introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the babysitter puzzle sleepless nights - 24 february, 2015 "...just when you least expect it, just what you least expect."~pet shop boys it didn't feel like much of a monday. in fact, it didn't feel like a monday until it was actually tuesday. i spent sunday hanging out with the baby and running errands to pick up groceries and dog food and the few things we needed at the house. after i put him to bed sunday night, i did up the few dishes. i seared some chuck roasts to put in the crock pot my folks got me before i came back to bangor. i put the meat in the crock pot and added a few top secret ingredients before turning it on low to slow roast the hunks of otherwise tough meat all night. cheap cuts cooked slowly make terrific take to work meals...my all soup diet has me down nearly 20 pounds but i've been going to bed hungry and too tired to bother to eat most nights after work and the drive north to pick up the little fella from the nanny. as i drift off to sleep, i make promises to myself to do better about eating tomorrow but then i find myself in the same cycle. this can't last forever. so last week i made that nice dinner and took the leftovers for lunch. this week, i'm determined to do the same. if i can get in one hot meal a day, i don't really want to eat or need to eat more than that...it isn't an eating disorder so much as my not having time or desire to fit it in, really. as long as i get the coffee and some protein in, i've been managing well on the stores of blubber i've put on in the course of a lifetime. it's like my body knew that someday, this would be coming. it also means that i'm swimming in most of my clothes these days...it figures. so the slow cooker was on, the smell of the spicy thai chili sauce and the pepperoncini and the meat cooking away all night made the house smell amazing. i spent a little time this morning making mashed potatoes for the week and cooking off brussels sprouts. i portioned and packed out a week's worth of lunches and still had a huge container of meat leftover. i was thinking of putting it in omelets for the rest of the weak but plans....they have to change. i made it to work with the relative ease of a well-oiled operation...we have a schedule with a margin of error for catastrophe and we make it on time, this baby and i. we're doing well. work wasn't terrible for a monday. i plodded through the calls. i spent my breaks huddled in a closet of a room with no real human interaction to break up the day...instead, tangled up in tubing and clothing, pumping breast milk as fast as possible before putting on my headset and getting back to it. i wolf down lunch with one hand while holding the breast pump in the other on my lunch breaks. i did take a moment to enjoy the delicious meal i prepared but, on thinking on it some, in the end, i may as well be eating that shit they eat in the matrix for all i get to enjoy food these days. at the end of my shift, the coldest night we've had so far slapped me across the face. i don't have a real warm winter coat and tonight's wind chill puts us at around -35F. i got in the car and held my breath to keep from having to get that air in my lungs. as usual, i called my aunt as i do most nights to talk with her on the way to pick up the baby from the nanny's. she let me drive the whole way out there, telling me finally as i was ending the call that she'd left a message for me to call her in the morning. it was after midnight and i was tired and not much in the mood for guessing games. "i don't have time to call in the morning. my minutes are planned to the second and i can't throw off the routine. what's up?" "i can't tell you now." there are few things i loathe more than pulling teeth. if you have something to say, just say it. i refuse to beg someone to talk to me. instead, i take what they give at face value...and if they give nothing at all, then that's what there is. this was a huge reason that ian annoyed the fuck out of me in the end...i hate the stomach twisting drama around serious conversations that cannot simply be had. the 'you don't wanna know' and the half-answers that weren't really answers at all...the ones that begged you to keep begging. why tell me you want me to call you later to say what you can simply say now? i thought we'd had everything figured out. my aunt has been helping with child care since i've been back to work...which, truly has only been for a handful of weeks. she committed to a year back in december and even that was a fight. so many nights i told her to just not worry about it, that i'd figure it out...that letting me figure out something on my own was going to be easier than the stress of waiting for her to change her mind again if she didn't agree with something i said or did. we'd had a fight on friday night as it was and i figured it was about that...calling me a fool for wanting to go for a walk on the warmest day we'd had in months, constantly telling me i'm doing things wrong, telling me that i have to wean him when he has teeth, that i have to start feeding him cereal at three months...things that are just plain incorrect...i figured she wanted to sort things out about friday night. instead, tonight, she told me that she can't help with his childcare costs anymore. just when i'd heaved a sigh of relief and thankfulness, everything is up in the air again. it isn't the first time so, you know...one day at a time has to be the thing, as ever. still, with the new shift bid happening later this week (where i might not even get a shift that the nanny can manage) and now the question of where the money will come from in my budget which is already hanging on a piano wire to cover ian's half of the rent-that-wasn't...my plate is about as full as i can manage right now. how much more can one person take? i suppose she expected that i'd be more upset...but in the back of my mind, i feel a little relieved that it's just happening and that's all there is. she can't help. i'm frustrated that she told me she could and now, less than two months later, she can't. don't get me wrong, here. i'm thankful that she even offered to help at all. so now this leaves me with two options, one of which i refuse to take unless we're about to be homeless. i will not call ian and ask for help with the child care. despite his emails saying he wants to 'be there for our child', the truth is, he couldn't even manage to pay the half of the rent he'd committed to....rent that, had he paid his half, would have allowed me to save to cover most of a year of the nanny. no, i will not call ian or email ian or expect that even if i did, that he'd come through for this baby. i'm just not opening myself up to that again. that chapter is closed. so the car. the pretty shiny new car that my aunt insisted i had to have...selling it would pay off a couple years of child care at this rate. goodbye butt warmers and all the guilt that is wrapped up in that car; hello, peace of mind. when i told her i'd have to sell the car, she wasn't happy. but the thing is...it's way more than i need. i can get by in some little economy car that will get me from point A to point B and that's all i need. that car is way more than i'll ever need. it's safe, sure. it's beautiful and has features that i only dreamed of ever enjoying myself...but it's too much. it makes me guilty every time i turn the key...partly because there are people starving and my butt is warm in the middle of winter and partly because of all the poison it infused in my immediate family. i am thankful, don't get me wrong...but the car has been a point of contention since i got it in july. there are some gifts that come with a price...that car was certainly one of them. i'd take dolly dethwagon back in a second if it meant having things go back to the way they were. i'd been biding my time writing here for awhile because the things that have been on my mind the most are the very things i promised myself i wasn't going to write about here anymore. now the puzzle has shifted and my focus isn't so much on what it means to be a good steward with someone's heart and more on the puzzle-solving task at hand. my robot heart is engaged, my emotions dulled to nothing while i try to figure out what to do....what comes next. i will do whatever it takes to care for this baby because i've never loved anyone this much in my life. these last few nights, i've cried a lot and that's okay. i needed it. i've been thinking so much of my grandmother and trying to figure out how she raised three of them on her own after my grandfather died. my mother was maybe 12? my uncle was only barely 2. how did she do it? i'd get 3 jobs if it meant that he'd be cared for but how do you work extra jobs or extra hours if there isn't anyone to watch the little guy? impossible puzzles that i don't know how to solve. it's a riddle that i know i can't sort out in one night. instead, i'm holding my little guy tight, focusing on this last week that we'll co-sleep before he has to move on to phase 2 and start sleeping in his own bed...i'm going to enjoy the time i do have with him. those are the moments that are driving me on, giving me strength to keep going at this point when all i want to do in the world is just give up already. seriously, i thought you weren't supposed to be given more than you can handle? whoever said that was just a plain old asshole, guys. tonight, when the wind is howling and those stars are crisp and twinkling in the black maine winter sky, we have each other. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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