She went ahead and greenlighted my use of "stopleak," so I'm going to move ahead with the project. $85- an hour for installation. That's what I'm talking about, baby. ;-)

Well, once the client signs their contract. She may balk. We'll see. I hate to do any work without a signed contract, but I am learning/remembering more

So there's that.

Want to hear a secret? I haven't had a shower since Saturday. I'm still in my jammies from two days ago. What? This blog is partially about my depression...and here it is! In all its glory!!

Work

I have a job. A strange job. It allows me to work at home, keep my own hours, and work at my own pace. Of course, the longer I take, the longer it takes for me to get paid. I'd rather not say what my work is here.

I work for two owners of a business. One of the owners is older and has memory problems. Even worse than mine. She sends me things, says things to me, or responds to my emails as if she had not read my email at all. For example, let me try to re-create an email conversation we recently had:

Her: Do you mind washing, waxing, and cleaning the windows of the car, and vacuuming the interior for a new client?
Me: Not at all. I'm don't normally do the windows, but I'm fine doing it--I can do it.
Her: So can you change the spark plugs and swap out the transmission?
Me: Well, I could, but I've never done it before. Last time I worked on a transmission I just got some of that stopleak and that seemed to solve the problem fine.
Her: Oh, good, so then you can do it.
Me: I can, but I don't know what I'm doing. I can try the stopgap measure....
Her: No, that won't work, it has to be a new transmission to keep from slipping and lagging....
Me: I still don't know how to do that....
Her: I left some instructions for you (in our cloud files)
Me: (they're not there now what?)

WTF? It's like she doesn't read my emails at all.

????

Then I get an email from someone I've never met who is designing the paint job for the car, and they tell me that this boss will be swapping out the transmission. Huh. The same boss that keeps saying, "I thought you were doing it?" In response to my "Idon'tknowwhatthefuckI'mdoing."

ARGH.

I'm frustrated.

On a previous project, I submitted an invoice and a request for work on the customer's web site, and she writes the client "introducing herself," despite the fact that before I worked on his car, she had introduced him to me, she had vetted him has a client, before offering me the project. She forgot. And I was embarrassed for her. I told her, "There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it, but you have met John and you introduced him to me...."

It's weird.

Successful People

The first thing successful people do upon achieving that success, is shuck any excess baggage that might drag them down or back to where they were, whether that's monetarily, psychologically, spiritually, whatever.

I am in the process of being shucked.

I had a friend who I had a lot in common with. A LOT. And this friend recently achieved a large degree of professional success. We also had a disagreement, the first and only one, over something stupid, and now this person is going out of their way to make sure I know how wrong they think I am. And no longer important in their life.

And it hurts.

Oh it's nothing done directly; it's all passive aggressive on their blog. Plausible deniability and so on. "Oh, I wasn't directing that at you...." Uh-huh. I hate passive/aggressive people. So petty and small.

I miss my friend. But I don't think they'll be coming back. And that's too bad.

And my husband? Why do I have this urge to pack a suitcase and run, far far away every time I spend any amount of time with him in a domestic setting?

How did women get away from their husband's in the past when they had no income of their own? Can a divorce attorney force him to keep paying the bills where I/we live? I don't know what to do. I want out. I must, for my sanity.

Or I'm going to swallow some pills with some good wine.

Who'd a Thought?

After years of pleading, begging, threatening, and whining, along with a sparkling new insurance plan, my husband finally went to therapy. The therapist recommended medication for help. I had given some of my anti-anxiety medication to him to help with his work-related anxiety. He said it worked so well he finally called our MD for an appointment. So now he's on the same anti-anxiety medication I am, albeit a lower dose, and an anti-depressant.

What a difference.

It's taken a few months to really notice the difference, but he's definitely changing. We went on a short vacation (4 days) recently, and as I hung my head out the window, tongue flapping in the wind like a dog goin' for a ride, I remembered why I married my husband: He drags me out of my hermit-like existence, tendency to stay inside, alone, and pulls me out of my comfort zone. And I had fun, a lot of fun this holiday. And I remembered that we used to have lot's of fun like this when we first met, and that (along with those thighs, my god, and his ass? fuggetabout it altho they're heading toward flab, now), I always had fun and did things that I would never do on my own, or would more importantly, I would (am) be afraid to do on my own.

Also: He cleaned his bathroom. Yes, I know! He asked if I would supervise, so I did, sitting on the toilet. If I tried to help, he told me to stop: it was his mess. So I gave directions. It took two hours. No, I am not kidding--it was that filthy. It took four scrubs and two different kinds of cleaner to get the fucking bathtub clean--the bottom was dark gray. Even the inside of the medicine cabinet was wiped down. Amazing.

He put away his laundry, four baskets of which had been on his side of the bed for months.

He bought me a Christmas gift. OK, I sat in the car while he went in to buy it and he came back out and handed me the bag, but it was something I had really wanted. I don't remember the last time he bought me something that wasn't food or a refrigerator magnet (I collect them when I travel).

He took a bunch of books (five paper grocery bags and one plastic kitchen trash bag) to the car to be taken to the SPCA.

His job is not longer freaking him out.

He complimented me on my cooking, more than once. !!!

I know, right? It's like a different person has moved in with me.

Isn't it funny that once you give up the burden of hope, how things can change for the better? I was thinking of ways for us to live apart, maybe even end our relationship, but he's finally gotten the help he's needed, and the things I've been hammering away at him about are things he's paying attention to.

"Et me fer a 'tater" as one of my favorite book characters would say (Jan Karon's Mitford series).

So now I'm going to wait and watch. We'll see how it goes.