Thursday, March 27, 2008

Cutting Slack

Things are still on the better side of where they were, though the financial stress just isn't abating quickly enough for my obsessive brain. But finally opening up and talking to people about it has really made a world of difference. In all of my panic, I did manage to lose sight of a few things: PC really did intend to eventually become a contributing financial member of the relationship, paying off my bills would be a bit easier now that PC and I are living together because there isn't the expense of commuting for the relationship, and much of what got us into the financial situation that we are in came from Prince Charming prioritizing the relationship over making more money. SJP pointed this out to me in a long-overdue phone conversation last week. She said that she didn't think he ever intended to live off of me (and certainly not for so long) but that he had decided that love was more important than anything else; he was taking that leap of spending time with me instead of working and moving away with me to start over rather than building up savings, making enough money to pay all of his bills, etc. Non-romantic loser that I am, I would never have made that same decision, but I should have cut him more slack for doing so.

So that's where we are. I still have doubts. But to be honest, there wasn't much of a time when I didn't. There was a lot of time when I pretended (even to myself) that I didn't because I wanted so badly to match Prince Charming's enthusiasm and certainty, but I realize now that that is an unrealistic expectation of myself. I need to feel certain (or not to) in my own time. So I'm being patient, which is something very hard for me. But I was tired of fighting and tired of making myself miserable. It's just not worth it. But as I said a bit ago, I also feel like I finally made all of the points that I needed to make so I don't need to be constantly harping on the things that I'm still stressed about.

Lyrics of the Day

"Things are good we should take a Polaroid, a memento, before the moment's destroyed." The Good Life On the Picket Fence

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Middle America

By the way, I'm in Ohio now. And really, I mean no offense if anyone out there who has an undying love of Ohio, but I won't be sad when I leave here. I guess I just had no idea what the mid-west was really like, and how different it is than the coasts.

When it snows more than 2 inches or so here, they close all of the schools. I've been in Columbus for 5 weeks now and I think there have been almost two weeks worth of snow days. If it's foggy, they delay school. If it's rainy, they let school out early. Why aren't I a teacher?? In Montana, it can be 40 degrees below zero and blizzarding and you dang-well better get yourself to school. The difference is that you don't have to stay on the playground until class starts, you can go inside.

I work with a young man who seems very cool and modern and "normal" by the standards of a girl who spent the most significant part of her adult life in LA. Last Monday he came into work and told a story about his weekend that involved taking apart a tractor and putting it back together. Cuz, you know, they just do that in Ohio.

They are so crazy about college football here, I've heard that every Saturday during football season, the town basically shuts down to watch the game. Even now, in the off-season (it is basketball season, but OSU did not make it into the NCAA tournament), you can't walk out your door without seeing whole families dressed in Ohio State shirts, jackets, pants, hats. It's like its own religion.

But here's the biggest travesty about Ohio: Two-Buck Chuck costs more than $3 a bottle.

Lyrics of the Day

"Somewhere in the middle of America, get right to the heart of matters, it's the heart that matters more. I think you'd better turn your ticket in, get your money back at the door." Omaha Counting Crows

Friday, March 21, 2008

Progress

Today I am feeling slightly less pessimistic and vindictive than I have been recently. I think that I have been typing a lot more with my emotions here lately than with any kind of objective eye. Not to say that it isn't within my right to do that (it's my damn blog after all!), but I think it has definitely made me more on the vague side when it comes to describing the actual events. This is one of the many reasons that I resisted writing for so long - I wasn't sure I should air my dirty laundry and if I did I wasn't sure I would do it in any satisfying way. But I think it is helping to share and it is helping to gain a little perspective, because obviously this is not the end of the world.

Yes, Prince Charming does now have a job. He actually has two, and between the two he is working somewhere in the neighborhood of full-time. Even though I doubted it in many of the darkest times, PC did not intend to live off of me forever. But he did take advantage to a certain point and he did handle the situation very poorly in Montana. I struggle so much with the debate of whether to try to prove myself rational by vilifying PC or whether to just drop it because at this point, things do seem like they have started to change (albeit, slowly) and they are on the way to a place where I can judge the situation from a more objective standpoint.

The bottom line is this: I'm still not happy, but I'm no longer catastrophically upset every other day. I think that things may continue to improve, but I'm still having a hard time feeling normal and feeling the same affection and desire for him that I did before. There were enough white lies told while he was upset and apathetic in Montana that I still have a hard time trusting everything that he says. And I know that is a red flag and I've told him this. I've told him everything so many times. Part of my frustration that I didn't feel like I was being heard, but after another terrible fight last weekend, I think I may finally feel that. So it's been helping...

I want to thank everyone for reading and offering such compassion. Whether things work out or not, and whether you think I'm nuts or not, it's nice to have an ear or two.

Lyrics of the Day

"We trade tit for tat, yeah that for this, and I don't think that there was an insult that was missed. I can see it in your eyes like I taste your lips and I'm very sorry." Little Motel Modest Mouse

Friday, March 14, 2008

Resentment

So maybe now I am asking for advice. Maybe I do need some help, if I am to truly make a decision that is more than reactionary.

Can resentment be overcome?

Having been shouldering the financial burden of the relationship for so long (and anyone who knows me knows that I am more than slightly uptight when it comes to money), I can hardly feel anything besides resentment when I look at PC now. I just see how hard things are for me (however selfish that viewpoint is), and how long it's going to be before I can dig myself out and all of the other places that I had intended for all this money to go. Paying off student loans. Paying off my car. Saving for a house. Now I'm just paying off credit card debt.

It's partially my fault that it came to this. I allowed it to happen. It started small, but it grew and gained momentum until it was no longer under my control. But he allowed it to happen too. And he has delayed and made promises and never followed through.

I don't know where to blame him and where to blame myself anymore. But here's the really difficult truth: I do not like who I am with him. I have become someone that I barely recognize, and I'm that person far too often now.

Lyrics of the Day

"Still to come, the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it's growing." The Shins A Comet Appears

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Owning Up

I have never been very good at expressing my feelings. I have always jokingly referred to myself as a man or a guy, because there are ways in which I am not the typical girl. But I didn't realize how much that would affect a relationship, or what it would do to the dynamics of a relationship that I would choose.

I may not be the most traditional of girls, but I never meant to find myself completely out of my traditional gender role. I hoped for a relationship on equal footing - for shared feelings and chores and responsibilities. But somehow, I have found myself in a relationship in which I have come to feel like I shoulder all of it.

Somewhere along the way, things that I thought to be temporary snowballed out of control and became a weight that I can no longer lift. I became responsible for being responsible in every situation that PC and I have been in and are in and I wasn't built to live like this.

PC and I got stuck in Montana, where we went for the supposed few weeks that I was taking off from work. A job that I thought was secured fell through and we ended up unemployed and trapped in my parents' basement for nearly two full months. During that time, we had only my savings to live on - the savings that I had accrued with the assumption that I would be unemployed for no longer than 4 weeks. Things devolved. I got depressed (I'm not one to have much self-worth when I'm not being useful) and PC got frustrated and rebellious and apathetic. We fought so much - I'm almost embarrassed to look my parents in the eye again. Night after night, the day's pretenses would fail and everything would break down.

Now, after securing a job (actually, the same job that I was supposed to have taken the first time, but that's a long story and not an important one), I thought that things would have gotten better. We have been in Columbus, Ohio for nearly 4 weeks now. And things only seem to be getting worse for me.

PC has apologized for actions of his that were hurtful and immature. (To assuage any fears: he did not hit me and he did not cheat on me. Both are deal-breakers of the permanent variety.) He has sworn up and down that things are different and that there's nowhere to go but up. But somehow, my mood goes nowhere but down. I can't look at him the same way anymore. Instead of seeing him as this attractive man with whom I have a definite future, I see him as a constant source of stress and uncertainty and I can't see past tomorrow, much less predict if we can make it work in the long run.

It's killing me. I don't think that there is any advice to be given, any words of wisdom that could possibly help. He has asked for two months to try to dig out of the financial mess that I have ended up in and to see what things could be like without my supporting him or the accrued debt hanging between us. I can't really see myself shutting the door completely at this point, so it seems that a little waiting-it-out is really my only option. But many days (like today) things seem worse for me than better, and his constant attempts at optimism just make me want to slam the bathroom door in his face, lock it and never come out.

Lyrics of the Day

"There's no talk of future plans, there's no romance, there's no good reason we should be in love - so I've been making shit up." The Good Life Playing Dumb

Monday, March 10, 2008

Venting?

I've never really done this before.

My only "true" previous relationship (with the Speed Freak) was filled with strife and pain and was bad and tumultuous a much greater percent of the time than it was good or even tolerable. So even though I ended up enduring about a year of that personally-created-hell, it wasn't actually a year-long relationship.

I've been with Prince Charming for 11 months now. It was 11 months on Saturday, actually. And I'm realizing more and more that most of the last 6 months or so have been far from perfect. My quandary is whether the good is worth all of the bad. Whether much of the bad has been situational (I dare anyone to have a perfect long-distance relationship), or whether there truly are ways in which PC and I are not ideally suited for each other.

I'm afraid to fully delve into it. I haven't been honest with the people closest to me in my life, and I'm not sure I can be honest here. It's not horrifying. There's no abuse and there's no cheating. It's not what many people I've met would consider a Bad Relationship. I'm sure that millions of women have lived through and with so much more, that sometimes I feel self-indulgent for being upset by things that have happened. And yet, at the same time, I'm ashamed of the things that I've allowed to happen and things that I've done. And all of this builds into a wall that I hide behind.

I know that I'm being vague. I know that I'm speaking in metaphors and hyperbole and that it must be more than frustrating to read. But today is an okay day. It's not the complete break-down kind of day that I had on Friday night after a conversation with The Mother and it's not the forget-about-the-complications-and-watch-South-Park kind of day that I had with PC yesterday. It's a middle-of-the-road day. But the turmoil in my brain refuses to quiet itself and I wanted to vent here. Unfortunately, my venting is half-assed.

I'll try to work on that.

Lyrics of the Day

"It’s been hard, we’ve both got our histories that haunt these homes - but I ain’t bathing in our misery. So pour me a drink and don’t pour it too weak and grab it from the top shelf. I ain’t asking for redemption and this ain’t no cry for help." The Good Life On the Picket Fence

Out of the Darkness

My life (love-related and otherwise) hit some pretty significant bumps in the road over the holiday season... hence the lack of communication in this-here forum. I never seemed to have trouble airing my dirty laundry when I was single; now that I'm not, well, it just seems a hundred times harder to talk about. I've been in pretty dark places for the last few months (just ask any of my friends who thought I was dead when I refused to communicate during the months of January and February) and I'm just now starting to find my way out.

What does this mean for me and Prince Charming?

Well, it depends on when you ask me. If you had asked me on Friday night, or any time at all on Saturday, I would have predicted catastrophe and heartache.

You ask me today: eh... not so much.

I've been contemplating writing for weeks now with no idea how to do it. I'm still not sure, but I thought I'd at least open up the door to my brain and see what would come crawling onto the screen if I allowed it. And I'm not surprised to find that all that comes out is the same vague uncertainty that I've felt living in there for what seems like so long now.

Lyrics of the Day

"Your head will collapse if there's nothing in it and you'll ask yourself: Where is my mind?" The Pixies Where is My Mind?