"Are y'all serious?"

I usually use this blog to empty my brain when I start my obsessive thought processes - usually about something bad or troubling. While this is obsessive, it's not bad...this time.

So, I have been with Doug for 7 and a half months now. I keep forgetting what a short time it has been because the feelings are so intense. I feel like the initial stage that takes most people a few months - as far as getting to know one another and decipher what you intend for the relationship, went at lightening speed for us because we were immediately on the same level  of commitment and interest - and weren't afraid to let the other know.

I realized about a month or so ago that I have officially passed the point of no return. For a while, as much as I cared about it, I felt like I still had enough distance in my heart that it wouldn't be as big a deal if things ended up not working out in the longrun. Now, I can't imagine. He is such a part of my life, and to some extent - who I am, these days.

I love him so much. Truly love. I love him in the way that I have wanted to be loved my entire life - boundlessly, unjudgingly, and consumingly.

It scares me sometimes. I have heard people in cliched romantic movies or sentimentally manipulative TV shows say that, but I can kinda understand it now. Even though I trust him entirely, it scares me to know how vulnerable I am when it comes to him and our relationship. That is something I have NEVER had. The depth and intensity of my feelings for him are terrifying at times because they overwhelm me - my thoughts, my actions, my plans, my life. I can't control how strongly I feel, but at the same time, I don't feel like there is anything I can possibly do to adequately express my feelings and give me the ability to unload some of the fullness.

I just want to tell everyone "but you don't understand" because I don't think anyone can know how much I love him . This sounds so "high school first love" but I guess I never had that so I AM having it now.

Most of all what scares me is that now that I have put this in writing, made it official, that I am jinxing matters.

*fingers crossed* that's not so

The more I work...

I swear I am actually going to take the time to sit down and record the good things that have been going on for me some time soon, but it's just that the infuriating, "can't talk to people about" stuff keeps taking precedence.

 

So, I had talked to Jennifer Gowers several months ago (I think around last fall) about how Linda had taken me to a TWN (The Women's Network) lunch. Jennifer said that I should join EWI - a women-focused professional organization that she is part of. A member has to nominate you (and your organization) which has to be approved. Membership is also pretty exclusive because they tend to not have competing organizations and corporations in the group. Well, Jennifer told me at the time that she had submitted my name for Red Cross, and we've discussed a few times that I had not heard anything but she thought they were still considering me.

 

Well, a few weeks ago, EWI sent a letter to Billy - they invite the head of the organization and a rep - inviting the Red Cross to join. They didn't include my name anywhere in the letter and didn't send anything to me about it until almost 3 weeks after they sent the letter to let me know that they had sent the letter to Billy and had not heard from him if he would be attending the dinner meeting tomorrow night. I sent an email to Linda about it the day I got the email, but her email was screwed up and she didn't get it. She came in my office later, and I told her I had sent her an email about it and wondered if Billy had said anything about the letter. She said they had discussed whether Red Cross should join or not. I (knowing EWI needed an answer about if anyone was going and knowing Billy was out all this week) emailed to them to say I would come to the meeting since I had not heard back from Linda. Then, after I talked to Linda, it sounded like they had not made up their minds so I still figured it would be fine for me to go because it would give them more details (all of this was in the email that I guess Linda never did read).

 

So, I emailed Linda this morning to say that I had planned on going to the meeting tomorrow night to help gather more information, but since I was going to be representing Red Cross, I wanted to make sure it was ok with her first. She emailed back to thank me for the reminder and that Billy told her on Friday that he had nominated her - she didn't know about the meeting tomorrow. I emailed her back details about the meeting and that I would email Jennifer Gowers to let her know Linda was going to be our rep since she had nominated me for membership. Linda said that she wished Billy had known before he sent her name in.

 

I realize that this seems to be a grand scale mix-up between Linda's email being down, EWI not giving me a heads up and Billy just trying to get things taken care of before being on PTO for a week. Still, I can't stop the feelings I'm having of being fucking pissed off.

 

Here I am trying to maximize my connections to help build myself professionally and to further the organization I work for, and then I get left in the dark. Not only that, but obviously I am completely pigeonholed at work where they don't even begin to consider that someone else may want or need to be a part of such an organization. I know that if I had told them about Jennifer doing all of this because of me and that I was interested that they would have considered me, but it's just so irritating that this is the way it works out. Hell, I was really sending Linda the emails to position myself and to basically say "this is because of me." I'm sure that if she knew it upset me this much or that it mattered so much to me that she would do something about it, but I just don't feel (since she is stressed out so completely and we are in budgetting hell) that it's right for me to push the issue.

 

Also, how the hell does it look that the person that was actually nominated isn't the one chosen by the organization to represent them? I don't know, I guess I was beginning to think of myself as a growing, professional woman, but here I am - reminded that I am still just a kid playing at being "grown up."

 

I just wanna give up.

How much more?

It is official - I am depressed, obsessive, distraught, and barely-functioning.

 

Even though I went to Dr. Littleton a couple of days ago, and he said that my incision looks better and was trying to encourage me with the relatively small size of the existing wound (in comparison to how much he had to cut), I am not convinced. In the last week since I went to the wound care clinic, I haven't noticed any real improvement. Granted that I can't really see the area, but judging by feel, nothing is different. I thought the other day that the rear part of the wound may have closed a little, but now I'm even doubting that.

 

Add on to all of that frustration that I am now receiving medical bills that I should not be receiving so I now have to fight (and, even if I am supposed to pay them, I don't have the money), and I'm in a shit hole.

 

I know I should not be complaining about money too much considering that I went to Atlanta last weekend with Doug and dropped a good bit of green (someday I'll finish the entry about that), but I do not regret a moment or a dollar of that trip. The memories of the happiness, joy, contentment, love, support and escape of that trip is the only thing keeping me going right now.

 

Oh, and I almost forgot - add to my current body hatred that I have gained 5 pounds since surgery. Since I am already feeling "broken" and depressed, now I feel like a fucking blimp.

 

Today, especially, it is all coming to a head. I feel like there is nothing I can do about anything. I can't even use my usual coping methods - no shopping since I need the money, no eating/drinking because I've gained weight, no sex because I have an open wound. All I have left is to sleep but I have at least the bare minimum of life that I have to continue.

 

I can tell that I am starting to let my frustrations and sadness leak out with my lack of filter to those around me. I kinda went off this morning during a meeting about doing mail and said frankly that other departments shaft us and think their time is more important than ours. Not sure that was the best of approaches - especially when the interim ED for West Alabama that I haven't actually met yet was in an open office nearby.

 

I have trouble making myself get out of bed, I have trouble making myself put clothes on, I have trouble making myself focus at work (or give a crap in any way).

 

I can't go on like this, and I don't know how to fix it. I know last time I was in a similar situation, I just "Let go and Let God."

 

I don't know how to let go of something that isn't in my control in the first place.

Fighting who I was

It is hard for me to believe that I used to be like this. For pretty much all of my teenage years, I sat on the couch and watched TV when I wasn't at school (church wasn't even a factor once Mom and Dad stopped going and made it seem like a complete inconvenience to take me).

So, TV and inactivity became my refuge, my comfort zone. If I wasn't watching TV, I was holed up in my room listening to music.
I was reasonably content - I guess that's a word to use. I wasn't happy, fulfilled, or any other positive feeling about my life at the time. At the same time, it was all I knew with no imaginable way out and with no belief that I had the power to change it.

Over the last 15 years, I've miraculously managed to break out of that. In fact, in many ways, I have actively and bitterly fought against being that. So, now being forced to essentially become that sedentary, TV-dependent zombie again is frustrating and disheartening.

I know that I have to "be still" to heal - this battle to heal is not an easy one to win. Still, there is this undeniable restlessness inside of me. I don't know what I can do - within the boundaries of my current healing-induced confinement - to relieve this feeling. I was relieving it by continuing on with my life, just slowed down slightly, and apparently my surgical wound paid the price.

I am now trying to put my body's needs first while trying not to sactifice my mental needs. I know this time will pass - it always has and does. The question is: how quickly and after what complications will it do so?

So, I hold on and pray this time passes faster than expected.

Ugh, again!

God, I feel like this damn incision is never going to heal! I know it was a major surgery - even though I don't feel like it since I haven't had a lot of pain and was at home so quickly. Still, it is going to require a lot of healing - and it has only been 3 weeks.

While I do feel a bit more active in the healing process (and more aware that I still have to heal) now that I have to actively care for the wound everyday, it also makes it feel like I'm not healing well and that it's taking forever. I can pretty much literally measure my progress by the depth of the open incision.

I know it will heal, and it will be fine. I just am afraid of what the next curve will be that's thrown.

Why can't things just go smoothly and let me move on?

Sent from my Kindle Fire

Post script

Since writing this afternoon, I told Doug about my incision opening.

He texted me to ask how my day was at the office (I had originally planned today to be my first full day back), and I made the specific decision to tell him. I didn't make a big deal out of it so it didn't worry him or anything. It really bothered me, though, that I wasn't being completely honest with him. I play that "partial truth" and "reveal only what I want to reveal" game with everyone else in my life. Not with him.

I lived my life in that environment and all it gave me was a lack of trust. I refuse to start that in this new life. I want this to be the rest of my life, and I am building the foundation for that now. It has to be right.

If I lie to the one I truly love, I keep lying to myself.

And...there it goes

I've been trying to write this entry for days. Part of taking so long was finding a way to get my tech gadgets to make this process easier (and therefore more likely to happen more often), but part of it was wrestling with making this "public" - which means the 3 people I have deeply trusted with access and anyone else who may one day stumble upon it.

What am I wrestling with? Well, I guess control. Control over what is revealed and shared. Writing what I want partially requires telling someone else's story - something I am slow to do. Really, though, it's now "our story"- which brings new boundaries to define. The other thing I want to write about is what I have not been able to tell anyone yet (except work because I had to).

Ok, so here it goes.

Saturday started as such a good day. I had stayed over at Doug' s and was actually enjoying sharing a meal, conversation and TV with his roommates (after living alone for 11 years,  it's been an adjustment). I went home in the early afternoon to grab a nap and get ready to work Box Office for ETC. Doug wasn't performing but he was going to run lights. I went to his place to ride together. He had been drinking all day and was pretty damn wasted.

I said I would drive. Knowing him, I knew he'd still make it through the show. He did - even though he was a bit louder than needed, played with lights/sound more than needed and got more easily perturbed than needed. As always happens, the group went for drinks after the show together. At least Doug got some food and only had a couple of beers. When we got back to his house,  he started making pina coladas and drank several.

I knew why he was drinking - he's overwhelmingly stressed with not knowing what is going to happen at work as his team keeps leaving AND feeling like his friends in ETC have stabbed him in the back by creating UglyBaby. Now that UB haS announced that they are going to New York this summer to perform in a comedy festival, Doug (and - added stress, his parents) have been especially upset. So,  yeah, I get that he is numbing, but I just haven't seen him like this and realize this is going to be a part of our relationship.

I stayed calm and just listened as he got more and more "down." When I told him that he just needed to lie down and sleep and stop drinking for a bit, he said he didn't want someone telling him what to do in his house (not violently, more in a pitifully whiney way). I knew he was too far gone for me to reason with him so I told him to go do what he wanted - as long he didn't leave the house - and just join me in bed when he was ready because I was tired.

I knew he had his cell phone with him, so I texted him that I loved him and not to take my going to bed as ignoring him - I was just really tired. After a little while, he came in the room and apologized. He said he was upset and stressed but that had been no reason to disrespect me. He kept apologizing - I knew he was still really drunk, but I could tell he was coming around a bit. I told that  I appreciated it and that we would talk about it when we were both more together. He went back to the living room and finally came to bed about an hour later.

He got up way before I did and started doing different things he needed to do before ETC rehearsal, like making coffee, taking  care of the dogs and cutting paychecks for the weekend's shows. I didn't feel well so I just stayed in bed sleeping until he got back from rehearsal. The next time I saw him, he was much clearer eyed and in better spirits.

He had brought me some lunch so I ate while we watched TV. I was debating whether to bring it up since we were happier, but I grew up in a house that breezed over anything "bad" and I wasn't setting that precedent for Doug and me. I turned to him and asked if he wanted to talk about yesterday and last night. He immediately started hanging his head and apologizing again.

I told him that I didn't want to berate or nag him because he knew that he had kind of acted like as ass, but I wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I asked him if he had been drinking all day because he was bored or to numb what had been going on with all his stress. He confirmed what I thought - he was numbing out. I brought up some of the highlights of questionable things he'd done, and we talked about it a bit.

I told him that I love him and that I'm not going to lie to comfort him by saying everything will be ok, but that I think he knows what's going on and is aware of trying to fix it. This was just another part of an ongoing conversation we've been having that he has been overwhelmed by his responsibilies. I know he has already made an appointment with a counselor that he has been to before so I legitimately believe that he is addressing the situation. I guess time will tell, but I do trust him.

So, I guess we've been thoguh our first hurdle. I can't do it justice trying to type details in a short area, but I do feel like the way we both handled the situation has made our commitment to each other clearer and stronger.

The other part of the story is that I was a little distracted and otherwise upset through all of this because my incision opened Saturday night. I felt something a little wierd when I sat down at Intermission at the show. When I got a chance, I went to the bathroom and saw some blood (not a lot but enough to know something had happened). I felt around my incision area and found a bit of a hole that had opened up.

I kinda started panicking - not because I was worried that I was at any risk, but because I started to think about how much it would set me back, how many people are counting on me. Recovering is an odd thing. I have taken care to do everything I was supposed to since my surgery, but people will still blame me for setting myself back and make me feel guilty. I know it's stupid, but I do always feel pressure when I start getting better - like everyone is taking on the concern with me and when something unexpected happens, there's this massive groan of frustration.

I at least did decide to own up enough to tell my bosses what had happened and that I was going to continue working from home for a while. I couldn't bring myself to tell Mom on my weekly check in call - I couldn't deal with her finding a way to blame herself for it because she didn't stay with me longer. I didn't tell Doug becasue I didn't want to add to the upset of the weekend. I didn't tell anyone else because 1) I am, frankly, embarassed that I can't even make my body heal right and 2) I get controling over health info when I've had to be so open about it so much lately.

Sarah and I were talking a few weeks ago, and she said she had heard that it takes at least 2 years - on average - to get over a trauma. That really clicked with me. I've never even completely recovered from the blow of my diagnosis since I've dealt with it non-stop for 15 years, much less recovering from the worst period of my life with the blood clots, surgery, etc 2 years ago since here I am dealing with it again.

If I could get enough distance and reprieve from my illness, from procedures and from feeling betrayed by my body, maybe I could finally get over some of this.

So, almost 3 days later,  I've calmed down a good bit and am accepting things.

The other shoe, though, has dropped.