Ya know, some mornings you wake up in on the wrong side of the Universe. Lord knows I did this morning.
Got up, and at first couldn’t decide if Heabo woke up before me, or, just came home. It was the latter – she stayed with Jess’s pretty late, and just slept there. One of the first things she said was “You know you should try answering the phone sometime.”
ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! Something is WRONG! After a bit I found out what – her and Jess had been talking, and it brough a lot of problems that Heabo has with our relationship to the surface. Gonna have to go kick Jess now… 😉
One of the things I discovered was a difference in perception over events from when Jess was pregnant with Duncan, and afterwards. I’m very much a person that just pretty much lets the past drop – so, Heabo and I really haven’t like discussed that time period in depth. ‘Specially because at one time it was a somewhat taboo subject (Jess and I having dated) Anyway – her and Jess were talkin’ about that time period, and Heabo comes back to me and damned-near calls me a liar about everything from that time period when I start presenting my side.
Well, here’s the deal – neither one of us are lying. Jess wouldn’t lie about this, IMHO, but I think I see the problem fairly quickly. Perseption of the situation. Jess and I don’t see the way things happened the same. Which, of course, is not at all abnormal.
When Jess got pregnant, and potentially the child was mine, well, I changed alot about my life. First off, I quit buying comic books. Yeah, big deal, right? Actually, that was – it was one of the things I enjoyed, but, at $1.50 an issue, times probably 40 issues a month, that start adding up quick. So I took that money, and started an investment account instead – the thought was, if Duncan is my kid, time ta’ start saving up for college or emergencies. By the time Duncan was grown, not including economic downturns, the account would be worth about $15k – $25K, depending on performance. If Duncan wasn’t – big deal, I’ve now got fall back cash.
When Duncan was born, I moved in town and bought a house. I won’t lie – I love kids and want kids. But there’s also a sense of responsibility that I really somewhat dread that comes with kids. I get all responsible over that shit – The first task, in my mind, was to be near enough to Jess and Dunc to make sure that anything they need was taken care of. No questions, no doubts, no nothin’.
Of course, more than once while Jess was having problems with her Mom, I told her she was more than welcome to come stay with me – and I repeated that often. I wanted it known there was no problems there. This is where perception comes in – Jess sees it the other way, that I was tryin’ to get her to move in. And ya know, I can see why she would think that way. *SHRUG* Oh well.
Funny part was that after Duncan was actually born, Jess and I didn’t see each other as much. Then, after the paternity test, we pretty much parted ways for a while. For me, it was time to get away from the situation a bit, and enjoy the fact that Dunan WASN’T my child. While I would have loved to have kids, I’ve always wanted to have kids in a nice, sane, stable relationship. That wasn’t what Jess and I had. Heck, there wasn’t any way that Jess and I could have ever gotten married or anything like that – it wasn’t that sort of relationship. She was someone I could probably have spent most of my life with, but, it would have always been a casual relationship. We tried a commited relationship once – that blew up in VERY short order. We both figured out it worked better the other way. And personally, I didn’t mind too much. It’s too bloody hard to explain, but, simply put such a relationship took some serious stress off o’ me, and off of her.
Anyway – hearing Jess’s side being damned near SPIT at me was jaring. I had laid most of that to rest long ago, and deemed it to be over and done with. There’s still more to the story, of course – I’m compressing a year and nine months of history into a couple of minutes, and throwing in a recent discussion to boot. Heabo and I moved on to other topics, and I emailed work to say I wasn’t comming in until 10 AM. (Too bad the person I emailed was out, and didn’t know it until later!)
The rest of it wasn’t nearly as jaring to me as the whole thing about Jess and I’s ex-relationship. It was worth takin’ a couple o’ hours off work to talk to my love about it though – while it’s a crappy start to a day to have a fight before you’ve even eaten breakfast, at the same time it’s nice because we typically end our fights on a good note, and feel a bit better about things. We’ll see tonight – we are going to talk more.
The biggest problem with things like this, however, is that I come out of it feeling like I do every fucking thing wrong. I still haven’t figured out how to properly handle things at my end of the spectrum. Heck, even fights themselves I don’t do well – if I think about what I want to say, then I’m not providing enough input and that causes problems. If I just start talking, then I usually end up causing problems there, because I say the wrong damned thing, and the whole fight takes a different heading. It just always seems like I’m doin’ the wrong thing. Problem is, guilt, doubt, etc. are things I have a problem with – I don’t normally feel self doubt, so when I do feel it, it ticks me off or makes me depressed. Getting depressed ticks me off, since I don’t have time to be depressed – ever. To many things to do in life for me to wallow in self pitty, doubt, etc. (And I mean that exactly how it may sound – there’s depression, which is a serious issue. Then there’s what I do, which I call Bullshit depression, which is where I get depressed because I feel I can’t do things right. Normally I finally figure out that reguardless of what I do, right or wrong, I got no choice but to keep goin’ forward, and figure out how to fix the problem along the way.)
Grumble. Anyway – that was my morning off from work. More pleasant thoughts later 🙂
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Lack of Sleep! phoenixryder 2002-04-19 10:48 am UTC (from 65.29.227.195) (link) Select |
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I blame it all on lack of sleep because instead of sleeping Jess and I talked till dawn but while not so good for the body it’s very good for the soul I realized I was pretty angery about a lot of things I didn’t think I was angery about- and afew things I had convinced myself I was over. Mostly it just stung to think that you had wanted to marry and spend your life with Jess before me- it’s absurd to still find myself with some of my teenage romantic ideals but I did. Which stung too. I just didn’t want to feel like I was seconds- settling for me since you couldn’t have Jess or Meredith (as the versions of themselves you had liked and dated – not the current day versions that annoy you). During that period where I was working through where I fit in your life and we were trying to iron out our relationship and Mere was moving out and she and I were stepping on each other’s toes – I had formed this image of what I thought you REALLY wanted , a kind of composite of Jess and Mere. Tall, shapely legs, wanting to have sex like rabbits at all times, and oozing sex appeal- the modern-day amazon/exotic. I ain’t any of that and it freaked me out pretty bad. I had always wanted that and blamed that for why I felt passed over in highschool (and college) by the guys I liked for the girls who did have all those things. It was a hard lessn to accept that I would never be those things either. And I had THOUGHT I was ok with that- guess not. Plus to aggravate that vunerablity I have gained all this weight and run around feeling like I have an unshakeable case of whale-itis. So what little sex appeal I had learned or the things that I DID like about my body are gone (for now). I think I paniced. Beacasue if it was true that I was a substitute for the ‘real thing’ my worst possible fears would be confirmed and since we are legally married I would feel like such an ass for getting into a marriage that was really a sham. I realize the logic there is extreme a pretty disorted beacause I know you love me and I know we have a good relationship (which I depend on greatly!! as my rock and anchor when i’m scared and uncertain.) So it’s not that our marriage would be sham so much as just finding out that I wasn’t what you really wanted to begin with. Ya know? Instead of the converable you drewl over finding out your really the older family car that you ‘learn’ to love, but don’t love any less in the end. |
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Lack of Sleep! phoenixryder 2002-04-19 10:48 am UTC (from 65.29.227.195) (link) Select |
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Its that I think, just as I did as a teen, that you really have to put your partner up on a pedistal so they can not only realize how important they are to you but feel it every second of the day. I do realize that it’s a sentimental impossibility since it is still up to the other partner to notice and feel grateful for it. IT jsut kills me sometimes how badly I want a family (and at the same time how much it scares me to have one) but I don’t dare until I get myself straightened out (another impossibility really but at least reach a place of confidence and stability so I can care for our children instead of passing on all my neuroses!) And seeing that you passed up two diffent oppurtunities to have that family (as skewed as they were) to ultimately end up with me and have to wait even longer … kills me. If we have as many kids as we keep saying we will you’ll be in your 70’s when the youngest is finally 21. I’ll only be in my 60’s. Old but not ancient ya know. But I’m sure that veiw of the human condition will change as I get older too. Anyway- got off on a tangent. I just needed to hear that all that crap didn’t matter and I really am what you wanted – (better then that other stuff you had before). Kinda stupid – yes but when your confidence is shaken you need to hear it over and over until you can beleive it again. And thank you so much for doing that for me. And litereally for dropping everything, espeically at 6:00 am, to listen and remind of that! I love you so much!! And I couldn’t imagine my life as a happy one without you in it! |
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Re: Lack of Sleep! phoenixryder 2002-04-19 10:50 am UTC (from 65.29.227.195) (link) Select |
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Whew- cryed my way through that one! Glad I got that all out. I feel ‘cleansed’ somehow. 😉 |