I still have 8 hours of work to do every day. Sometimes nine or ten. It’s … umm, good, but very very strange. I feel sort of like I do the first time I run outside in the spring. Like it’s ok but I’m using muscles I don’t use when I run on the elliptical so I know things are going to hurt tomorrow.
WEIRD.
Still. I get to save the world! Or some of it! A small piece! Or, if the world gets saved, then I can claim credit for a fraction of a per cent that requires many decimel places! You know. I like what I do. And maybe sometime in the fall the pace will slow down a bit, because this is a big chunk of projects we’ve just taken on, but between now and then what with the moving and everything I’m going to be frazzled.
So speaking of frazzled, as I just was:
Last week was, you know, frazzled.
Single mom, sick, taking care of a sick kid, second week on a new job, tons to learn and a huge workload that is somehow or other not doing itself yet though I’m sure it will in time, and dealing with an upcoming move and signing PP up for new schools and new daycares and packing and hiring movers and negotiating with the Ex or trying to and at the same time maintaining a house and getting groceries.
And many many times each day the Trader would email me to complain about how he wasn’t sleeping and his stomach hurt because of his ENORMOUS STRESS, oh DEAR GOD the STRESS, it kept him up all night (that plus he wouldn’t turn his computer off until 2 am but somehow no it’s all his STRESS), like being overseas on a business trip in a nice office with people he likes where they are paying for his lodging and all his food and it’s very pretty and he gets two extra visits with his son paid for by his company, but his ex sent him a mean email and someone he worked with who unbeknownst to him was trying to get him fired, got fired.
So what I am saying is, he had a pretty nice week. And someone who was trying to get him fired, got fired. And his ex-wife doesn’t like him and doesn’t try to disguise the fact. And the STRESS, Dear Readers, THE STRESS! And many times a day I would hear about the stress, and want to fly across the ocean to wring his neck.
Because seriously?
SERIOUSLY?
THAT’S NOT FUCKING STRESS. COME HOME AND LIVE MY LIFE FOR A WEEK AND I WILL SHOW YOU FUCKING STRESS!
(And then we will hang out with an immigrant single mom with three jobs to feed the kids she never gets to see anymore, and she will teach us even more about stress. But my point is, that last week, I had a lot of stress, and a lot of things to take care of, and the Trader demanded to become one more of them and I wanted to fly across the ocean to wring his neck.)
I dunno. Reasonable? Unreasonable? When I finally see him tomorrow or Wednesday, should I wring his neck? Because I tried really hard all week to be nice and sympathetic about the STRESS he’s under, but I snapped Friday and told him to cut it out. And I still kind of want to wring his neck.
Don’t get me wrong, I miss him too, but it’s heads or tails right now whether I deck him or kiss him first.
I feel terribly guilty for not being kind and sympathetic to his stress levels but I really think they’re kind of silly (but of course all feelings are legitimate and there’s nothing wrong with feelings but surely there’s something wrong with choosing to burden your already overburdened girlfriend with them?). I do. I think he tells himself horror stories about how Situation X will lead to disaster and only the Eternal Vigilance of his hypersensitive internal alarm system will keep the sky from falling on his head. And then he doesn’t sleep and gets stomach aches and headaches and wants to curl up on my metaphorical lap and get me to make him feel better, but I don’t want to, because I want to wring his neck.
And we didn’t get into it while he was over there (except for my mild jab on Friday to get him to cut it out) because given the time difference it all would have been by email and that’s always ugly.
I’ve been through this with him now so many times. He works himself into a panic over some nearly impossible scenario and it doesn’t come true but next time he’s still convinced it will and there’s always something he’s working himself into a panic over, and instead of managing his fear or his reaction to it he’s constantly trying to control these situations by telling people what to do and you can imagine how well that goes over, and how well it works. (Example: coworker got fired, Trader went to HR to tell them how to restructure the department. Three guesses as to how fast they took him up on it.) It’s like that old Zen proverb about how if you live on stony ground, you can either protect your feet by covering the entire earth with leather, or covering your feet with leather. The Trader is running an exhausting 24/7 enterprise trying to cover the entire fucking planet with Kevlar.
I am feeling that wringing his neck is likely to be ineffective towards the larger change that I think might be helpful, i.e., better stress management (plus turning his computer off before 2 am). But I so, so badly want to wring his neck. Given that, in my overall email absence from being the sick mom taking care of a sick kid while learning a new job and overseeing a household move etc. etc.–plus actually avoiding email because I didn’t want to see another STRESS message–I have the sinking feeling that he largely pestered Niamh for that support instead, and her life has not been all that easy either lately … anyway, given that, maybe I want to wring his neck twice. I’ll let you call that one, Niamh.
What do you say, Dear Readers? Wring his neck: yay or nay?
~~~~~
In happy news:
PP rode her bike to school for the first time today. Oh the furious pumping of the little legs! Oh the spinning of the training wheels! Oh how proud she was of riding her new bike to school! Pure gold.
We went to see How to Train Your Dragon. She loved it; so did I. Such fun. For the last thirty minutes she sat on my lap which is always my favourite way to see a movie. For her fancy matinee out, she wore her new dress, new sandals, new purse with a teddy bear tucked in the front pocket (Cutie wanted to see the movie too), and a sparkly purple crown that was crooked all afternoon. I wanted to eat her, but she wouldn’t let me.
I’ve signed her up for her new school and have daycare info. I have movers. I have packed six whole boxes, mostly of books. I have booked the party room for PP’s Magic Treehouse themed Moving Away Party. We bought invitations. Madeleine’s master list has proved enormously helpful, so thank you again! I have found a local book club and a local green group. Everything is coming together, and when July 5 comes, this phase will be over and (hopefully) all worthwhile.
And as long as I think about PP in her crooked crown, I can’t help but be happy.
If it makes you happy to wring his neck go for it. I’m all for the Happiness Project. π
I say ring his neck too, but not on my behalf. I will settle for a not-so-subtle reminder that there are so many things we can’t control and there is no point in stressing over them π
Fluffy is sorry he didn’t get to see How to Train Your Dragon with PP (and I’m sorry I didn’t see her in the crown!).
I’m tickled that you are actually using your/my list. And you found a book group in your new place! Plus bike-riding and crown-wearing! So much happiness.
I think neck-wringing would be counter-productive, what with the jail term and all. But I think a discussion at some point about the connections between anger management, stress management, and keeping it all in perspective might maybe be helpful.
I tend toward the self-obsessed overwhelmed “They moved my cheese!” freakout myself. And sometimes I need to be told to chill, it isn’t the end of the world, and things will work out. Lovingly, of course.
Oh yes! the list has been copied to a big sticky note that I keep in my day planner so I can figure out what I need to do when I get a couple of free minutes, and then cross things off the list so I can feel accomplished. π
Normally I don’t mind the freaking out. I find it puzzling, and at times alarming, how very very worked up he can get about things that just seem like No Big Deal to me (“huh … your Ex wrote you a letter and it wasn’t nice, eh? That’s … umm, I guess that’s … bad?”). And mostly I try for the gentle reminders (“You know, honey, if you tell her how she would behave if she were a good person she’ll just get angry and then she’ll REALLY be mean, so I know you want to, but don’t”). I just don’t need this right now. I would like him to have enough perspective to realize that I kind of need support right now, not more work.
I am still goggle-eyed, and can only say – you are stressed, and busy, and rightfully so – and now with bonus additional extra stress about someone else’s stress, the occurrence and type of which you’ve been through many times before, as you mentioned – and here you expended effort and energy and time here writing about that someone else’s stress? Without even the stressier than thou bit – isn’t he supposed to be making some positive changes after the break up and make up? I say wring his neck – it may help him to become the better person he wanted to be and promised to work on not so long ago. And, I’m just going to suggest this:
Itβs like that old Zen proverb about how if you live on stony ground, you can either protect your feet by covering the entire earth with leather, or covering your feet with leather. The Trader is running an exhausting 24/7 enterprise trying to cover the entire fucking planet with Kevlar.
And you may be trying to cover the Trader with Kevlar instead of your own feet.
True. But I’ve been trying all the “let go and let it be” stuff now for many months–being sympathetic, talking to him about his stressors, giving him good advice (like Niamh’s), helping him out, etc.–and none of that’s worked, to the point where when he gets like this now I just withdraw. I can’t control him, and I don’t want to, but at teh same time when I’m this stressed I can’t engage with him when he gets like this. So I withdraw. I stop communicating, and when I do, I’m curt.
I don’t like that. It’s not what I think relationships should be like. And I think I need to tell him that this pattern drives me away, rightly or wrongly, especially when I am already overwhelmed. What he does with that is up to him, but if I just withdraw without explanation (or moreso), then I think he’ll just send me MORE stressy emails because he’s not getting the response he’s looking for and I’ll withdraw FURTHER and it’ll become a negative spiral. We need to at least talk about it.
But I’ll wring his neck first just because I too am stressed and it’s making me irritable.
When The Boy was about 14 months old I got into an argument with my friend because she was whining about how tired she was (having been partying until 3 and having gotten up at 11) and I said (with some sympathy, I should add) ‘Yeah, I know! Being tired sucks, try having to get up with a baby a couple of times in there.’
She freaked the hell out at me because I didn’t ‘own’ being tired, other people were allowed to be tired too and she was sick of hearing about my tiredness. (At that point I had been sleeping on average about 90m at a time for 14 months.)
I really did feel bad that she was tired, and I had tried to sympathize but since she had more control over her circumstances I was rather irritated. I, in turn, complained to another friend who called the first friend and told her to choose a better person to complain to about that subject because it wasn’t fair to complain to me.
All of this was in aid of saying that perhaps Captain Stressball should be able to see that you ‘own’ stress at the moment so he should find another sympathetic friend to complain to. Glerg.
Nothing useful to add, other than commiserations.
And I really like Chris’ “Captain Stressball” moniker!