Working… toward Change

My feet hurt. Not just hurt, they ache with a deep pain.  I feel drained.  I work 11 to 12 hour days now.  I work these hours and then I have to come to and take care of all the things that he doesn’t.  I should have slept, but I scrubbed by bathroom.  I did it because frankly, it was gross and I was tired of using a gross bathroom.  Now why was it gross? Well because I stopped picking up the slack when he doesn’t do things.  When it was his week to clean the bathrooms and he didn’t do it, no biggie right? When my turn rolls around, then I clean it.  So I stopped cleaning, if he didn’t do his week, then it’s going to sit there until he does it.

But this tactic has back fired on me.  Because now, it all sits there and doesn’t get done. And as the weeks roll by, things unravel further and it gets worse.   So I throw myself further into work and try to ignore it until it gets to now.

I arrive here. 1am and looking around realizing what a mess my home and life has become.  What am I raising my child to know? Because she can’t understand the concept of why it isn’t being done, all she sees is that it isn’t done. Maybe she doesn’t think it needs to be done.  Good god, what have I done.

And then he gets home and says, well the truck is dead.  (I’m almost passed out on the couch at this point, having reached true exhaustion after scrubbing the bathroom.)  After this announcement, he heads back outside to presumably fix said issue, but what he really is doing is wasting time.  He dicks around for two hours doing god knows what and then says, it can’t be jumped I’ll just have to call someone in the morning.   Well that doesn’t work for me. I have to work in the morning, Amelia has to go to school. I can just see where this is going. He’ll just end up not going to work, not getting paid, and sure as hall not getting the truck fixed.

So, that leaves it to me. Time for you know who to pick up the slack again and get things in order.   I slump outside (still exhausted)  and proceed to attach the jumper cables correctly (really people there are directions right on the cables), and the get the fucking truck running.  (Having before hand already searched online for a 24 hour auto parts store, because really what was he going to do after he got it running in the first place? Drive around aimlessly hoping to randomly come across a store? the answer to yes)

Of course, while I am waiting for the battery to charge a little, I poke around the engine.  Note to reader:  I am by no way schooled in automobiles.  I can jump a car, and clean my windshield. I know where the battery is and if I look in the manual I can find the fuse box and tell you what each fuse is for. But that is it. Common sense knowledge only.  I did notice two months ago that the engine was overheating when I drove it once. (I said something to him about this, and was of course shocked to hear that it had been happening for a while and he didn’t do anything about it. Now that I was aware of it, I assumed that he would get this taken care of.  Right? ..right?)… I digress, I am poking around the engine, because I know he didn’t get it looked at and engines don’t magically stop overheating.  So I unscrew the cap to the engine coolant and what is there? No coolant. None. in fact, I am surprised that the car is running.  We are lucky the engine is running.  We are lucky the engine didn’t blow up one morning while he was driving our young child to school.

And this is the conversation:

Me: What the hell?  There is no coolant!! Didn’t you get this looked at? Didn’t you think to get the fluids checked?

He has the gall to say, “well I don’t have the knowledge.”

Here is where I loose it.

Me: Do I look like a fucking mechanic?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when your engine is over heating, something is wrong and you need to get it looked at.

Him: “Well we don’t have the money.”

If I was mad before, I think I reached nuclear proportions.  I was so mad, that I wasn’t yelling. I was just resigned to what I was saying. I was so mad, that it was like ice falling from my mouth. 

Me: “You know what, that’s bullshit. That’s worse than bullshit, that’s just being lazy.  We need our cars to get to work, and if we need to pay to get work done on them then you and I go without eating if we can’t afford it. 

And honestly, We can afford to get an oil change, we can afford to get the fluids filled. But we can’t afford to replace the god damn engine because you fucking drove it into the ground. What the hell are you thinking. WE TECHNICALLY DON’T EVEN OWN THIS TRUCK AND YOU ARE WRECKING IT.  You are physically choosing to not do anything and to further damage the truck.    You’ve been off for four fucking days, and you are telling me it didn’t even cross your mind to do one single thing about this? Or any of your other three day weekends for that matter?  You don’t even know how much money is in your bank account so how do you know we don’t have the money?

You are being lazy and irresponsible and I can’t do this anymore.  I don’t understand why it has to get to a point where things are in crisis and then I have to step in to fix it.  You are a liability to me, just one more think that I have to clean up after.  and I don’t want to do that anymore. I get this shit at work, I don’t want to have to deal with it at home to.  You are supposed to build me up and support me, not break me down.”

And he just takes this.  He just looks a me and agrees. But he always agrees.  He always tap dances around says the right words.

Him: Oh, I’ll be better, I’ll be more (insert adjectives used to describe a good spouse). I will change.

Here is my message to you.  They never change.  I’ve been waiting 7 long years for things to change and all I got was a dirty bathroom that I had to clean after a 12 hour work day.

On a Good Day

Hey I was officially promoted this week, now I permanently have the job that I’ve been doing for the last few months, and the right to use the title.  I feel accomplished about that.  From where I started a little less than three years ago to where I am now, hard work, hard hours.  I’ve earned this, now comes the reality of seeing it through and being worthy of it.

Erich found a good doctor that he actually likes.  They’ve been doing tests and turns out that it may be arthritis, but Lupus.  Surprising and slightly scary, but if it does to turn out to be Lupus for sure, at least we will know what we are fighting and will have a direction to go.  Erich’s positive about the whole thing, in his way.

Gearing up for camping trip at the end of the month.  We are going to do an extended stay in the high c0untry, which is exciting!  I cannot wait!  Plus Erich and the kid are both excited about it too, which warms my heart. 

I have a gardener.  (I know, I know) But until Erich gets better and isn’t in so much pain. I need the help.  I can’t do everything by myself all the time.  And part of this new being happy and healthy thing is recognizing that.  I understand that he’s not going to jump up and go weed/spray/rake.  I understand that working 10 hours a day, 6  days a week now means I will barely have time to clean and do everything else.  So there it is. Mr. Lopez will be helping me out twice a month. He’s pretty funny and had some choice comments on my trimming job for the fruit trees, but he promised to teach me and to make my back yard “not ugly”. 

 

In other news, we’ve joined a food co-op.  Whereas I don’t have the money, time or know how yet to do my planned above ground planters for vegetables, I figure this is the next best this.  For 15 dollars I buy into the co-op and get a huge basket of locally sourced fruits and veggies. All super fresh, and very tasty.  We’ve done it two weeks in a row and I love it.  It forces us to try new veggies (fried Eggplant for breakfast anyone?), and definitely to incorporate them into every, and I mean every meal.  Between the co-op and the farmers market which we started patronizing every other weekend, I don’t really buy fruit and vegetables at the store anymore.  And my bottom lines is happier for it, our grocery bill dropped by 100 bucks!  Which is super great. 

A Life Worth Living

I find myself thinking of this a lot.  A life worth living.

Well readers? Do you have a life worth living?

I don’t mean this in a morose death sort of way.  I think of it in a fulfilled, enjoyment, happy sort of way.  Are you living a life worth living? Are you doing what you want to do? Are you who you want to be with? Are you where you want to live? Are you working where you want to work?  Are you happy where you are in life right now?  All these questions can be rolled into one for me…. Are you living a life worth living.

I think of this big question, roll it around in my mind and see how it sits with my life… and my mind inevitably gravitates to my older Brother.   We don’t speak much these days.  As life happens, we married, moved, got involved with our lives.   He’s the only sibling I’ve ever had, that is until he got married and made one of my best friends into my sister.     He’s moved just about once  year for as long as I’ve been married if not longer.  He’s been through ups and downs, and all the other rigmarole, and now he’s got it.

He’s reached that brass ring. (You know the one where people always assume means rich enough or pretty enough or popular enough then I’ll be THERE, I’ll have achieved IT). Except in reality it’s none of those little things.

He and his wife have one of the best marriages I have ever seen. Not just comfortable, but loving, understanding, valued.  It reminds me of my parents marriage, my grandparents marriage. They live in a place that they love, not just love but a place that fits.  They are making a farm and have farm animals.  They grow things, they live off their land and are learning to limit their footprint and be self-sustainable.  AND they love IT.   They have found things that they love to do whether it be writing, knitting, pottery or farming. He started his own company and in this very hard climate, made it work.

They are happy.  I think they could live in a card board box and find the happy part of that.  It’s not necessarily what they are doing or what they have that I am referring to, but how they do it, how it gives them joy, how it makes them happy.  This is that brass ring.  That joy, that happiness.  That is a life worth living.

I think of all this, I think of my big brother, his wife, his life and I smile and I know that I have finally found that too.    A life worth living.  Leave it to the person who first taught me cursive in the middle of the night on my little chalkboard to also teach me how to stop and enjoy my life for what it is.   I’m 31 and still learning from him, albeit through a distance.

 

Its not easy to take a hard look at your life, and see that though you had the best intentions at heart, you were working for the wrong things.  It’s almost strange that when I stopped trying so hard, and just enjoyed things for what they are, that it all got easier.  It’s a decision that I made two months ago, and I have yet to regret it.  Time to live.  Time to enjoy. Time to have a life worth living.  And in that simple truth, I believe I found myself again.

I am camping again, something I haven’t done in 5 years.  I am scrapbooking again, something I haven’t done a year and a half.  I have pets again, something I didn’t have for 3 years.   I am doing more than going to work and coming home.  I am enjoying.  And the biggest thing is that I made the decision that I can have a life worth living all on my own. In April Erich and I reached the agreement that in a year we will be financially able to divorce.  He has until next June to get himself and his health in order and he has to do it on his own.

If he chooses to do so, chooses to take the steps to get his health conditions in order and increase his overall quality of life, chooses to enjoy life, chooses to enjoy life with his daughter and wife. Well, I think it’s wonderful.  More than wonderful, amazing.  To have someone that I can share this life with would be wonderful.  We will enjoy the little things in life together.  We will raise our daughter, and go camping and do odd house projects and garden and travel, see places like Luxembourg and Denmark. It would make me eternally happy for my soul mate to join me in a life worth living.

If he doesn’t, then he’s made that decision.  If he chooses not to live this life, not to take care of himself so he can live longer, live with less pain, to just live, then I can’t fault him.  A person has to do what makes them happy and if being unhappy is what he wants, then there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to change that.   There are no ultimatums, no more arguments or fights. It’s not my choice and there is nothing I can do or say to change that.

It’s not that I don’t care, because I do, I care deeply.  I care and I have woken up.  I have woken up to the life that I have.  I have woken up to joy that is already here every single day. I have woken up to my life, my life worth living. And Because I have woken up, I will not go back to the way it was and I won’t subject my child to that unhappiness.   So it has come to pass that a life worth living may end up being without him.  And as sad as the thought of it makes me, I am still okay with that.   Because I have a life worth living.

It’s come about in a strange way, but I finally have it.  I have a life worth living and I will never ever take it for granted again.

So Thanks Big Brother.  Even though he didn’t do anything intentional, it’s rare in this day and age to have an older sibling that you can look up to.   That’s just the great guy he’s always been.