Budget Heck took up the vast majority of my energy last week, and an acrimonious exchange with Chuck added that special something. There's nothing to restrain him now, and, of course, I actually want something from him (a relationship with his son) but don't have anything he wants in return, so he often doesn't hesitate to spew.
Not that he held back all the time when we were together, mind you. One of the things I liked least about that was that I found myself torn between engaging in the stupid back-and-forth, and trying to defuse or disengage from it, to try to work toward something positive--it was a lot of work (in which he participated, too), and, not being anywhere near perfect, I engaged in the back-and-forth way, way more often than I wanted. I really fucking hated it; it brought out the worst in me, and the worst in him, and any pattern that does that isn't a good one. I had a hope, a fantasy, I suppose, that we would continue to be able to make space for each other, to work toward something positive in our own and each other's lives. And, really, we did do that, much of the time--or, at least, I thought we did--or I wouldn't have married him. Fool that I am, I even thought we might find a way to do that after he left me, and even after we divorced.
Which, sometimes I think we're doing, until the next wake-up call.
Ah, well. It's depressing as all hell, but I can't control Chuck's behavior. And, really, at this point, I don't have to deal with it much, either. I have continued to do so, in order to try to see CK at least once in awhile, in the hope that things would eventually improve. But Chuck continues to insist that I don't really care about CK (and then he lists a litany of reasons why), and then ends up with how he needs to Protect His Son. Basically, he's convincing himself that I don't care about CK, not really, so it's okay for Chuck to withdraw him. And no matter what I do, I guarantee you that, in Chuck's eyes, I'll eventually fuck up somehow. It's been made especially painful because, as I unpack, I stumble across pictures, or little drawings, or the "letter" that CK wrote when he was first learning his letters, and each of them is a little stab, another reminder.
Anyway.
As I continue to pick away at getting things organized (or, at least, as organized as my things will ever get) I'm finding (a) multiple skeins of embroidery thread (which is what I use for my needlepoint, so, when I finish a piece, the odd skeins are still around--and not put away, in a single place, oh no, not THAT), and (b) endless scraps of paper on which recipes are scribbled, printed, or printed and amended. Typically, they're not labeled, especially the scribbled bits, so I have to skim the ingredients and see if I can tell what the formula is for. I'm better at that than I might have predicted (I suppose I should be, given my experience), but still. I'm making piles of those things, toward the end of eventually putting them away. A third thing I'm gathering: the little knobby things that have fallen off my dining room chairs. And a fourth thing: blank paper of various sorts.
Yesterday K took me on a Massive Shopping Expedition. She met me at Whole Paycheck (I got there when it opened, and arranged for her to pick me up an hour later), and then we stopped at Target (paper shredder; hangers; cutting board for the tile-making class) and then the Container Store (a.k.a. the gayest store in the universe), where I got a bunch of stacking bins for clothes and for paper of various sorts.
Saturday I unpacked nearly all the books, and I did the rest of them yesterday, more or less. This morning, while I wait for the security people to show up and activate my alarm system, I went through more crap in the second bedroom, which has become the junk room. You know how, when you move, the last few boxes are all the little crap, all the things you don't have time to sort, or you don't quite know whether you want them but you don't feel like taking the time to think about it? Yeah, well, those are also the last things to put away at the other end, too, it turns out, and no surprise there.
But I'm getting there. I need furniture, and I have some ideas about that, but I don't want to empty the bank account getting it, so I'm trying to come up with some intermediate solutions until I sort it out. So, yes, a virtual housewarming and tour will be soon, now that my decorating theme is no longer only "still-packed boxes of crap, with other boxes opened and spilling out on the floor."
No comments:
Post a Comment